Prague Day 5

Mystik Cup
Our final day in Prague was to be pretty chilled, we didn't have to leave for the airport until 7pm, so we started with a gentle stroll back towards the river and and The National Theatre, where we saw a woman sat outside, alone in full period costume.
We then headed back towards the Old Town Square as it seems perfect for eating our lunch, on the way there we passed a Bride just entering what I assume is a Church.


The incredibly futuristic looking train station at Staroměstská
We then took a train to our destination for the afternoon which was actually on Stvanice Island. Mystic Skate Park is host the Mystic Sk8 Cup, an annual skateboard competition. My friend Jen had already recommened we go there just for place to hang out with cheap beer, but once we arrived in Prague we saw posters advertising the comp, we couldn't not go!
It turned out we were only staying a 5 minute walk from the skate shop and enquired about tickets, but we couldn't buy a day ticket in advance so it was a case of turning up and hoping for the best, fortunatly it was only qualifiers on the Friday (people who have never skated in a World Cup Skate event, or didn't have enough points), so there were no names I recognised apart from out of the women's group Evelien Bouilliart who I'd met and seen skate previously at the UK's Girls Skate Jam back in 2007.



It was really hot (like everyday had been in Prague) despite being 'undercover' as the sun ended up pounding on our backs and we didn't manage to make it to the indoor bowl & miniramp. There was also quite a few stalls from local shops selling the usual skate merchandise as well as a very nice food area, which unlike most British skate comps wasn't filled with burgers/chips/hotdogs etc we had a really nice spicy chicken & salad wrapped in a tortilla for a couple of quid, coupled with the beer which was less than £2 50cl, really nothing to complain about! The only odd part to the day is that they were still erecting the scaffolding that made the 'bleachers' so as the day went on, seats higher and higher up became available (not that I could stomach going up that high and I'd already dropped my sunglasses underneath once).


All in all we had a fantastic chilled day, I myself don't skate any more and can't 'name tricks' but it was still great to watch everyone.
We left about half past four to get back towards the hotel, we went for one last dinner at Jiný Stav a great restaurant selling Czech food that we found simply walking from the hotel to the metro station, then wandering around the block. Although not all the staff speak amazing English they speak enough to communicate the order and more importantly they have English menus so you can at least point.

We ate here 3 evenings out of the 5 we were there, which just shows how nice it was. The menu did keep us amused, Ant order the 'Pork Medallions from Italian Guy - no idea who he was, but it was great! Also the beer Kozel was less than £1 for 50cl and again, very tasty.
So after filling our chops here, we departed back to Miss Sophie's to await our taxi back to the airport and home.

Prague Day 4

Prague Zoo
After spending the first 3 days almost non stop sightseeing, we opted for something more relaxing on day 4 of our trip - Prague Zoo was described as Prague's hidden gem, but seeing as there was a road sign almost outside our hotel we decided it couldn't be that hidden.
How wrong were we?!
The lovely reception guy at Miss Sophie's told us if we got to Nádraží Holešovice that there was a nice relaxing walk through Letna Park that would take 40 minutes or 20 mins brisk walk.
It took almost an hour of brisk walking after having to double back around the expo grounds next to the Tesla arena, however it was worth an exploration with it's fantastic Art Deco buildings



So after a prolonged walk across the park, across the river to Troja and then the Zoo sign posts vanishing, we managed to see a group of school kids and decided to follow, luckily this lead us to the Zoo rather than making us seem creepy.
So we paid the approx £5 entry fee for the day (for a mere £18 you can get a yearly pass!) and entered into the most amazing environment and were immediately face with brightly coloured Macaws.
It just wasn't like any zoo I've ever been to, whilst some areas were 'enclosed' by nets (I assume to stop birds flying away) but allowed you to enter via a kissing gate system, some were just open to allow the animals free reign of the zoo/park which is built into a hillside with a variety of surfaces. Everything from rocks for mountain goats to pastures for ponies, and a very real river running through the middle housing the same sort of wildlife you'd see in a British river - mallards, moor hens and kingfishers.
We spent a good 7 hours there and still missed out a huge chunk of the Zoo, but our personal highlights were the Indonesian Jungle area with Fruit Bats & Talapoin monkey




Also when this monkey decided to pee at me


And the lemur area is amazing, they just sit on the fence literally inches away from you and pose, so cute

and finally the chair lift, I wasn't brave enough to take that transports you from the top to bottom of the Zoo or vice versa

I can honestly say this was a mind blowing visit, totally exceeded al expectations in terms of how close you can get to most of the animals, and for big cats and other more dangerous ones, they are behind thick perspex rather than a cage, also for a top tourist attraction the food and drink was very reasonable once again (less than £2 a large beer etc..)
If you go to Prague and don't czech out the Zoo, you're a fool!

Prague Day 3

Kutna Hora

Day 3 of our trip to Prague we went Kutna Hora a small town about an hours train ride from central Prague, which started out as a silver mining town around the 13th Century. Famous for it's Bone Church as well as several other religious buildings which I'll get to in good time, this was one of the main reasons for choosing Prague as our next destination and we'd done a bit of research on Trip Advisor on how to get there.
Trains run frequently from Prague main railway station (which itself is worth a visit with its grand old Art Nouveau booking hall) which is about 5 mins walk from the National Museum and a joint (for 2 persons) return ticket was 262ck (approx £8). Once arriving at our first Church we bought a discounted ticket that got us into 5 attractions for 165ck (approx £5) which was a fair bit cheaper than the organised tour we saw for 700ck (approx £22) which included public transport and only entry to 2 attractions and whilst we didn't have a personalised tour guide, we really didn't need one as there was plenty of (free)information available in English. There was a local taxi service which charged approx £1 each to ferry you from the Bone Church end of town to the main town - the driver provided us with a map and suggested a walking route through the town - we also booked him to collect us at the end of our day and take us back to the train station - perfect!

After arriving at Kutna Hora train station, it was pretty easy to find the route into the town - we just followed everyone else! Past the Philip Morris factory and you come to a crossroads type area in the suburb of Sedlec, to the left is the Cathedral of Our Lady and to the right the Ossuary of Sedlec (afore mentioned Bone Church).

Cathedral of Our Lady (click to view full size)




The Cathedral was first a Bohemian Cistercian Monastery founded in 1142AD and has had a troubled history due to debt & conflict, it is home to breathtaking architecture and detail.

Sedlec Ossuary (click to view full size)




Sedlec Ossuary or The All Saints Cemetery Church is decorated almost entirely of human bones, originally piled in a pyramid by half blind monks in 1511 - the current 'design' was by Frantisek Rint and was created by the remains of approx 40,000 people and you'll be glad to know the bones were disinfected before hand! The Ossuary is a far less creepy or solemn than the Paris Catacombes and even had a little gift shop area at the entrance, where you could purchase afore mentioned taxi tickets.
We then got our taxi to the main town of Kutna Hora, we were dropped outside the impressive Gothic Cathedral of St Barbora.


We sat outside here to eat our packed lunch (hmmm ham & cheese butties) and watch what appeared to be a young sparrow hawk or kestral be harassed by one of the local stall holders, who decided it needed a drink
This cathedral was not dissimilar to the other one, so I wont bore you with the simuilar interior photographs (although the are not any less impressive), however from up here there was an impressive view of the town below
After lunch we embarked on the rough walking tour marked out by our taxi driver, which was cool as it took you past pretty much all the interesting looking architecture and places and also the Czech Medieval Silver Mine museum, which was slightly odd. We had a very strange tour - basically it was timed tours, so we had to leave our bags locked up then rush to join a tour that was about 15 minutes in (although that was fine, I really don't think I could've managed the entire tour), the tour shows the history of silver minining and it's importance to Kutna Hora and takes you into a real mine. Now I'm only 5'4" and I banged my head about 5 times, thank god for the hard hats - at times it was so narrow and the ceiling so low you were almost crouched, not very comfortable ending up down a hill about 300 yards away from the museum. At first we thought our tour guide was uninterested in giving the tour but it turns out it was her first tour in English which was why she was constantly looking at her notes and her intonation wasn't great, but all things considered it was a way to pass 45mins.
The town itself is full of interesting buildings, churches and this stone fountain, currently under renovation.
However we found a much better way in the form of a bar that advertised Staropramen for 28ck (less than a pound) for half a litre - bargain! after a couple we headed to meet our taxi and back to Kutna Hora train station, back to Prague for another meal at Jiny Stav

Prague Day 1

Charles Bridge, Kafka Museum & Prague Castle
We arrived in Prague on the Sunday evening, our flight getting in around 11pm, our taxi driver Ihab from bohemiantaxis was fantastic, recommending the best times for visiting the Charles Bridge (after 10pm or before 10am) to avoid the tourists, as well as a few bars & restaurants to try. Arriving at Miss Sophie's around 30 minutes later we checked into our ultra modern room - but not before the guy on reception gave us a map of Prague and highlighted the places nearby we could get food/room supplies. Miss Sophie's could be filed under the heading 'Boutique Hostel' with its ultra modern & minimalistic design. Whilst there are several dormitory rooms, there are also apartment style rooms (self contained with kitchenette) and en suite rooms - which is what we chose. Our room included a fabulous wet room style shower with an enormous powerful shower head, as well as a fridge - handy for keeping the beer cool. We had full use of the kitchen facilities in the basement along with a lounge area complete with record player (and records!) and DVD's.
Monday morning we took a leisurely stroll towards the Vltava River, which was about 10 minutes away from the hotel. We wandered up towards the Charles Bridge and crossed over it and on to the Kafka museum which was one of the best museums I've visited, as well as objects of Kafka's and his life story, there were also rooms that were built upon his worst nightmares. Outside is another oddity in the form of a moving statue/sculpture of 2 men urinating. Not far away was the Lennon wall, a John Lennon inspired graffiti wall as well as a bridge with hundreds of love padlocks attached – a fast growing declaration of love across many cities.
With the day still young we then opted to climb a very tall tower at the end of the Charles bridge - with amazing views over the city, from here we tacked the steep hill up towards Prague Castle. At the Castle there are some guards with cute pastel blue suits, although they must have been sweating their socks off in the heat! There was also Prague Picture Gallery within the Castle, that thankfully has free entry 4-6pm on Mondays, as it was pretty disappointing and personally didn't think it was worth the £5 entry fee!
Vltava River
Sculpture outside the Kafka Museum
John Lennon Wall
Love Padlocks
View from the tower at Charles Bridge
Guard at Prague Castle

After all this we walked back to our hotel exhausted, we thought we'd check out one of the local micro breweries recommended as somewhere good to eat also. Pivovarský dům was literally 2 minutes away from the hotel and served lots of different beers including coffee and cherry varieties. We had a lovely meal with some great beer, highly recommended, after this we went back to our room for a well earned sleep!

Ting Tings, Manchester Academy 3rd October 2008

Went to see the Ting Tings on Friday at Manchester Academy. We met with friends in Jabez Clegg before hand as it's usually cheaper than the academy one, but for some reason 2 pints cost me over £6, which seems a bit extortionate for a student place, might as well go to Kro next door and get a decent pint for that sort of money. Although we did get given a free drink each from the Jim Beam representative in there, shame the only one of us who likes it was driving that night! But on the up side we're all apparently going to receive an email invitation to a survey about Jim Beam which if we complete we'll receive a £10 Amazon voucher...
Anyway, onto the gig, we walked across the road to the academy around 9pm, and it was still busy with people going in, this was my first time since the academy has been fully refurbished - the last time I was there, the toilets were still portable units outside the building. The first thing I noticed was that they hadn't learnt from the last time - the toilets were back to being the same - over flowing, poor layout/design, and they had put the bar back in the old position meaning that there was a huge bottle neck upon entering the venue, although adding an upstairs bit was a nice surprise I suppose (but their was a massive queue to go up there as well). Despite the new lay out there was still minimal bar space, so getting a drink took a good 15 minutes once we got into the venue, and of course we were paying around £3.50 for a can of beer. I think we pretty much missed the support act Fight Like Apes, as they were finishing as we were queueing for the bar.
The ting tings came on stage around half nine, I can't actually remember the first song they played, just that the crowd went wild jumping, dancing and singing along, which set the tone for the rest of the evening. They played the hit singles: that's not my name, great dj, shut up and dance, along with fruit machine, be the one and a couple more off the album, they also played a couple of songs I didn't recognise, so I don't know whether they are new tracks off the much anticipated second album or not, I hope so. It's great when you can see the band really throwing all their energy into the performance and that's what we got with the ting tings, at times they reminded me of blondie, with katie's 80's punky movement.
The crowd was very eclectic and friendly. really good gig in all, shame their next tour is going to be at the apollo though, as it's one of my least favourite venues and the hiked ticket price is making it a no go.