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 2

Prague Day 2
Wenceslas Square, Petrin Hill & the Old Town Square
Day 2 of our Czech adventure saw us head out in the opposite direction towards the National Museum, as it turns out this was literally 3 minutes walk from our hotel and whilst we weren’t too fussed at what was inside, we took a few photos of the impressive building and it’s view over the infamous Wenceslas Square, which is more of an oblong by the way.
Národní Muzeum
View of Wenceslas Square
I’ll be honest, Wenceslas didn’t really live up to the hype, sure there was really interesting architecture if you looked up, but it was mostly shops/restaurants.. Nothing to do per se. We passed through in under 10 minutes and after a slight hitch with figuring out the tram system (we were told to validate tickets at the station, rather than once on the tram), we were off to Petrin Hill!
Petrin Hill is a fantastic place to have a picnic whilst enjoying the view over Prague, you can either walk up (if you’re mad) or take the funicular railway (I do like saying ‘funicular’ quite a lot) which has two stops; one half way up and one at the top. At the top of the hill are some very pretty gardens, an observatory, a grotto and a mini Eiffel Tower – Petrin Tower which you climb to the top of for even more amazing views over Prague – including a nunnery, which ties in nicely with the 12 Stations of the Cross that surround the tower.
Petřínská Rozhledna
View from Petrin towerThere is also a ‘Labyrinth’ on the hill which unfortunately sounds way more impressive than it is – a simple mirror maze that takes all of 30 seconds to get round, with a final hall of amusing mirrors.. A whole 60 seconds of fun, unless of course you’re a child in which case its money well spent.
We walked part way down the hill to the 2nd station for the funicular railway and then caught a tram on to the very popular Old Town Square – home to amongst other things, the Astronomical Clock, very expensive ‘Irish/English Theme Pubs’ (avoid like the plague unless you enjoy paying £4 for cheap, crap British lager) and the worst ‘Aquarium’ I’ve visited (it was more like some rich dude’s fish tanks – nothing exotic or exciting).
The Old Town Square itself was quite busy as it was the World Cup, so like our home town of Manchester, there was a Hyundai Fan Park which consisted of large screens to show the matches, along with food & drink stalls, the difference in Prague was that A. These were open all day and B. When the football wasn’t on – they had an orchestra playing classical music – all for free! The beer wasn’t overpriced either at 50ck for ½L of Budvar (around £1.80) – in fact the only problem was the lack of somewhere to sit in the shade as it was over 30c most days we were there!
Of course before we left the Old Town, we couldn’t miss the world famous Astronomical Clock (and tower) – every hour on the hour the clock face opens like on the Children’s TV Show Trumpton - and at the same time a man in traditional dress plays a trumpet out of the tower!
Astronomical Clock
After we made our way back to the hotel tired and hungry, we found a very nice pub/restaurant called Jiny Stav which was a traditional Czech cuisine restaurant, although they do have English menus. Whilst there were some amusing translations on the menu (such as Pork Medallions from Italian Guy) the food was top notch, so much so, that we ate here another two times during our 5 night stay!

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 2

For our second day in Copenhagen, there was one trip that had been very well researched - a trip to the Carlsberg Brewery Visitors Centre! It was about 20 minutes stroll from our hotel and is one of the most impressive buildings in terms of decorative architecture I've seen.

The visitors centre costs DKK 60 which is around £7 and includes 2 free drinks (soft or beer), this in itself makes the ticket a bargain as you would pay somewhere in the region of £6 a pint in most Copenhagen bars and the staff all speak several languages like most places in Copenhagen.
The tour starts with the largest sealed bottled beer collection in the world and it is impressive!

Row upon row of bottles, there are also screens with more info and Carlsberg adverts, but we just spent ages looking at all the different labels!
The rest of the tour guides through not only the history of the Carlsberg Brewery & beers, but also of the workers and the city of Copenhagen, pretty much all of the written information is in both Danish and English.

Like most tourist attractions there is also a gift shop which has all manner of Carlsberg/Tuborg related merchandise - we were quite gutted that we couldn't take stuff home in the suitcase with us, they had some nice bottles/glasses etc..
After the gift shop is the aroma room - this was my favourite part of the tour - numerous bottle with various aromas in that are used in beer

the idea being that you sniff them all and mark on a card which aromas you like most, then there is a corresponding chart hanging from the ceiling which tells you which beers you should try based on their aroma. My favourite aromas included coffee, cereal & bread! So then it's on to the Jacobsen Bar where you collect your free drinks - with over 35 types of beer to choose from you are spoilt for choice!
The bar also does some nice Danish food which is also reasonably priced

The menu for food & beer can be downloaded from their website - most beers (after the free ones) cost DKK 25 which is about £3. Also if that isn't enough, in the centre of the room you can see the bottling plant, which is the only part of the tour where you'll see actual brewery action.


After all the fun of the brewery tour, we had a casual stroll back towards our hotel, which is when we noticed all the sex shops on the same street!
We had decided to take in some art in the afternoon so we went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

This gallery also charges DKK 60 to enter, but it wasn't really worth it in our opinion, unless you're really into 19th Century/Early 20th Century French/Danish art works.

We thought the Early Egyptian/Ancient Roman & Greek artefacts would be interesting but without any context as to why they were collected (the translations were quite sporadic) it left us cold - we'd seen similar collections in Tunisia that seemed far more coherent.

It's probably worth noting that in Winter/off season (ie October to March), most Danish tourist attractions close at 4/5pm which feels quite early.

After this we headed back to our hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, then went for an intended wander, however we didn't get very far as we ended up at the end of the street (literally 30 seconds away) in the Jernbane Cafeen a train themed bar/pub. It was very quaint and friendly - the staff spoke good English although we had a bit of trouble explaining which type of Carlsberg beer we wanted, however - there were folders/menu's on the table, and after pointing at what we wanted we ended up with a good ol' Carl's Lager

The bar train theme (we assumed because of the proximity to the station)was pretty impressive - the seats were from trains, all numbered along with destination plates etc.. the toilets even had train sound effects when you entered! They also had one of the cheapest slot machines I've ever tried, for about £3 we had around 80 goes, of course the winnings were also minimal and we didn't really know what we were doing, but it was fun.

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!

London Again... Part II

On Easter Sunday we decided to do some touristy type stuff - first stop Monument to the Great Fire of London.

A staggering 202 feet tall with 311 steps taking you to the top, you climb the narrow spiral staircase which runs inside, and when I say narrow, i mean backs against the wall whilst passing people going the other way!
It was well worth the effort (as the steps are harder work than you would think) with amazing views over the city, even though visibility was limited we got some decent photos.
After waving at Ant (who was waiting at the bottom) and snapping as far as the eye could see, we started our decent back down the spiral staircase, this invoked my mild vertigo and it took a wee bit longer to get back down
Once at the bottom we were presented with a certificate congratulating us for climbing the stairs! Here's Jen with hers
After that we headed up towards Camden, which was absolutely rammed with people (more so than usual) making the walk up the main street to the market quite arduous.
Once there we checked out the Proud Gallery which was showing two photography exhibitions, one of AC/DC and one of Withnail & I, there were also some live acoustic acts playing as well. We also stopped in the bar there for some much needed refreshments, before heading back out into the throngs of shoppers and into the markets to find some lunch.
We ended the day by meeting Danielle and her Fiancé for drinks, choosing the wetherspoons pub for it's cheap drinks, room to sit down and cleanliness! We had visited the World's End, but after waiting about 15 minutes to be served, being charged a stupid amount even by London standards for a pint, then sitting at tables covered in pots and food that the staff kept on walking past we left.

Easter Monday we a tootle down Oxford Street and bought a few obligatory souvenirs for family then left for the sanctuary of St Pancras for the train home!

London Again... Part I

Back in April we took another trip down south to stay with Jen in London. We had tickets for a gig/event so it was not entirely through choice we ended up being there over the Easter Bank Holiday (one of the peak times of the year to visit, bar Christmas). As usual we travelled first to my mum's in Nottinghamshire who would be dog sitting for the weekend, and travelled via Chesterfield - high speed train meant we were in London in a little over 2 hours! Upon arriving in London it was time to buy our travel cards for the weekend and to find out that TfL being as clever as usual have chosen this weekend to close several tube lines, which wouldn't normally be a problem except that in most cases they couldn't be bothered to put on rail replacement buses - which when trying to get from areas of central London, the buses became dangerously overcrowded, more so than I've ever seen before.. very surprised there were no accidents!
On the Saturday, Jen being a member of Liverpool FC's London Supporters Club she was going to a pub to meet other members and watch the game, on the spur of the moment we decided to stay on the train to Kew Gardens. only a couple of minutes walk from the train station through very 'leafy suburbs' (think how London is portrayed in Hollywood movies), we found it very easily: entry is £13 adults, £12 concessions and under 17's free when accompanying an adult (entry to the palace is extra). I think we both had no clue how big Kew was and you could easily spend a full day there (we didn't arrive until lunchtime). Although it was overcast most of the day, there was plenty to see indoors as well as in the grounds

One of my favourite parts was the Japanese area with the pagodas and cherry blossoms, although the tropical/rainforest areas was a close second

There is also a Sky Walk which is basically a rather large platform that you climb around 180 stairs to reach the top, then walk around in a circle ish shape near the tree tops, this is where you might notice that Kew is under a flight path, with incoming planes being so low down you can see the wheels lowering!
We ended up spending a good 4-5 hours at Kew including lunch time - if you're on a budget avoid the 'restaurant' and head for the Café - we paid about £4 for a jacket potato the size of a small melon - very tasty and great value!

Later on that evening we went to the Ether Festival at the Royal Festival Hall to see Royksopp supported by Fever Ray. Absolutely amazing, mind blowing gig - once again Royksopp did not disappoint live, the amazing energy they throw into their live performances always impresses me. They played a selection of tracks from each album, including all the favourites such as Eple, So Easy, Sparks, 49 Percent, Remind Me, Only This Moment - but the gig really got going once the newly released single Happy Up Here was played, it's worth noting that this was a seated venue, but all it took was one man on the front row to start dancing and gradually the whole crowd was up, the security towards the middle and right of the stage were really chilled and people were allowed to get up and walk to the front to dance and take photos, but on our side there was some jobsworth usher who's sole intent that night was to try and ruin the gig for a handful of people. Long story short she kept trying to stop my friend and I from taking photos when Royksopp had specifically asked the fans to take photos and upload them to their website! I'm a reasonable person but when she then happily let the men in front of me take photos and the guy sat behind me film it I was non impressed to say the least! So towards the end we decided to ignore her as it seemed very much like victimisation when at one point I could count 20+ people within 10 feet of me openly photographing the show and still she only singled out us! This was the biggest let down of what was one of my top 5 gigs of all time.

Anneli Drecker joined Royksopp on stage for most of their set and was crazy, really working the crowd up

They were also joined by Swedish singer Robyn who is very popular from what I could tell by the crowd reaction.

One of the support acts Fever Ray were also amazing with some very weird costumes and a great light show

Definitely worth checking out if they come to a city near you!