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

Copenhagen Day 3 aka Malmö

For our 3rd Day in Copenhagen, we'd decided to head over to Malmö in Sweden as it was just over the Øresund Bridge.
The night before we'd asked at the ticket office in the train station and found out that trains ran pretty regular and we could get a double return ticket for 260DKK (approx £30)as long as we travelled together.
The train from Copenhagen H or Central Station was the same train that goes to the airport, it took about 40 minutes to get to Malmö - there wasn't much of a view, it was quite foggy then we went into a tunnel. When we arrived in Malmo, there were no passport checks, we just walked out into the brisk cold air of Sweden! Apparently it's one of the few border crossings where you can get away with showing only a credit card for ID.

We didn't have much of a plan for Malmö, we'd read that Lilla Torg was the square where everyone hangs out drinking coffee, but that must be reserved for the Summer months


We'd also decided to check out the Castle/Museum (Malmöhus), to get there we walked through a Cemetery which seemed to be in the middle of the town, across to a 'Kingspark' to Malmöhus. As we approached we could see the infamous Turning Torso shrouded in fog


The entrance fee was around £5/6 and as we found out included entry into all the museums in the immediate area (7 in total)- which included Malmo Museum & Castle, the Technology & Maritime Museum, a Photography Gallery - Although how you would manage to see everything in one day is beyond me! We spent a good 3 hours plus in the Castle/Museum alone.
When we arrived we were greeted with this sign,


which confused us for about a minute as we hadn't realised there were exhibitions about Apartheid, Nelson Mandela as well as the Scandinavian migration to South Africa.

In addition to these special exhibitions, there were also modern art galleries with prints, paintings etc and the castle itself which documents the history of Malmo and it's tumultuous affair with Denmark, whilst downstairs there is an exhibition of stuffed animals native to Sweden along with actual live nocturnal animals.


For lunch we ate at the Museum Cafe, this was fantastic seeing as Sweden is renowned for being expensive and a McDonald's meal was going to cost around £6 each. The main meals cost approx £7 each, I had breaded plaice with new potatoes and Danish sauce whilst he had something that looked like a giant toad in the whole but with bacon instead of sausages, included in the price was help yourself salad bar/bread, drinks from the dispensers (not bottled/canned) and tea/coffee, complete bargain!

After a hearty but much needed lunch we saw a bit more of the exhibits mentioned above then set off to investigate the other places, including the fisherman's wharf (which seemed to be closed, although to be fair, it was freezing and very quiet), a very non de-script building that had some sort of exhibition about recycling/climate change then upstairs had two contemporary photography exhibitions. The only shame about the photography gallery was that the booklets with the language translations were found at the end of the exhibition rather than at the beginning.
Onwards to the Technology & Maritime Museum, which reminded me of Manchester's Science & Industry Museum, except smaller and warmer feeling. Considering we don't speak Swedish or Danish we did ok at working out what was going on most of the time, as it seems that the further away from the Main Castle we got, the fewer the translations (and unlike London, you weren't being offered those audio guides at every turn either). In fact in some areas there were non at all, leaving you to guess that maybe the Swedes just really like motorbikes, or the wheel in general. The highlight of this museum for me was the submarine, which you could climb inside, I saw climb because you couldn't walk through it, it was tiny! Well I guess it would be bigger if you took out all the controls etc, but then it wouldn't be as much fun.



Along side the sub, there were cars, planes, bikes, motorbikes, scooters and I seem to recall a horse & carriage.
Not to mention a Viking ship.



After this we decided to head back to Denmark and made our slow walk back to the station, via an Irish pub where we had a much needed Tuborg to keep us going.

Copenhagen Day 1

This was the second of our 'City Break on a Budget' where we aim to pay £300 or less for travel & accommodation. We opted for Copenhagen as we've both fancied Scandinavia for a while and we'd heard how quick & easy it is to get to Malmo - 2 cities in one break - bonus!
We had a really early start for this trip, arriving at the airport for just after 5am. It was our first time flying with Easyjet so we weren't sure what to expect, we'd checked in online about 8 weeks in advance as the website led us to believe that people were allocated seats the order of check in which we soon found out was misleading. There are 2 groupings - those who've paid to get on the plane first and everyone else, regardless of how soon you checked in. We'd also printed our own boarding cards, expected that as with other airlines we'd just check in our bag and that would be it, but no the happy chappy tore up our boarding cards and reprinted identical ones, whilst trying to sell us the 'guaranteed' seats together (on the return journey, we used our printed boarding cards and just found the bag drop, no hard sell).
After a fairly speedy passage through security we had breakfast, followed by an on time flight and smooth journey. Landing at Copenhagen is slightly strange, as you get off the plane in the same area the folks are waiting to get on the plane to go back to the UK, then you walk through the duty free area to passport control! All very strange (we didn't bother with any duty free as it was more expensive than the UK).
After managing to buy train tickets to Copenhagen H (or Copenhagen Central), we hopped on the train for the swift 15 minute journey, upon arriving at the station, our hotel was literally 30 seconds away.
We stayed at Hotel Nebo Run by a Christian Mission, we opted for an 'economy room' which is what you see - no ensuite as the toilet/bath/shower rooms are around the corner. We also had a desk and TV with several english speaking channels (with plenty of decent TV if you choose to spend an evening in doors). The reception area of the hotel has free internet, tv screens with live teletext airport departures, snack/drink machines and a whole stand of tourist information, including pocket sized cards that also give you discounts on many attractions. We picked up one for the Canal Tours and headed out towards Gammel Strand (ok so we got a bit lost on the way there...)

Gammel Strand
We were a bit early for the last tour of the day, so wandered around taking photos and found a great little souvenir shop behind the horse man statue.
The tours run all year round, although in Winter as when we visited, there was just the red and yellow lines, the boats in Winter have an indoor section with glass roof and is heated and was much needed at times.
The canal tours are a relaxing & easy way to see a lot of the sights without lots of walking, they last approx one hour and take in sights such as Nyhaven with it's colourful fishermen's houses
The Royal Danish Library with it's new extension nicknamed the Black Diamond due to the way it sparkles in the sun
The infamous little mermaid who is currently on display the other side of the world

As well as Christiansborg palace , Christianshavn , the Opera House to name but a few. We were very lucky weather wise, as not only was it gloriously sunny (albeit freezing cold), the last canal tour of the day was during the so called Golden Hour which meant we got to enjoy a lovely winter sunset from the boat

Sunset over CopenhagenAfter the tour, frozen but happy we wandered around for a bit more sightseeing, then headed back to the hotel. Being on a budget, we stopped at the 7/11 store two doors down from our hotel for our tea. Amongst the broad array of hot food & drink they served the traditional Danish style hotdog - different to ours in that they are served in quite a crispy toasted bread roll (almost French baguette style)which is hollowed out, the sauce/mustard etc is then squirted inside and your sausage is squished down inside it, very tasty I might add. The shop also appeared to have a Domino's Pizza franchise inside it, selling pizza, calzone and other dough/pastry based dishes - they even did room service to the hotel!

Outdoor Ice Skating

Yesterday we took Charlie ice skating to the outdoor temporary rink, situated outside Swinton Town Hall. Skating In Salford is apparently twice the size of last year's white elephant, which means last years was pretty tiny. we paid £6 for adults and £4 for the child booked online through Quay Tickets (no booking fee either which was a bonus), which includes skate hire - despite what is advertised on the council website, the sessions were an hour each, not 45 mins, although if you spend as long as we did putting the skates on you could easily lose 15 minutes. There is a small snack bar type places serving hot drinks etc..

It's been a good 14 years before I was last on ice skates, so it took a bit of getting used to, especially with the fabulously uncomfortable plastic hire skates which left my foot arches in agony. But a fun time was had by all, Charlie managed to not fall over at all (compared to the 8 times on a previous trip with school a few days earlier). There were staff on hand at all times to keep the kids/teenagers in check, which they handled very well in between picking people up off the ice.

We chose to go at 5pm just as it was getting dark and the area looked very festive with all the lights from the town hall, there are also several firs surrounding the rink with lights.
I have to say it feels very weird to be skating outdoors in the town centre with the buses pulling up every five minutes at the side, but it was a very enjoyable evening out.