Well this time we made it to Prague, delayed by a day and another hour or so, but we made it. We made our way from the airport to the city by public transport - an excellent infrastructure they have too and in the process spent only 30 crown, about 1 US Dollar, which I'm sure you'll agree is a better deal than the advertized route which is a shared minibus at 365 crowns per person. Being the good types that we are, we also helped another bloke save dozens of beer tokens by taking this route to reunite with his mates; from whom he'd become separated the previous day as his passport was invalid. A Homer Simpson-esque "Doh!" is appropriate here.
On arrival at the hostel (a very pleasant place too; if you want a central Prague location, at an excellent rate, with a private bedroom, but communal bathroom you should consider www.hotelimperial.cz but do yourself a favour when there; don't dine at the hotel cafe, the waiter who looks like Ewan McGregor is a thief... "service charge" my arse!) we did the decent thing and supped our first Czech beer, which, as expected, was spot on.
The next morning dawned early, why is it that whenever you sample the local brew, especially when it costs buttons, the next morning always arrives so quickly??? Anyway, we set out to explore Prague. The city is clearly of the imperial Hapsburg style and thus very reminiscent of Vienna. Only with cheaper beer and fewer pastries (though it does seem that Jammy doughnuts along with meat and cabbage form the staple diet here) The majestic castle which sits atop a hill over looking the city and protected by the wide, and no doubt, very cold River Vltata is quite wonderful looking. Well when it can been seen through the fog and snow that is.
The dining experience was, supposedly, "classical Bohemian cuisine" This means: beer, pickled cabbage and meat. Lots of all three. God only knows what Miss Flatulence 2003 (see the previous entry for January 9th, 2004) was like on the plane home! In the evening we, predictably, found a snug little bar and enjoyed a few beers. How perfect a coming together is it when you get great beer at a cost of about a buck a liter???
The next day we took a trip to Kuna Hora, a small Czech town about an hour or so train ride from Prague. What drew us there was the amazing ossuary. A bewildering, perhaps even slightly macabre, chapel which is oddly, though exquisitely, decorated in a form of "body art" that tattoo aficionados can only dream of. This place is decorated using the mortal remains of some 40,000 souls! It is really odd that's for sure, but not in anyway disturbing. Sure, it's probably the largest pile of visible human remains this side of Pol Pot's "killing fields" but it was all done in a rather tasteful way. I'll grant you that the whitewashed bones of most of these people are about as close as I ever wish to get to thousands of Bubonic Plague victims, but the centre piece, a giant chandelier, was extraordinary and I'm sure genuinely unique (at least I hope it is unique as I'd be deeply concerned if someone had one in their private art collection)
In may respects the place isn't even somber, though it's no carnival either, but it perhaps shows a greater acceptance of the certainty of a finite life and that, post mortem, the body isn't really worth all that much to the deceased, than many in the modern world can comfortably accept. Besides, how many of the unfortunate victims of the great plague, or those who died in the Hussite Wars ever expected to become an art piece?
In the evening we returned to Prague, where as it was the weekend, hundreds of Brits had arrived and were on the session. I can assure all and sundry that a choir of lashed up lads at 4:30 in the morning "singing" a medley of John Denver classics, does not, great listening make!
Still, I suppose a beery "tune" or eighty two is as fitting as anything to signal the end of our time in Prague.
