For our last walk of 2011, Mirinda decided we’d all go to Hankley. Although grey and grim, it was still very beautiful. Oddly, a lot of other dog walkers must have thought the same thing because we saw more people than we normally do.

Sadly we also saw (and, even sadder, heard) a couple of trail bike riders ruining everyone’s day but their own. Still, what can you do. In a free society, those that wish to ruin have as much right as those that wish to enjoy. Personally, I think the army should use them for sniper practice.

It was also Carmen’s first long walk and she managed very well although a good deal slower and more considered than of old. I think Day-z was a bit frustrated at the lack of pace.

Speaking of Day-z, Mirinda spent an hour with the dog brush, making her look like a huge, black cotton wool ball. She looks more like a Bichon Frise than a poodle! Mirinda described her as looking like a big puddle of fluff.

Day-z shows off her bouffant

She now looks twice the size of Carmen who is normally the butterball around here.

This morning I was in the dining room, looking out at our wonderful path. There was an awful lot of action around the bird feeder. Gold finches, blue and great tits, green finches…they were all going crazy. I raced upstairs for the camera and telephoto lens. By the time I returned, they’d all gone off somewhere else.

I was a bit annoyed. Still, I stood around for a bit, just in case they decided to unexpectedly return. The big mob didn’t but this little fellow did.

Siskin coming into land

I had no idea what he was but I knew I hadn’t photographed him before so I just went mad and snapped away. He was quite helpful and stuck around for a bit.

He is a siskin which is a type of finch. Mirinda tells me that they are quite frequent visitors during winter.

Siskin in portrait pose

It’s New Year’s eve as I write this, which reminds me of something I read the other day. I’m presently reading Agincourt (a book about the lead up to the battle, the battle and the aftermath) and I read the following in a section where the author was explaining the difficulties giving precise dates for historic events.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church, which preferred to start the year with one of its major Christian festivals, successfully opposed attempts to revert to the pagan Roman practice of beginning the year on 1 January. Even though the spread of Protestantism in the sixteenth century gave it renewed credibility, it was not formally adopted in England as New Year’s Day until 1 January 1752.
[Barker J 2010, Agincourt, Hatchett Digital, p213-214]

Today was my second visit to Sandra, the physiotherapist. I was dreading it. The movement in my wrist doesn’t seem significant to me. I have been completing the exercises when possible but just haven’t felt they were working very well. In particular the forcing the wrist backwards hasn’t felt like it’s doing anything.

So, with some trepidation, I arrived for my appointment at 10. Sandra saw me straight away, with her always present cheerful smile, sat me down and went straight for her angle measuring device while firmly gripping my left arm.

Well, you could have knocked me over with a piece of green memory foam. She was very pleased with my progress. I have stretched some of my joints to double what they were last time. This is great, she says. Just keep up the good work and come back in two weeks, she also said.

Before I left, she had one more piece of news. I was no longer to use the pink memory foam. Oh no, that had become too easy. I have graduated to the green one. It’s like squeezing concrete.

Green -v- pink...that looks orange for some reason

A few more Prague titbits…

I’ve added another photo album to the site. This one is called ‘The Buildings of Prague’. We loved so many of them that I decided to create an album. It might be a bit dull for anyone not interested in art nouveau or…buildings. Anyway, if not considered dull, the album is here.

This may also be of interest – a short video, shot by Mirinda on her iPhone featuring me and a snack I had in Prague.

Today was, basically, about the poodles. We picked them up from the kennel. They went insane. We took them for a walk up to the castle. They went insane. I gave them a bath. They remain insane.

A selection of our Prague photographs can be seen here.

Well, so much for Prague. Here we are, home again in lovely sunny England. Our whole trip was dogged with grey skies with mere glimpses of nice weather. The plane started to enter British airspace, the clouds parted and glorious sunshine bathed everything in a delightful glow. It was like all the best welcome homes celebrated at once.

England says welcome home

OK, that was all a bit much but it was nice coming home to lovely weather – it’s so rare!

Our morning was spent at great leisure – breakfast, packing, breakfast, packing. The staff at the hotel were all ridiculously pleasant and easy to get on with. We were picked up early by the car and transported to Prague airport in plenty of time for the flight home, which arrived 20 minutes early. Everything went so smoothly, I have nothing to complain about which, sadly, makes this a bit of a boring post.

One snippet of interest…because Mirinda travelled business class, she was Fast Tracked through customs. This appears not to be the case in Prague. Being in the Fast Track lane means you get a pleasant conversation with the security person rather than a grunt and flick of the eyebrow (which is what I always get). It certainly surprised Mirinda.

And to wrap up our Christmas 2011 we’d just like to say that Prague is one of the loveliest places we’ve ever been to. We’d recommend it to anyone wanting to enjoy a festive break. I have heard that it’s not so nice when full of stag and hen nights! Still, we didn’t see anything that could be classed as lager lout behaviour. Prague was simply lovely.

In the next few days, I shall be preparing some photo albums of our trip to accompany the blog. Won’t that be fun?

Now I’ve seen quite a few strange things on my various travels but few compare with the ossuary at Sedlec. I saw a piece on the television years ago which featured it but had completely forgotten about it until we spotted the day tours brochure for, among other places, Kutna Hora.

Some old bones

Kutna Hora was made very wealthy on silver and, at one time was a mint, stamping all the coinage for Bohemia until 1547. They have a nice display of some very old coins in the room where some poor people had to stamp (by hand) 2,000 coins a day.

15th century silver coin

The building that houses the mint has gone through quite a few changes – most of it is the present town hall and quite a bit just a museum. The entire complex is called the Italian Court, named after the Italian chaps who were responsible for the minting reforms of King Wenceslas II.

And the Italian Court is in the city of Kutna Hora which we instantly fell in love with. It’s gorgeous. Wide footpaths, few cars, lovely buildings. And a population of only 22,000 people.

We had a wonderful day with a tour group of eight other people (four of them were Australians, two Americans and two Canadians) and a hilarious guide lady who used the word ‘incinerate’ rather than ‘cremate’ when discussing Czech funeral practices.

Mirinda chats with our wacky guide

A lot of her humour was completely unintentional and involved using the wrong words for things but she had me giggling all day.

When discussing the Czech wine industry, she told us that during the Communist rule, the Russians, in a bid to increase the agricultural output, told the Czechs to make wine. The Czechs laughed but the Russians insisted. The Czechs have a saying “If the Communists say throw a goat, you throw a goat”. So they made wine. And, strangely enough, it turned out brilliant.

However, the highlight of the day; dare I say, of the entire trip was the Ossuary at Sedlec. It was once a cemetery attached to a Cistercian Monastery. During various periods of history, quite a few people died in the area (30,000 from plague, a few more thousand as a result of the Hussite Wars) and the cemetery just kept growing (that seems a bit of a habit around these parts and is probably why they incinerate people now).

All of these bodies meant a lot bones and, in 1511, for reasons only known to himself, a half blind monk decided to pile them into pyramids. Then, in 1661, the ceiling of the chapel collapsed, forcing a slight redistribution of the bones.

What we saw today was a result of work carried out in the 18th century by Jan Santini Aichl. He made all manner of sculptures using the bones including his signature which also gave the date of the final piece.

Finally, in 1784, Josef II abolished the Sedlec Monastery and the whole place was purchased by the Schwarzenbergs from Orlik who gave it a thorough overhaul. Frantisek Rint created a few more pieces, including the coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family.

The Schwarzenberg family crest

Meanwhile, back at Kutna Hora and, more specifically, the cathedral of St Barbara, we were treated to a feast of art nouveau “…stained glasses…” made by the same husband and wife couple who decorated the chapel at the Italian Court.

Art nouveau stained glass at St Barbara's

The chapel, by the way, was the private praying place of Wenceslas IV, who was really, really short. All the doors are made to his height with a crown on his head. This still means they are really, really short.

Beautiful paintings on the wall of the chapel

That’s all well and good but the highlight for Mirinda was dinner tonight. We were pretty sick of the lousy food we’ve been ingesting. It’s been a great disappointment for us. So, tonight, Mirinda swore we would dine well.

Looking in our handy and perfect little guide book that the car driver gave us last week, we decided to try La Degustation Boheme Bourgeoise which just happens to be close by the hotel.

Turning up without a reservation was clearly a risk but we were eventually offered what is called the chef’s table. This is two high stools up against the servery, with a clear view of the action in the kitchen. And what a fantastic experience it was.

Not only was the action fun to watch but the food (all 15 odd courses) was probably the best food I’ve ever tasted. Mirinda is pretty definite that it WAS the best food she’s ever had.

And rather than a bottle of wine for the whole meal, I had a small glass to complement each main course, chosen especially by the sommelier. He did a magnificent job. Seriously, this is what food is all about. Pure magic for the mouth.

The chefs hard at work

And having had only Czech wines with dinner, I can vouch for the goat throwing skills of the Czech wine makers.

I’m not a big fan of ballet. I can never quite get over all the little separate dances which tend to stall the story somewhat. I mean while the entire premise for Swan Lake is a bit odd, at least it has a fair bit of drama in it…if you ignore the dancey bits, of course.

The reason I’m talking about ballet is because we booked tickets for the Prague State Opera ballet company production of Swan Lake and this afternoon we went. Actually I was very surprised when we checked into the hotel and our tickets had arrived and were waiting for us. Genius.

Which leads me nicely to praise for the Prague Experience website. We used it for lots of stuff before arriving and it has been brilliant. Highly recommended.

Actually, all of Prague has been excellent (ignoring the scammer) and we are in love with it. But, as usual, there’s way more to see than there is time to see it. Especially the groups of things, like the castle and the Jewish Town. Unless you’re on one of those tour groups who try and squeeze everything into about five hours.

Like the tour groups we did battle with today. One of the big things to see in Prague is the Jewish Town. There’s synagogues and the famous cemetery and the whole area to see, including the ever present souvenir shops.

Prague has an awful lot of them too. I reckon there’s more souvenir shops than there is residents of the city. And only one where I could buy the type of hat I’ve been searching for. A guy who lived in Liverpool (New South Wales, not Merseyside) sold me the perfect hat today. Somehow he knew we were Australian after very few words. He reckoned because he lived there for a while.

Gaz and his new Czech hat

But I was talking about the Jewish Town. It’s a small area of Prague which is more accurately called Josefov after emperor Josef II whose reforms helped ease the Jewish living conditions in the city. A few famous people have become synonymous with the Jewish Town. Franz Kafka (who I mentioned a couple of days ago) and Rabbi Low or, more accurately, the Golem as created by Rabbi Low.

The Golem is a creature made of clay and one of the most famous was one attributed to Rabbi Low in the 16th century. You can read more about the Golem here but you may remember the one in The Simpsons. It was around long before Dr Frankenstein and just as awful. In Prague, it even has its own restaurant.

And Rabbi Low is buried in the Jewish Cemetery, where we wrestled with the hordes of ‘follow the umbrella’ tourist groups today. It’s quite an extraordinary place. There’s been over 12,000 people buried in quite a small space. They know it’s over 12,000 because that’s how many gravestones there are.

People have been buried there since the first half of the 15th century (the earliest tombstone dates from 1439) and continued until 1787. When it filled up, they just put another layer of earth over the top and started again. They kept repeating this, building up quite a collection of tombstones as they went. Now it looks like a gravestone graveyard.

Memorials in part of the Jewish Cemetery

The whole place could be quite atmospheric if there was about 3,000 fewer living people there. The same with the synagogues we visited. But I guess it’s the tourists who keep these places operating, particularly the big groups, but I can’t help hating them!

The Old New Synagogue was somewhere I really enjoyed. This is rather odd because it’s not very big and is quite plain. However, it is very old (a lot of it dates from the 13th century) and is still used for regular worship by Orthodox Jews. It was interesting comparing the parts of this synagogue with the more modern one we saw in New York.

The men in a synagogue have to have the hair covered (Mirinda reckons this is so the bald guys can feel better about themselves) so each visitor is asked to either wear a hat or put on a kippah (they have loaners by the door at all the ‘attractions’).

I have two things to say about this. Firstly, while I am a pure, dyed in the wool atheist, I still respect other people’s beliefs systems to the extent that if I’m visiting one of their holy places I will observe most of their rituals. Wearing something on your head is a small thing to do. There is, however, an awful lot of incredibly rude people who just don’t. I felt like smacking them across the back of the head.

Secondly, I have to wonder what happened between the old and the new testaments. In the old, men had to cover their heads, in the new, this all changed to the opposite. If I walk into an Anglican or Catholic church, the hat instantly comes off (so well I recall that priest in Canterbury though it was many years ago). Put me in a synagogue and the hat goes on. I don’t remember Jesus saying anything about hat wearing in church.

So we enjoyed wandering around the synagogues, the cemetery and, in particular, the exhibition in the Klausen Synagogue, on the Burial Society. This was a bunch of people who took care of the dead. There was an awful lot of stuff that had to be done and these guys did it. They even had a uniform. I reckon it was the job to have in the middle ages. Though Mirinda contends it would have given me the zoobies. She’s probably right.

But our time in the Jewish Town was short today for we had to work our way back up to the opera house to sit through some Russian music with some toe tapping included. Actually, we did one more thing in the Jewish Town…we bought a little glass ornament of a young boy reading from the Talmud to sit on our mantelpiece next to the fish dripping from the tap we bought in Murano and the glass pig with the 5p in it, that Nigel bought me.

...and so, that is why we all wear hats...

The Opera House is just to the left at the top of Wenceslas Square. A lovely building with an absolutely gorgeous interior. It was first opened in 1888 and I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed much. It’s the sort of place that really requires it’s visitors to be rather well dressed. Sadly we weren’t. However, we had a box so no-one really saw us very much.

Yes, a lovely, closed off, opera box all to ourselves. Heaven. It meant we could throw our shoes off and lounge about. It meant I could doze off during the long, drawn out, dancey bits. At least I COULD have dozed off if Mirinda didn’t keep hitting me.

Mirinda in our box

Actually the ballet was very good and I (almost) enjoyed all of it. I rather enjoyed having seats in an opera box slightly more than the ballet. I’m pretty sure Mirinda enjoyed it and I know someone who is going to be dead jealous.

There’s one thing worse than ingesting four separate varieties of fish for Christmas Eve dinner…when they swim back upstream in the middle of the night.

I woke up, sometime during the dark, all hot and sweaty. We haven’t had the heating on since we arrived and the window was as wide open as it gets, so it was obviously an internal problem. I felt a bit queasy. I sat up and had a drink of water. I tried lying down again.

I very quickly went into the toilet and was violently ill. I also managed to wake Mirinda up, who insisted I wash my teeth before returning to bed.

I immediately started feeling better and was pretty soon fast asleep, my temperature once more normal. Dodgy fish? I think so.

When I woke up properly, it was like a long forgotten bad dream. I felt fine and was ready for breakfast.

Today we went and visited the castle. We walked across the Charles Bridge and waited for a tram up the hill. The rain, which has been threatening for days, suddenly decided to fall with a little more deliberate steadiness. We waited what seemed an age for a crowded number 22 tram.

The castle is not exactly a castle. It is an entire complex of buildings including a cathedral, a palace, some streets, numerous ticket offices, a basilica and so much more. It’s impossible to see everything in one day. Well, maybe not strictly speaking ‘impossible’ but in order to remember any of it, you really should spend about three days. The tourist people know this, which is why (I assume) the entrance tickets last for two days.

It’s not the best in the rain (it was also very cold and windy today) but at least you can go inside most places. First up was St Vitas (of the dance) Cathedral. Sadly, not my kind of place at all.

Although it is still used for church services (there were three this morning) it is much more like a museum. It is also cold and soulless and full of tourists, snapping away, yabbering and pushing.

Getting in each other's photos

The front section is roped off so that, if you haven’t paid, you have to remain behind it. You can see the length of the church but not delve into the special places reserved for those of us who willingly parted with a few shekels. Moving beyond the rope was slightly better.

The church has a lot of rich history and fancy statuary but, for me, it’s completely ruined by the constant stream of tourists. I like to feel a church. This one felt dead.

I did rather like these odd jugs hanging from their pot racks above chapels. I don’t know why but they looked strangely good.

Kitchen utensils in the cathedral

From the cathedral we popped into St George’s basilica where you could at least sit down. Within it’s walls is the last resting place of Ludmilla who had, possibly the worst mother-in-law in history.

Ludmilla was the grandmother of Wenceslas. When he was 14, his mother, Drahomíra, grew so suspicious of her mother-in-law (Ludmilla) that she organised a bunch of rough types to go and strangle her with her own scarf. She became a saint because of it and now, among her many jobs in heaven, she is also responsible for anyone having problems with their in-laws.

Poor Ludmilla with her scarf wrapped around her throat

After a lovely warm, dry pause in a cafe, we wandered down to the Golden Lane. This is an area of the castle complex which grew up organically. It started off as just a bit of wall and gradually grew into a very narrow street of goldsmiths.

Eventually the street was full of artist types (writers, painters, strange mystical woman who told the future) and became a bit of a slum. Then, in 1952, the last person moved out and the tourist board moved in and prettied it all up, giving an Ideal Homes look of the medieval.

Now each doorway is crowded with groups trying to take photographs, converging with other groups as the streets fills with more and more people. It is a bit bizarre! Especially the Czech bookstore woman who was intent on selling a Chinese version of a Prague Castle book to anyone looking remotely Chinese.

One for the family album

After being frozen, wet and jostled for long enough we decided to leave the castle grounds and start the walk back to the hotel. Actually, the audioguide had a time limit of 3 hours and it was almost up.

We started down the long staircase back towards the bridge when Mirinda spotted this place.

U Krale Brabantskeho - the best pub in the world

It is brilliant. When you walk in it’s like you’ve stepped back in time. It’s dark but warm, the staff are attentive and very rude. The beer is dark and stouty, the food is finger licking good. In fact, finger licking is not just forgiven, it’s encouraged. We had a few drinks and some chicken wings and then, sadly, left for the hotel.

I’m seriously considering encouraging Nicktor to have a weekend in Prague with me in order to spend the entire time at this pub. According to Dawn, I shouldn’t.

Anyway, after a nice long rest (watching numerous sets of credits on the supposed English language TV) we went out to Bily Konicek’s Restaurant & Jazz Club for our turkey dinner.

The dinner was fine (very little fish) but the jazz was excellent. Two guys entertianed us all night. One on fiddle, the other on guitar; they were amazing. it more than made up for last night and the fish. We stayed for quite a few sets and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mirinda hides behind a pina colada

I haven’t reported on the shower. I shall do so now.

The most disconcerting thing about the the bathroom is that it is all glass. The walls around it and internal the walls around the shower and toilet. These latter walls are frosted as a concession to people who are not that keen on watching people on the loo. For this reason, I tend to use the toilet downstairs, off the foyer.

The shower has a waterfall rosette with great pressure and temperature – a true delight. However, because of the dedication to design that is apparent in every inch of the room, it does not drain very well. Previously, the rest of the bathroom became flooded when the water didn’t drain away fast enough, allowing the small lip (about the thickness of a single tile) that is supposed to contain the water, to become pointless.

It’s all very design over usefulness: Looks well funky, underperforms to Bill-O. Still, the pressure and temperature make having a shower a joy.

Anyway, following on from yesterday’s huge day, we decided to take it a lot easier today. So we went for a stroll through Jewish Town with the idea of visiting the cemetery and maybe a synagogue. It was then we realised it was Saturday. Jews don’t do anything on a Saturday. So everything was closed. Even the lights were off.

We found the wonderful Franz Kafka statue. Franz was born in Prague back in 1883. He wrote The Trial, a book I loved back when I was a younger. Of course I just had to pose next to it.

Gaz & Franz Kafka

Still, it was lovely looking at all the art nouveau buildings. We walked all the way down to the river (Prague is not very big) admiring everything.

Art Nouveau buildings

At the river we saw where the boat tours leave from. There are a LOT of boats!

River boats on the river

We walked the length of the ‘posh’ street, winding up back at the Old Town Square for a coffee stop in Starbucks before heading back to the hotel.

Late in the afternoon, we went to a Christmas concert at the Municipal House. It was lovely. What felt like a complete string section, delighted us with a selection of well known classics from Dvorak to Strauss, Pachabel’s Canon to A Little Night Music. It was a lovely way to wile away an hour.

Mirinda’s disappointing Christmas
As everyone knows, Christmas in this part of Europe is celebrated on Christmas Eve. So, back in England, we organised to have a traditional Czech Christmas Eve dinner. I had already been informed that the Czechs buy a carp a bit before Christmas, let it loose in the bath until Christmas Eve when it is ritually slaughtered, sliced and cooked for dinner.

I was surprised not to see my dinner floating in a bath by the doors of the restaurant.

The restaurant was the Francouzscka restaurant at the Municipal House and it is absolutely gorgeous. If anyone was in the market for a horrid meal, these surroundings almost made it worth it.

We arrived a wee bit early. In our country, this is usually ok and, if they’re still clearing the table, the waiter or maitre d’ will leave you at the bar with a drink. At this place, firstly, there’s no-one at the door. This is going to be a problem because the devil ALWAYS makes work for idle hands…Mirinda’s being no exception. There was a sign regarding the strictly forbidden taking of photogaphs which fell out of its holder when she thought it contained a bell for summoning staff.

The sign flapped, conspicuously to the floor. We waited at the door for a while longer. Eventually a woman turned up, who I recognised as the hostess from the cafe opposite. She picked the sign up off the floor and immediately set about repositioning it in the frame from whence it had been manhandled by my lovely wife.

In most expensive restaurants, this would have been inconsequentual. The hostess would have attended to us first, then worried about the silly sign. Not at this restaurant. She wrestled it back into place and then asked me, with a huge dollop of insinuation, if I knew who did it. I was tempted to say it was the cat but instead, looked confused and said I didn’t know.

I mean, seriously, who is going to admit to it? She sounded like the culprit was going to get sent to the salt mines. As it was, Mirinda reckons she went and checked the CCTV because she was a bit surly to her during the coat checking procedure.

We were still early, of course, so she ordered us to wait, with a gruff face. We sat in a big leather lounge which was quite comfortable but couldn’t manage the gruff faces…we were enjoying her insane service attitude far too much.

Eventually our table was ready and we were shown to a lovely spot (I felt, for sure, we’d be put near the toilets because of the sign thing) by the window. The service, from this point was fine, while the food took a turn for the worse.

We had four courses all of fish (trout mousse, carp, fish soup and Zander…which is closely related to perch) and a dessert which Mirinda was worried was toffee coated goldfish but turned out to be gingerbread with caramel ice cream.

The Czech’s love their carp. Mirinda thought it tasted like mud. It has a lot of small bones which make it quite awful to eat. It was not as tasty as turkey.

To be perfectly honest, the best course was the bread. The bread was spectacularly lovely. We ate all the bread. Oddly we were given a strange swirl of salt free butter sprinkled with salt crystals.

I am not being at all harsh. On the plus side, the wine was fantastic. I was guessing since it was mostly in Czech and I was hoping it would be, at the very least, passable. It was superb. I’m going to see if I can get it in the UK, it was so nice.

We are totally looking forward to a turkey Christmas dinner tomorrow night.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
A very merry Christmas to anyone and everyone reading this with very special wishes to Audrey and Kevin who I know read me every day xxx

We thought the marionettes doing opera was bizarre enough but tonight we witnessed a truly surreal performance at the Black Light Theatre. We saw an ad for the show yesterday. It promised a fantastic trip beyond Wonderland for little Alice in a show called Aspects of Alice. Loving all things Alice, as I do, this show was a must.

Loving all things Art Nouveau as Mirinda does meant we had to visit the Municipal House (Obecni Dum), said to be the ‘…most exciting Art Nouveau building in Prague…’ by the Rough Guide. They have regular guided tours (in English) and we wanted to be on one. We turned up and we directed to the ground floor information desk and jewellery counter. We were told there was only one tour and it was at 4pm.

What could we do but go and have a coffee in the wonderful cafe upstairs (after buying tickets for the tour). The cafe is incredible. Amazing chandeliers, bevelled mirrors, pink marble…it’s simply beautiful. It reminded me of the Grand Cafe in Oslo only without the need to rip people off and with better coffee. For the prices are extremely reasonable and the staff most attentive.

It was then in search of a tram ticket…and a tram to use it on. The ticket was quite easy. I went down to the Metro station and translated the Czech instructions, buying a 24 hour ticket for about £3. Finding the #22 tram did not prove as easy.

We wandered far and wide, searching for the tram. We did, however, find statues…

Statue of plenty - the Soviet ideal?

…we also found a window, behind which sat two girls having their legs and feet nibbled on by little black fish…

All you can eat...

…and, eventually, we found the tram line we needed. Across the street we watched (as we waited) while a couple of little dogs had a complete disagreement with each other. Their owners thought it was all very funny but the little dogs were deadly serious.

At last, a #22 tram turned up and we hopped on. These trams have a row of single seats down each side and a very wide section in the middle. This is because (I think) most people make only short journeys and don’t bother sitting down. For this reason, the standing room is maximised. It makes sitting together somewhat awkward.

Also there’s a rule in Prague that men have to be chivalrous and give up their seat to women and children. The only seated males I saw seemed to be tourists. None of this ‘please give up your seat to someone less able to stand’ namby pamby rubbish, just a blanket ‘MEN STAND, WOMAN SIT’ rule.

We stayed on the tram all the way to the end of the line and then caught it back (after it did a sort of half circle at the terminus and changed from a nice new one to an old clanky one) to the funicular.

We love a good funicular; we try and find one wherever we go. The beauty of the one in Prague is that the price is included in the 24 hour ticket we bought earlier! How brilliant is that! So, a bargain trip later and we found ourselves inside what appeared to be, a large walled garden.

As you leave the funicular stop at the top, you are confronted, not with a lovely view over Prague, but by a very high wall called the Hunger Wall. It was built a long time ago in order to find some work for the hungry peasants to do.

It was in the 1460s and Charles IV was a bit perplexed. Here he had a whole bunch of starving peasants…what to do with them. One of his advisors suggested getting them to build a massive, 30 foot wall, around the southernmost perimeter of Prague. Genius, thought Charles, and so it was done. I guess all that walking up the hill to work each day and then the subsequent building work took their minds off their rumbling tums.

We wandered around a bit before finding the way out of the walled garden (which, oddly, meant we were once more entering Prague) and found the Rozhledna which is a one fifth copy of the Eiffel Tower. Or so they claim. Mirinda is not convinced.

The Petit Eiffel Tower

It apparently shocked the French when it was built in 1889, and is one of the few remaining exhibits from the 1891 Prague Exhibition – another being the funicular. I decided I had to journey to the top for the spectacular views of Prague. Mirinda stayed at the coffee shop at the bottom and enjoyed a hot chocolate.

To go to the top of the tower, the price was 100KC. For this you could walk up the long, spiral staircase. For an extra 50KC you could catch the lift. It’s very important to realise that 50KC is £1.60. There was no way I was going to climb the stairs. Instead I stepped aboard the Mechano like lift with the bowler hatted young lift attendant who barely stayed awake for the trip.

Generally speaking on this trip so far, we have found the people of Prague happy and friendly (even when scamming the tourists) but this all changes once you climb the mountain and get to the edge of the Hunger Wall. Perhaps these are the (still hungry) descendants of the original builders. I don’t know why but they are particularly surly. Mirinda had a hilarious exchange with the grumpy woman selling souvenirs.

But enough of the miserable workers…the view from the top was outstanding. The tower rises above the trees so you get an uninterrupted view down and across Prague. Sadly it was a cloudy day – on a fine day it must be incredible – but even so, with a couple of the windows open, it was exhilarating.

Charles Bridge from up the hill

The thing was that it shook, from side to side, in the wind. It was quite disconcerting, lining up for a photograph only to have to compensate for the sideways drift of the tower. I’m not exaggerating. I realise it has to move, otherwise it would just fall over in the next big wind, but it is very obvious.

From the tower we decided to take the funicular back down and have a stroll to the Municipal House for the tour. It was quite a long stroll so, by the time we reached our destination, we were forced to have a coffee and a piece of traditional honey cake each in the splendid cafe.

And then the tour. I was ordered (by my wife) to purchase a photographic pass (you are not allowed to take photographs without one and never with a flash) and then instructed to take as many photographs as possible. This could have numbered in the 1,000s.

An incredibly beautiful place. This is a highly recommended tour for anyone interested in beauty. Our tour guide was a bit annoyed by the rude foreigners who spoke loudly in their own language whenever she said anything interesting in English. Actually, she only spoke English so they yabbered loudly most of the time.

There was a very rude Dane this time. He had a little beard and a Smurf-like countenance but beneath this jolly, blue exterior beat a heart of pure rudeness.

I’m only going to include one photograph of the Municipal House (I’ll, more than likely, make an entire album when I get home) and it is of the concert hall. I include it because it is where we are going tomorrow afternoon for a Christmas Eve concert.

Beautifully ornate

Our guide was lovely, and quite funny in a dry, struggling with English kind of way. I didn’t manage to get her name but here she is mid-flow, telling us about a fish tank.

Our tour guide

After the tour we ended up in the American Bar (the oldest in Prague) for a free beer/prosecco before heading out to see Alice.

Every time we walk through the Old Town Square and the Christmas market, we see the stall selling grilled cheese. Apart from the facts that it smells a bit cheesy and we both love cheese, the brightly coloured varieties in the window are ridiculously intriguing. For that reason, we decided we had to try a grilled cheese tonight.

First of all, it is just cheese, grilled, with a piece of bread. They are moulded into little boat-like shapes and sit on the grill receiving an occasional prod and poke from a peasant-ish old woman in the shawl. There is a sign which, quite handily in English, lets the buyer know it is sheep cheese.

Mirinda threw all but one bite of her’s away. Commandeering her piece of bread, I managed to finish mine. As you’d expect it tasted very strongly of sheep cheese but was warm. Alarmingly and unexpectedly, it squeaked as you bit into it. An odd experience that I’ll not be rushing headlong into trying anytime in the future.

Another odd experience, as I have hinted at, at the beginning of this post, was the wonderfully bizarre Aspects of Alice.

It is the story (very loosely) of Alice as she grows up. Here’s a short impression of what I think it was about:

Alice, all giggly and girly, is enticed into joining a scary and slightly evil, magician by means of an apple. This is to show how easily young girls are drawn away from innocence and into a world of strange, grown-up things…I guess.

Having bitten into the apple, Alice discovers she can do all sorts of magical things which mostly consists of flying. (There was a lot of flying and it looked really good.)

During her journey she meets all manner of people. A couple of old giant men who spent a lot of time touching her (they are puppets), two hilarious clowns who teach her to walk on a wobbly pole, unaided (this was my favourite bit), a couple of humanheaded fish (I don’t know why) and two sets of naked female legs.

Now this is where it starts getting a bit adult in nature. During the first half, it’s all very much a child-like entertainment. Possible because Alice is still the child she was. There was at least one child in the audience. But in the second half it all gets a bit steamy. I didn’t see what happened to the child.

After Alice meets the legs, she next sits in a chair, the back of which is a naked back. A second head appears and the two heads float around a bit. This then vanishes (you have to remember this is all live on stage and the effects are very clever) and the evil, scary, magician returns. Also, two naked girls appear.

One of the girls is Alice, the other is…I don’t know, maybe the representation of young Alice. Anyway, they have a bit of stroking fun until, eventually, Alice is alone with the magician. At this stage we realise she is just topless and is, modestly, wearing pants.

Then the magician, using a big bit of material, makes a wedding dress and then a baby, for Alice. Finally, she disappears into a strange pagan symbol.

The whole thing was unexpected and truly surreal. We loved it. Possibly for the wrong reasons. Tomorrow’s concert will be very tame in comparison.

We bought an Alice marionette at the theatre to remind us of the weirdness

It’s a bitter pill to swallow when you’re taken for a mug by some scammer. When you pride yourself on being careful and not falling for their tricksy ways, it’s not just bitter but about the size of a horse tablet. I relate the following experience as a lesson for anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation.

Last night we were at an ATM – there were at least two together (lesson number one) – and I withdrew some cash. I was vaguely aware of a guy at the next ATM but, being a good little ATM user I ignored him (lesson number two). Having taken out 3,000CK (about £100) I turned away and was talking to Mirinda when this guy offered to swap a 2,000CK note for four 500s (lesson number three).

Stupidly, I did it. I ended up with four notes which, in the cold light of our hotel room, seem to be Russian. The Czech Republic hasn’t been under Russian rule since the fall of communism in the 1990s.

Here is my defence: It was dark, I am not familiar with the money, I am on holiday, I was clearly not thinking. I accept the fact that I have successfully been taken for a patsy and will now be on my guard even more than usual. For anyone else in a similar situation, here’s my lessons:

1. If you use an ATM, it’s best to use one on it’s own and, preferably during the day rather than in the dark.
2. If it’s unavoidable and you have to use one of multiple ATMs at night and someone uses one next to you, be aware of what they’re actually doing.
3. NEVER swap big notes for small ones with a complete stranger. I still have no idea why I did that.

Anyway, enough metaphorical butt kicking, there’s far nicer things to talk about.

Today was our first full day in Prague. We decided to spend most of it wandering around. The weather was lovely (cold with blue skies) so we walked down to the River Vitava.

The river divides the city in half and there’s quite a few bridges that cross it. The most famous crossing is the Charles Bridge. We decided to walk across the Manestiv Bridge, which is the next one up, and then walk back across the Charles.

We wandered through the back streets that sit beneath the massive castle walls, feeling as lowly as the peasants were meant to feel by such an overbearing structure. Very clever of the castle builders to make the people working feel so far beneath them. And it still works.

Our first site was the very Baroque church of St Nicholas, who was, supposedly the original Father Christmas. It is impressive but ugly and the whole symbolism is about subjugation of those silly enough to believe in supernatural things.

A giant, scary Catholic

The best thing about the church is how you can climb a spiral staircase to a second level (where the organ lives) and look down into the church. To prove that Mirinda and I have some sort of mystical link, she looked up at me when I willed her to do so. As evidenced by this photograph.

Hey, Mirinda, look up!!!

She even managed to walk up the stairs and look down at me.

Mirinda waving at me

Afterwards it was time for a Starbucks and then a lovely stroll across the Charles Bridge. It’s a lovely bridge, with various statues of, mostly, religious people, sticking up out of it. The best thing about it is the fact that it is pedestrianised.

Along the bridge are various stalls selling jewellery, artistic skills and the such-like. All very arty and Mirinda picked up a few bits of jewellery for friends.

Mirinda on the Charles Bridge

On the other side of the bridge we wandered around, finding various odd things, like an art installation by David Cerny which consisted of four gigantic guns all pointed at each other across a courtyard. Not sure what he’s saying with it but it sure looked amazing.

HOLD YOUR FIRE!

We managed to get to the famous astronomical clock a few minutes before the hour and saw the action. People crowd the small area in front of the church just to see it. It’s world famous. It’s better than the Munich clock.

There’s a skeleton that rings a bell, a Jew who has had a shave, a Narcissist complete with mirror and a turbanned Turk. On each hour, the skeleton starts ringing and the Turk starts shaking his head as two big windows open and a procession of saints appear. This goes on for a bit and, finally, there’s supposed to be a chicken flapping it’s wings to indicate the end. We watched the whole thing twice and didn’t see any flapping chicken.

We didn’t hang around in the square for an hour in order to see it twice. We had a very late lunch at a cafe opposite the clock. Mirinda had goulash and I had pig cheeks. While I had a necessary beer, Mirinda bravely tried the hot wine, which she said was lovely…it would have to be better than the hot mead I had last night!

Mmmm, hot wine...

And now, for the highlight of the day. Earlier we’d been admiring a marionette shop and noticed a poster, advertising a marionette show of the Mozart Opera Don Giovanni. It had two performances today. We went for the 5pm performance.

To start with, the theatre is in someone’s attic, up two flights of increasingly shrinking stairs. This wasn’t a problem for us but it did prove rather difficult for the woman in the wheelchair who took about half an hour to drag herself up there.

There was a reasonably sized audience of about 25 for the matinee performance. In a theatre which probably holds about 50, that’s not bad. There seemed to be a majority of Asians (Chinese, Japanese, North Koreans out celebrating) and a smattering of others though I’m fairly certain we were the only Australians.

It’s important to note that neither of us knew the story of Don Giovanni. Generally, with an opera, I’ll look up the story before seeing it and the surtitles generally help a lot. I think humans can convey a lot of the story as well, even when the audience doesn’t understand the language. All of this goes out the window when it’s marionettes performing. The opera plays and the puppets act out the story.

Apart from the slapstick (which we’re pretty certain was made up by the puppets) the entire thing was seriously surreal. Of course, their mouths don’t move so they aren’t even miming to the songs. It runs for an hour and 15 minutes and for the entire time I was sat there, stunned.

The reason for choosing Don Giovanni rather than any number of easier to understand operas, is because Mozart premiered the opera in Prague back in 1787. People around these parts call it their opera because of this. Also Mozart had a bit of a thing for Prague.

While I thought the entire evening was somewhat bizarre, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. Tomorrow we might go and see a piece on Alice in Wonderland after she grows up which isn’t about her in Wonderland. I’m hoping that will be equally as weird.