So we found a good pub to watch the game. We’re in a Chelsea friendly neighbourhoud near Paddington station in a pub called ‘Fountains Abbey’. The place is packed. I think I’m going for Liverpool though. A team that wants to buy a championship doesn’t get my support. But I hope van der Sar can win another Champions League with Man U.
I’m enjoying my luke warm beer, popred with a hand cranck tab. But I’m enjoying it double because it happens to be the beer that was the project name for our UK website we launched last summer.
Game on!
We’re back in London, in a hotel about half a block from where we were a month ago. The trees in the park are now covered with leaves. It feels like coming home…
We’ll be in London for one day. Tomorrow we’re flying back to Vancouver. Our last days in Prague were pretty cool. We went to a concert and yesterday we watched Man U play Milan in an Irish pub full of Brits and the occasional Italian. Great game as well.
The plan for tonight was to go see a show. but we’ve changed that plan. Chelsea is playing Liverpool for the other semi in the Champions League, so we’re going to find a pub and watch the game instead. You have to have priorities in life.
We started to look at the Medevil Clock, to see the show on top of the hour
Then we went on our way to Charles Bridge.
We crossed the romantic Charles Bridge and stopped to look at the statues
We couldn’t figure out where the road to the castle was at first.
The city view from the castle was very nice.
We joined the line-up to enter the cathedral.
The gates to the first courtyard. The courtyard is designed by Jože Plečnik (yes, the same guy from Ljubljana)
By the end of the day, we were fully used to the situation.
So Sheri read my previous posting and wanted me to nuance my rant a bit because during this trip, it’s her blog too. I’m not really known for my nuancing skills but here we go. Prague is a beautiful city and it’s worth a visit. But please be advised of the situation you will encounter. Large number of tourists, traveling in groups through all the main sites. Souvenir shops everywhere. People trying to sell you stuff in the streets. But if you venture off into the side streets where there’s amazing architecture, you’re going to have a great time. Especially the Art Nouveaux is everywhere and beautiful.
Remember when people said “Go to Prague before it get’s too commercial and run over by tourists”? Well, change that to “Don’t go to Prague, it’s run over by tourists”. Prague is big and beautiful, but not big enough for the volume of tourists that go through the “top sights”. It’s only April, I can’t imagine what happends when it’s summer.
We’re still having fun, it’s just a bit tough sometimes go move through hundreds of people following flags, raised books, antenna’s with stuffed animals, cloaths, ribbons, fake flowers and more. The tour guides are miked up and have a little speaker hanging on their stomach. It’s a zoo of different languages, all screaming through each other. Every store is converted into a souvenir shop with tacky tourist souvenirs.
We’re starting to make fun of the whole situation. And we’re using our “Venice Strategy”. Visit a main sight we want to see and venture off into the little streets to get some space and authenticity. So we ended up in a beer hall where everybody was smoking (guarentees us that no North American tourist will visit there) and there was a whole procedure about how to order beer, all done through the placemant of beer coasters (that eliminated all other tourists). And the price of a beer was 10 percent of what it costs on “old town square”.
Prague is beautiful, but if you’re planning a visit to Eastern Europe, also consider some of the other destinations a little less touristy so you can get a feel for the local culture.
And pictures will follow, I forgot my adaptor.
We’ve been in Krakow for a couple of days now. It’s a nice town and the people are very friendly, in an Adam kind of way. The old town has a huge market square, buzzing with activity. We sat there in the sun for a long time yesterday. We also walked around the old town. It has a lot of interesting buildings, dating back hundreds of years. Pope Jean-Paul II came from this area and was Arch Bishop here and we checked out his church. A very nice building with beautiful decorations.
Another train ride.
Sheri on Market square.
The Jewish district is reviving as a tourist district. There are only 200 Jewish people living here now. Before World War two, the population was over 60,000 This is the old synagogue.
Budapest consist of two parts. Buda and Pest. The Danube devides the two parts. The castle in the background is on the Buda side. The chain bridge in the background is the first (real) bridge and was build about 100 years ago (if I remember correctly). The pretty girl in front is Sheri.
A “view” from the other side. The building in the background are the parlement buildings. Too bad of that big head blocking the rest of the view.
Apparently, this is me all day. Sheri claims that I don’t see anything because I’m reading in my guidebooks all day long. WRONG! I also look things up on my Blackberry.
I already miss the architecture in Budapest. And the courtyards. This is just a courtyard we found by walking into one of the enterances. No mention in any of my books.
Communist public art has almost completely disappeared from Budapest. But somebody was thinking ahead when they decided to collect most pieces and put them on display in a special park. I love social realism myself, I couldn’t get enough. The pieces were so over the top, with this one as a favourite.
Also in statue park. Stalins boots are all that’s left of this huge statue. It wasn’t the fall of communism in the early 90s that toppled him, it was the 1956 uprising. They never bothered to replace the statue but the parade balcony was still used.
Yes, it is possible to fall in love with a building. The Elephant House is the Zoo. I couldn’t get enough of it.
The dome inside the Elephant House. Look at the decorative art. The gold is the chandaleer, also with little elephants. I’m tempted to paint my ceiling like this at home when Sheri’s away for a few days.
One of the enterances into the Elephant House.
No, I’m not always looking in my guidebooks. The rest of the time I’m writing in my journal.
The Széchényi Spa where we spent our last afternoon is more like a giant palace. Picture is taken from the tower of the Elephant House by the way…