Prague
The City
I’ve been wanting to go to Prague for years now, so was very glad to pull up to the bus station on 29/05/22. My first impression wasn’t brilliant - I had to walk through a subway to leave the bus station and the smell was an overpowering aroma of piss. But my Prague experience only went up from there. I arrived in the evening, checked into my hostel and joined in with the drinking games and night out planned. The club we ended up in was maybe my favourite ever. It was like a maze, with lots of small rooms and levels and winding corridors. Some of the rooms had live music, others DJs. You got given a card that had your entrance fee money on it to spend inside. You could buy drinks but also pizza, and seeing as I hadn’t had any dinner I made full use of this. Despite the late night, I headed out on a walking tour the next morning along with some others from the hostel. We learnt all about the buildings in the old town, the history of the Czech Republic and about the lives of the jewish population in the jewish quarter. The next day I walked around the sights once more, but this time alone so I could actually take them in. It was even more enjoyable as I now knew all about the buildings I was looking at. Perhaps a walking tour and then a wander around is the way to do it? The streets of Prague are really something, they remind me of the towns in children’s books. The buildings are beautiful, the narrow streets are filled with atmosphere and history, and it’s small enough to amble around comfortably but big enough to get a little lost. Something that I really fell in love with was the soviet style trams. They looked so cool and really added to the overall vibe of the city. I hope they don’t get upgraded anytime soon.
Later I walked up to the castle, enjoying the view over Prague a lot more than the steps up. I bumped into some friends from the hostel at the entrance and we looked around together. It was a bit strange. The actual castle is more of a palace in my opinion, and ‘Prague Castle’ includes a whole square of buildings containing a cathedral, a crypt, a lane of old houses and more. The cathedral had beautiful stained glass windows, but beyond that I was a little underwhelmed. Luckily the tickets were only £4 so perhaps I just had too high expectations.
I spent my last morning in Prague drinking a coffee in the main square and writing some postcards. My quiet reflection was ruined by a loud siren calling out. It turns out it was a siren drill to check the system works. The siren calls out across all of the Czech Republic and is used to alert the population of an invasion or war. The drill happens on the first Wednesday of each month, although it’s been paused for the last few months as to not scare the Ukrainian refugees in the country. It’s been eye-opening realising how much of an impact war has on countries, even if they have been at peace for decades. From Eva’s concern over Ukraine; the general concern and memory in Prague over Ukraine (the Soviet Union had re-asserted it’s occupation in Prague in 1969 after the country made moves towards a more people-friendly communism); the existence of the sirens; and also meeting a guy in the hostel from Crimea who has fled to avoid joining the Russian army. It makes me realise how lucky I am to be born in a war-free country, something I’ve never really considered before.
An interesting interaction
Beyond the lovely people I met at the hostel, I had a few interactions with the locals of Prague. One was quite strange. A man stopped me to ask if I was his friend, apparently I look a lot like her. After I satisfied him that I was not his friend, he stayed and chatted for a while. He wasn’t particularly creepy, and I was stopped to eat my chimney cake on the bridge and didn’t particularly want to move, so I let him. He told me that he once asked his father if he was his biological father, and he had replied “I’m not sure to be honest, there were rumours your mother was sleeping with the sports teacher and we don’t look alike. But I’ve never really minded.”. I’d call it an overshare but it did amuse me whilst I ate my lunch. On the theme of how war touches people generations later, this man lived in Switzerland but spent all of his time in Prague as he loved it. When I asked him why he didn’t just move to Prague, he replied with a fear of war. He grew up in Romania and his grandfather fought in whatever war was raging there, and it clearly left a major impression on him.
Reality
I truly loved Prague, but I don’t feel like I got to see it in the depth I saw Munich. I instead spent a lot of my time exploring with other people rather than alone, going out every night and always being a little hungover/tired the next day. Whilst that was a lot of fun, and the people I met were amazing, you can’t have it all and I feel like I don’t know Prague as much as I would’ve liked to. Perhaps I should’ve spent longer there. Or perhaps I’ll just have to go back.
Brno
My original plan was to only do Prague in the Czech Republic, but on my last day in Switzerland another volunteer came and she lived in Brno. She recommended that I go and visit it, and to text her husband who would be there, to go out for dinner with him and their daughter. It was on the way to Bratislava anyway, so I thought why not. Brno (R and L can make a vowel sound in Czech, hence the weird spelling) was a nice little city. It used to be industrial with a lot of weapon factories (did you know the Czech Republic used to be the 7th largest arms producer in the world?) but these have now moved out of the city. I visited the castle in the evening, enjoying the heavy summer air as I walked through the park up the hill. The castle was lovely, I preferred it to the one in Prague. The dinner with Stanley and his daughter was wonderful, he’s travelled all over the world himself, including climbing mountains in Kazakhstan. I learnt a lot about life in the Czech Republic (such as the stuff about the siren drill) and about the Czechoslovakia division. I explored the old town centre before my bus the next day, and I spent the last of my Czech currency on the most delicious cherries I’ve ever eaten from the vegetable market.
