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With the enthusiasm of a termite faced with a fresh piece of rotting timber, a chum and I grabbed the option of a cheap flight and lodgings in Prague once more - three months after the last visit.
It's worth noting that even I was referring to our travel as beginning at stupid o'clock. I'm no stranger to early mornings, but I'm old. We got to the airport a little later than intended and tried to find our way through security and so forth before Easyjet (infamous for denying flights to late arrivals) cut us off. Cue a Keystone Cops scene of me with my belt around my neck and boot laces being trodden on by myself and others flouncing through the airport. Landed, taxi, hit the bed in the hotel with reckless abandon. We'd arrived.
So, what did we see? After doing a bit of an Indiana Jones on the subway (diving through a closing door, but without grabbing a hat), we met up once more with Eireann and dined in the Coloseum restaurant at the bottom end of Vaclav square, from where we could see a couple of people who had rejected society attempting to extort coins by dancing badly at passers-by. Quite horrifying, but entertaining in a train-wreck manner.
Massage ensued. We'd been advised by Eireann of a particularly good Thai massage place near the old town square last time and liked it, so we went again. Ninety minutes of a gloriously rubbed and oiled Rapscallion was perpetrated. Yes, that's a bad mental image for you all. Just be glad you weren't one of the therapists.
One of the more notable events was getting to see a different black light theatre's production - this was the Wow production (http://www.wow-show.com/en/). This was hilariously good fun. Very, very spiders. Oh yes.
The Russian tour group freaked the hell out.
On the way in to the theatre, though, we noted a woman smoking while pregnant, something that doctors generally regard as a bad thing. We walked through her smoke a few seconds later, only to detect a distinctive sweet smell. I suspect the resultant child will be called Mary or Jane. Maybe both.
So, what then? Day two saw us meeting up at the train station at the ungodly hour of nine am (I didn't mind this so much, actually, but getting Cab out of bed for this isn't a favourite hobby of mine - he had a city to explore, so he prefered unconsciousness...). Anyway, a couple hours later or so we ended up at Krivoklat Castle after heading out on the train. Meltwater from the snow on the hills made the journey somewhat more dramatic, since the train follows the (swollen) main river fairly closely.
Krivoklat itself is quite the sight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%99ivokl%C3%A1t_Castle for details, but while the official site says it's open this time of year, you can wander around the central area and no more. A souvenir shop was open, but that was it, and we rather regretted the torture exhibit being closed. We're not sick. We're specialists. As it was, the snow had been packed down to compacted ice type stuff and it was lethal in parts. They weren't allowed to salt the place as it's a heritage site, but they had a few sprinklings of gravel here or there. I got some good shots, though, and a couple of fridge magnets. Would be a great place to visit in summer.
I'll have a few photos up on Facebook when I get around to it. Reginald Arbuthnot Peregrine Scallion for those not on my list.
Back to the city for some noms and eventually we retired to the hotel for some rest. Cab was fading fast. This sort of set the scene for the day after when we didn't leave the hotel room until approximately noon. Cab and I breakfasted at the Hard Rock Cafe in the city at approximately 1pm or so. Impressively decorated, but with it being outside of main tourist season we were rather well attended. We'd tried the one in Barcelona and decided to give this one a go as a second chance sort of thing. The grease content in their burgers was pretty high at Barcelona, and it looks to be chainwide, as it dripped out of Cab's burger. I was on a pulled pork sandwich, and while it was better, it was somewhat fatty and also massive. Loads of sugar in the sauce, I suspect. I ended up having just one meal that day. I was stuffed full even towards the end of the day. Even we, in our holiday mood, were horrified by the prices in the store there. Some places trade on their names, rather than the quality of their food or goods.
We met up with Eireann again and mooched around various tea bars. Had something called White Monkey, a tea I'd never heard of before and only selected because of the vaguely amusing name. Need more. Really need more. Had a sort of creamy taste to it. Looked at price on Amazon upon return and blinked. Might be worth it. The place I had that featured belly dancers every so often, but they saw us coming and changed the sign to read that they were only doing this on the weekends. Oh well. They went heavily down the route of Arabian style, with smoke pipes of flavoured smoke available and regrettably loud music.
That's mostly it, barring a rather fun hot stone massage I talked Cab into, which we had before heading off for noms and airport for the way home. The best bit about this was that the insisted on removal of boxers this time. Cab was bashful enough to keep his on, but I reckoned I was (sort of) in Rome, so do as the Romans. This distressed him when he found out about it, and I made sure to reveal this during noms. During the process, my therapist handed me a stone in each hand and forgot about them. This was apparently high humour for them when I sat up towards the end and she realised. Cab was truly horrified later to hear that I'd been completely naked bar a towel next to him. He's a bit phobic like that.
Thai massage is really big business over there. There's a place in Vaclav Square where you can sit in their front window with your feet in a tank of fish that live off the dead skin. Nibble nibble nibble. Perhaps next time. I'd either go into shamefaced mode, or pure exhibitionist, grinning out at people. That's how I roll. Cab doesn't - he's more ticklish there than a very ticklish person.
If you get a chance to visit, do so with one hand guarding your wallet and the other stretched out in friendship. It's worth seeing. Oh yes, there are plenty of hawkers of both genders trying to urge males or groups of males towards 'clubs' or 'cabarets'. They're brothels, and they don't bother much with the 'thinly disguised' part, especially as it's legal there and the police are adept at accepting bribes. Suggest wariness near the upper part of Vaclav Square during the evening and night. Women tend to get approached by men intent on paid jollies, and only mixed groups are reasonably safe. The police are more there to ward off pickpockets.
Last note - I was warned away from the sausages on sale at the various stalls in Vaclav Square on the grounds of quality. This was an affront to my machismo, and thus the sausage was defeated. It was a close-run thing, though, and though I suspect I will never have grandchildren I will have a tale for my dotage. I'll not be repeating the experiment.
Rapscallion
It's worth noting that even I was referring to our travel as beginning at stupid o'clock. I'm no stranger to early mornings, but I'm old. We got to the airport a little later than intended and tried to find our way through security and so forth before Easyjet (infamous for denying flights to late arrivals) cut us off. Cue a Keystone Cops scene of me with my belt around my neck and boot laces being trodden on by myself and others flouncing through the airport. Landed, taxi, hit the bed in the hotel with reckless abandon. We'd arrived.
So, what did we see? After doing a bit of an Indiana Jones on the subway (diving through a closing door, but without grabbing a hat), we met up once more with Eireann and dined in the Coloseum restaurant at the bottom end of Vaclav square, from where we could see a couple of people who had rejected society attempting to extort coins by dancing badly at passers-by. Quite horrifying, but entertaining in a train-wreck manner.
Massage ensued. We'd been advised by Eireann of a particularly good Thai massage place near the old town square last time and liked it, so we went again. Ninety minutes of a gloriously rubbed and oiled Rapscallion was perpetrated. Yes, that's a bad mental image for you all. Just be glad you weren't one of the therapists.
One of the more notable events was getting to see a different black light theatre's production - this was the Wow production (http://www.wow-show.com/en/). This was hilariously good fun. Very, very spiders. Oh yes.
The Russian tour group freaked the hell out.
On the way in to the theatre, though, we noted a woman smoking while pregnant, something that doctors generally regard as a bad thing. We walked through her smoke a few seconds later, only to detect a distinctive sweet smell. I suspect the resultant child will be called Mary or Jane. Maybe both.
So, what then? Day two saw us meeting up at the train station at the ungodly hour of nine am (I didn't mind this so much, actually, but getting Cab out of bed for this isn't a favourite hobby of mine - he had a city to explore, so he prefered unconsciousness...). Anyway, a couple hours later or so we ended up at Krivoklat Castle after heading out on the train. Meltwater from the snow on the hills made the journey somewhat more dramatic, since the train follows the (swollen) main river fairly closely.
Krivoklat itself is quite the sight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%99ivokl%C3%A1t_Castle for details, but while the official site says it's open this time of year, you can wander around the central area and no more. A souvenir shop was open, but that was it, and we rather regretted the torture exhibit being closed. We're not sick. We're specialists. As it was, the snow had been packed down to compacted ice type stuff and it was lethal in parts. They weren't allowed to salt the place as it's a heritage site, but they had a few sprinklings of gravel here or there. I got some good shots, though, and a couple of fridge magnets. Would be a great place to visit in summer.
I'll have a few photos up on Facebook when I get around to it. Reginald Arbuthnot Peregrine Scallion for those not on my list.
Back to the city for some noms and eventually we retired to the hotel for some rest. Cab was fading fast. This sort of set the scene for the day after when we didn't leave the hotel room until approximately noon. Cab and I breakfasted at the Hard Rock Cafe in the city at approximately 1pm or so. Impressively decorated, but with it being outside of main tourist season we were rather well attended. We'd tried the one in Barcelona and decided to give this one a go as a second chance sort of thing. The grease content in their burgers was pretty high at Barcelona, and it looks to be chainwide, as it dripped out of Cab's burger. I was on a pulled pork sandwich, and while it was better, it was somewhat fatty and also massive. Loads of sugar in the sauce, I suspect. I ended up having just one meal that day. I was stuffed full even towards the end of the day. Even we, in our holiday mood, were horrified by the prices in the store there. Some places trade on their names, rather than the quality of their food or goods.
We met up with Eireann again and mooched around various tea bars. Had something called White Monkey, a tea I'd never heard of before and only selected because of the vaguely amusing name. Need more. Really need more. Had a sort of creamy taste to it. Looked at price on Amazon upon return and blinked. Might be worth it. The place I had that featured belly dancers every so often, but they saw us coming and changed the sign to read that they were only doing this on the weekends. Oh well. They went heavily down the route of Arabian style, with smoke pipes of flavoured smoke available and regrettably loud music.
That's mostly it, barring a rather fun hot stone massage I talked Cab into, which we had before heading off for noms and airport for the way home. The best bit about this was that the insisted on removal of boxers this time. Cab was bashful enough to keep his on, but I reckoned I was (sort of) in Rome, so do as the Romans. This distressed him when he found out about it, and I made sure to reveal this during noms. During the process, my therapist handed me a stone in each hand and forgot about them. This was apparently high humour for them when I sat up towards the end and she realised. Cab was truly horrified later to hear that I'd been completely naked bar a towel next to him. He's a bit phobic like that.
Thai massage is really big business over there. There's a place in Vaclav Square where you can sit in their front window with your feet in a tank of fish that live off the dead skin. Nibble nibble nibble. Perhaps next time. I'd either go into shamefaced mode, or pure exhibitionist, grinning out at people. That's how I roll. Cab doesn't - he's more ticklish there than a very ticklish person.
If you get a chance to visit, do so with one hand guarding your wallet and the other stretched out in friendship. It's worth seeing. Oh yes, there are plenty of hawkers of both genders trying to urge males or groups of males towards 'clubs' or 'cabarets'. They're brothels, and they don't bother much with the 'thinly disguised' part, especially as it's legal there and the police are adept at accepting bribes. Suggest wariness near the upper part of Vaclav Square during the evening and night. Women tend to get approached by men intent on paid jollies, and only mixed groups are reasonably safe. The police are more there to ward off pickpockets.
Last note - I was warned away from the sausages on sale at the various stalls in Vaclav Square on the grounds of quality. This was an affront to my machismo, and thus the sausage was defeated. It was a close-run thing, though, and though I suspect I will never have grandchildren I will have a tale for my dotage. I'll not be repeating the experiment.
Rapscallion
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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