Dobří čtenáři.    (Good day readers)

The forecast for today is warm, 22deg C. The forecast of warm sunny weather looks a little off when we get up for an early breakfast, it’s cool and still not very light. But, it was correct, it turned out to be a beautiful warm sunny day, as we were told “unseasonably pleasant”, apparently it had been cold and wet for the previous month. Here they get a serious winter, down to about – 20 deg C and lots of snow, although the river doesn’t freeze up these days because of flood mitigation works up stream on the Vlatava River meaning the water doesn’t get quite cold enough to get sufficient ice to skate on.

The Pod Vezi Hotel staff are extremely helpful and organise a taxi to get over town for our Intrepid Urban Adventures – walking tour of Prague today, 6 hours of walking, a bit of food and bit of beer – Czech Pilsener is the go and as our beautiful young intelligent guide says ” Zee beer is sleeper zaan zee vawta” , sound advice I decide to take.

Tereza gets her group together, 12 of us from the USA, Philippines and 5 Australians ( Dubbo, Perth, Mackay in QLD) and starts to introduce her to Prague. It’s excellent and a nice group of people to walk with. We see the main old town and the new town ( built in the 1400’s), cross the Charles Bridge, have a traditional lunch of beef and dumplings with a cranberry sauce, it’s delicious and even Genelle eats all it! The beer, a local draught pilsener is good, and cheap.

We get a tram up the hill to Prague Castle, it’s free except for the front part of the Cathedral which the Catholic Church controls – dig that eh, I though they were going broke! A fantastic day ends with me hopping down the hill like a geriatric crow while Genelle now feels free to start looking in shop windows. A final yarn with the young coal miner from Mackay who is travelling by himself and has just come in after travelling in a Russia. He said Moscow was beautiful, and cheap, I don’t think he liked Minsk, but he said it was ok as he was in a 5 star hotel in a room as big as his house for about $85 a night, he wasn’t suffering much.

A late afternoon rest turns into a doze and after a big lunch we decide on a walk back over Charles Bridge to the old town and a snack before retiring for the night. We’ve got our bearings now, tomorrow is exploring at our own leisure. 

What did I learn today;

• I’m not the only one with stuffed knees, 2 of our group struggled more than me on the steps and I saw a few other walkers with sticks that would have been younger than me.
• English detective tv shows are really weird dubbed in Czech language – we turned the tv on then off quickly.
• Prague was left relatively unscathed in WWII, but the Czech’s had a fierce resistance movement during the war and there was a Prague uprising at the end of the war when a lot of Czech resistance fighters were killed.
• Prague is a beautiful city, but after being in Berlin, it’s not as clean or any where as efficient. Still it has achar, and life tomit, music everywhere, jazz clubs, opera, ballet on every night. “A lot of culture in the old f…g town” as Sir Les Patterson would dribble and spit out.
• The Czech’s hate their current president, Miloš Zeman is very similar to Donna Trump, a classicly inapproapriate speaker and blatantly sexist according to certain people. Not me though, I want to stay here for a few more days.

Ahoj. ( Good bye)

Pavel ( that’s Paul in Czech for you non multi linguists)



Intrepid Urban Adventures tour group for Prague today.

Tereza and our group starting the day

Paul and Genelle from near Charles Bridge, Prague

The crowd on Charles Bridge today

A Guard at the Prague Castle

Genelle and Paul looking over Prague from the Castle

The astronomical clock in Prague