2. Prague, cont.

Part of the delay in posting my first entry was because I couldn't decide on a name for the new blog.  As there will be quite a few postings (we are away for six months) I didn't want to add more to my 2011 blog, "A Proper Busride" for fear of making it too unwieldy. So I have decided on a new blog, with a new name and a new starting point.  It's just that the name is not so new.  I sat in front of a computer at Prague airport for an hour, using a name generator, trying to come up with something clever and topical, but without success.

So I'm afraid it is plain, old, boring ... "Another Proper Busride".  And unless someone comes up with something better in the next few weeks, that's what it will be.

The following paragraphs were written on the plane from Prague to Paris last Sunday, with some photos added later.  Please excuse any repetitions. 

"The plane is running 30 minutes late because it is chockerblock and every passenger except us and a couple of men in suits have a huge amount of carry-on luggage. This results in people standing in the aisles, blocking boarding traffic while they try to force their numerous, overfilled bags into the single, reasonably sized space allocated to their seat.  But enough whinging. I have a window seat and I can see we are the fourth plane queued for take off and we'll be in the air in a minute or two. Paris, here we come! Not that there was anything wrong with Prague or the Czech Republic.

Prague is a large and widespread city of about 2.2 million people (1.3m in the centre) on both banks of the Vitalva river, so it is a city of beautiful bridges. The city centre is very old, settled in about 810AD with each successive generation of architecture still evident. Because it underwent only one destructive bombing raid in WW2, it did not suffer the architectural losses of other European cities. So when you look at the old town it looks quite higgledy- piggledy because it has layer upon layer of buildings from across the centuries. This is different to, say, Paris where the streets are lined by fairly consistent styles and periods giving a very smooth to the eye effect.

The Old Town Square.  The centre of Prague is on the UNESCO World Heritage register.

Part of Wenceslas Square, which is more of a grand boulevard than a square.

So Prague takes a bit of getting used to. And it is not just the look of the buildings that seems different and un-uniform, everything is very dark.  Almost every footpath, road and gutter is cobbled - not a piece of concrete to be found anywhere.  Looks great but murder to walk on all day and, of course, very dark.

And the trees are all deciduous, only the odd evergreen, and this week in the middle of spring, nothing yet in leaf only in bud.  Not only are they leafless, but they are all dark barked too, so the overall effect is very stark.

The original railway station, still in use under the communists, now being restored.

The south tower of the Charles Bridge over the Vitava river.

And the final contributor to sombre Prague is the blackness of the major historical buildings.  You'll notice this in the photos.  I haven't been able to find out why what appears to be quite light coloured stone in good condition has become so dark. In Reims, in norther France, the cathedral had been badly affected by pollution from car exhausts.  Maybe the stone in Prague is just as porous and has been affected the same way.

St Vitas Cathedral.

We didn't find a local whose English was good enough to explain the intricacies of blacked stone to us.

Spoken Czech is a soft and rounded language, very pleasant to listen to whereas the written language is full of hard z, k, c, y and more z.

And so many people speak English.  I think it must be a prerequisite for any retail, hospitality or transport job. So while we had a good chat with the fellow in the brand new wine bar in our street and a lovely lady on a tram, there was no opportunity to ask why the stone of the cathedral was so black.

Mind you, we may have been able to discover this on Saturday when the unseasonably warm weather took on a blast from the Arctic and dropped to 7 drizzly degrees.  Because everyone needed an umbrella, the tour groups were getting quite confused, especially after a mulled wine or two for luncheon, and I suspected that at one point I had a couple of giggling Japanese girls following me.

But They soon realised their error, my umbrella being black not red or fluoro green, and scuttled off making it possible for Paul and I to have joined the large man with the yellow scarf tied round his head who spoke excellent Engllish and was explaining about clocks and Jewish clockmakers in Prague.  Fearing it would take him too long to get around to black stone and cathedrals, or pause for breath, we pottered off in the drizzle to buy a tram ticket.

We spent our last three hours as tourists travelling from the Old Town Centre to the end of the number 26 tram line in one direction, and to the end of the number 20 route in the opposite direction and finally finding the number 9 to take us to our own street.  Thus for the princely sum of $3.20 each, we travelled from WaurnPonds to Lara and return and stepped off outside our own building.  

While Prague might float on beer, it runs by tram.  The city, as well as the suburbs, are serviced by more trams and more frequent services, than we have ever seen anywhere.  All street and transport policy centres on right of way and access to trams.  There is also a metro, but not nearly as extensive as the trams.

And the city is extremely quiet.  There are very few motor scooters and trams are almost silent and because car ownership is not as extensive as elsewhere in the world, the traffic is quiet, orderly and patient.  Amazing.  It demonstrates to us, once again, that Australians are the most aggressive and intolerant road users in the world."