Prague and all it’s wonderous tourists

Our first night in Prague was the last night we would be camping, well, that Willy and I would be anyway. It was proving more of a nuisence than anything else – most of the campgrounds were far from the city centres and the lack of facilities was becoming frustrating.

We stayed in a camp ground which had almost nothing. The showers were button operated which you had to press evvery 5 seconds to keep the water running, there was no laundry and the only computer which had the internet was taken over by the local cab driver, a huge man who spent all day playing starcraft waiting for someone from the bar who wanted to be taken home. Unfortunately for him I doubt that anyone would really want to go to that bar unless they were staying at the campground.

The morning after, Willy and I packed up our gear and said goodbye to the camping experience with Ollie and Xanthe. We headed into Prague town and after a confusing start to the public transport system and an encounter with a hotel receptionist who seemed like she was on speed whislt giving us directions, we found our hostel. For this leg of the trip we had booked a two bed room which was nice, although the beds were even less comfortable than staying in the tent. But oh well, sleeping wasn’t really the reason for this trip.

After we were all set up, we headed into town by tram. The first thing you notice about Prague is that it is completely overrun by tourists. You can barely even see any of the sights and attractions which you have come to see through the washes of people. I have never been anywhere like this in my life, absolutely out of control. Lunch was had and we headed towards the sights. The good thing abour Prague is that everything is pretty much in walking distance so we found the Astronomical Clock with ease. This is pretty awesome, it not only shows the time, but also moon phases, solstices, constelations, and even tells you what you should be doing on ach day of the year regarding crop havesting and such activities.

Prague's Astronomical Clock

Next we walked towards the river and headed over Charles Bridge. This was like a sea of tourists, buskers, portrait artists and other gypsys selling all sorts of goods. There is no way you can even take a photo of this bridge unless you move to a much further away location (which we did).

Charles Bridge

We followed the river side for a while and came across an incredibly steep street which for some reason we decided it would be a good idea to walk up. This was not a bad plan in the scheme of things, as at the top was the entrance to Prague Castle, and was was possibley the most disappointing castle of my trip so far. Again there were so many tourists it was out of control and it just didn’t really seem all that regal. It could have been easily built in the last 100 years. But inside it was not all bad, there was a pretty amazing Romanesque church called Basilica of St George. We went inside briefly but decided that we would return tomorrow to take decent photos and have a better look around

St. Vitus Cathedral

Other than this, the view over Prague was pretty amazing from up on the hill.

View from Prague Castle

We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around the alleys and streets of the Old Town. That evening we met up with one of Willy’s old friends, Brendon, who had moved to Europe about 2 years earlier and Prague around a year ago. He took us out to dinner and both Willy and I had a pretty nice chicken spaghetti. Afterwards he took us to a street with a couple of bars and we spent the night hanging out at one which upon secondary inspection was incredibly seedy – there was even a group of drug dealers hanging out by the toilets totally known by the bar staff. After a few beers here we left and headed back to the hostel.

The following day our route of the sights was pretty similar. We saw the clock and castle again in the morning, we saw even more tourists than the day before and decided against going back into the Basilica of St George as the line was huge but we did see the changing of the guards which was very cool. We met Brendon again, this time for lunch. I had was turned out to be a ‘very Czech’ meal of potatoe, ham and onion dumpings on cabbage. After lunch we decided to head up to what can only be described as a giant metronome, situated on the hills next to the castle. We ascended the 200 or so steps and ended up in a place that obviously not many tourists make it to, it was all in pretty bad condition! Thankfully there was also a beer garden next to the metronome so we headed there and had a beer in the heat of the day.

Giant Metronome

That night we encountered something very interesting: the guy who wanders around trying to get people to visit the largest strip club in Prague. His speil went something like this:

“Hey guys, you like sexy girls? Come to our cabaret show! We have over 50 girls; African girls, Indian girls, Russian girls… girls from Slovakia, Czech Republic, everywhere. We have live sex shows, lesbisex shows, snake shows and even midgets if you like that. Maybe you like the big girls, 200 pounds plus, we have those too if you are into that. You can even have private dance, lap dance, table dance, dance in our limosine. And at the end of the night we can take you back to your hotel for free and if you like you can take any of the girls home with you. If you like your night and want to come back tomorrow, we can give you a number and we will pick you up from your hotel too.”

We politely declined and for the rest of the night checked out a few other bars and joked about how ridiculous that strip club was.

The next day we met up with Ollie and Xanthe again for our final car ride from Prague to Berlin!

Českỳ Krumlov

The afternoon after we left Vienna, we crossed the boarder into the Czech Repbulic. We were on route to Českỳ Krumlov, a town of similarity to Bruges but of course in a more Eastern European vain.

Upon crossing the boarder, the landscape changed drastically. The language on all the signs changed from German to Czech and the only buildings to be seen were large numbers of small casinos hiding behind a patina facade. Not only could you see a casino everywhere you looked, but almost every 500m you could find yourself a brothel or prostitute hanging around on the side of the road. Whether they were looking to be picked up, or just for a ride to the next town we didn’t find out.

Soon we had arrived at our campsite in Českỳ Krumlov, and after being yelled at in Czech by some woman trying to tell us where we could and couldn’t park, we finally managed to arrange accommodation for the night and set up out tents.

Once all was arranged, we took our first walk, through the streets with more casinos, over a bridge resembling the one from Beetlejuice, past some derelict and abandonded buildings, and into the heart of the old town – a place with variable altitude, littered with cobblestones, hosting a river and overlooked by a castle. This small town had almost everything a small town should. It even had a multitude of tourists – in fact, they seemed to be the only people there!

Beetlejuice Bridge

Českỳ Krumlov from the castle tower

Again we were only here for one night (which really was enough), so we decided to make the most of it. We spent the afternoon wandering around the town, exploring all nooks and crannys but leaving the castle for the following day. Dinner was had and it was time to check out some bars. By far the one which stood out was called the Horor Bar. This was housed underground with stone floor, and a rounded stone wall/ceiling. It came inclusive with skeletons and other props to add to the horror theme. Willy also decided it would be a good place to try out the local absinthe. And by God, this absinthe was like nothing I’ve ever had before. I’m pretty sure we were drinking pure alcohol infused with wormwood. But it was cool as it came complete with the absinthe spoon and caramelised sugar – it just killed you to drink it. The look on Willy’s face upon tongue contact was hilarious.

Horor Bar

That night we slept next to a tent housing the loudest snoarer I’ve ever experienced.

In the morning we packed up, and as Ollie and Xanthe pissed around, Willy and I walked into town to check out the castle. To be honest, it’s not much of a castle, but it does have a pretty cool old tower which you are able to climb.

Českỳ Krumlov Castle

It also has a bear moat. Yes, that is correct – and the bears are still in there. I guess they would have thrown prisoners down into it back in the day.

Bear Moat

But I think, by far the best part of Českỳ Krumlov for me, was the dungeon sculpture gallery in the castle. This was a three level network of underground passageways and dungeons set under the castle which housed some interesting sculpture. I did take a lot of photos in there, but it was so dark that most of them came out blurry. ‘Tis rather annoying.

That afternoon it was time to leave again, the schedule was becomming a little to fast! But we were off to that magical city, Prague.

Austrian Truths

Again we camped. This time in Vienna, the captial of Austria. It was a short trip, but for some us it was too long.

We were staying in west Vienna and on the afternoon we arrived, not a whole lot happened. Willy found an air matress after nights of sleeping on the ground, and Xanthe cooked us an awesome vegetarian nachos for dinner as we sat around out tents, chatting and drinking a few local beers.

We had only really given ourselves one day to look around Vienna. It was probably not long enough, but we weren’t really sure what there was to do anyway. The morning after we arrived, we took the bus and train into the town centre. I guess you could say that we spent the morning looking at the stuff that every other tourist does. The National Opera House, Butterfly House, National Library, Parliment and more. It was a terribly hot day (days that we are now missing), but we endevoured to keep walking and see all that we wanted to.

National Library

One more museum

After these inital sights, Xanthe and I decided to visit the Sigmund Freud museum which was actually housed in the clinic which he had used before he was (possibly) exciled to the United Kingdom. After walking up a flight of stairs, you had to ring the doorbell – it almost felt like you were there to visit Dr. Freud for a psychoanalysis! To be honest, the museum was only mildly interesting. There was little on display about the work and ideas of Freud, and a lot of pictures of him or collections of the pipes he smoked and then a huge section on the work of his daughter. I was a little disappointed but all in all I think it was worth seeing.

Door to Freud's clinic

After this we wandered along the road (for about an hour) to check out a huge apartment building with a facade designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. This was pretty cool, but unfortunately the museum inside was a little dear for me to enter so Willy and I made our way back to the camp ground.

Hundertwasser Museum

And this is where the stereotyping begins. I’m sure all of you know about the history of Austria and sexual deviancy and crime. Remember the basement incident not long ago? As you can probably well imagine, much joking about the state of Austria was made during our stay there, but when Xanthe and Ollia made it back to the camp ground and said “yeah, we’re over Austria” it was clear that something had happened. As it turns out, Xanthe and Ollie were on the train, minding their own business when and old man (65ish) comes and sits down opposite Xanthe. The trip continues until Xanthe shifts her eyes and realises that this partucilar old man is learing at her, penis in hand, furiously masturbating. She froze and he shuffled off before Ollie had the time to do anything about it! Gross but possibly more expected here than anywhere else in Europe?

The next morning we promptly left.

Munich and Close By

On the Monday after our exciting weekend at Adenau and the Nurburgring, Ollie, Willy and I headed for Munich where we were to pick up Ollie’s girlfriend Xanthe and stay for a few nights. The drive was long and blocked with traffic – not the autobahn we had all heard of with people doing max speed – but we finally made it to Munich train station where Xanthe was waiting after her trip from Zurich. We all packed into the Peugeot and headed off to find another campground.

The ground which we settled at was in an outer suburb of Munich in a nice tree-filled area containing a zoo and golf course and river and more. For this leg of the trip we had decided to stay in the campground’s ‘cabins’. These turned out to be nothing more than caravans parked up in a back corner of the camp ground. Two rooms and four beds to each caravan.

Camping in style

That evening, Willy and I decided to walk up to the shops which we had seen earlier to try and find something to eat. I wouldn’t say the idea was a mistake, more so we made a mistake in choosing the direction to leave the campground. And after over an hour of walking passed abandoned houses, corn maizes and roadside life-size crucifixes, we had to ask someone where to find food. This led us on another walk for 20 or so minutes until we found what turned out to be a rather marginal Italian restaurant. After dinner we took the metro into the city and had a good walk around, scoping out the place for future referance so we could make the most of the upcomming days. We decided to taxi back to the camp ground – we had no idea how to get back that would take any less than a number of hours.

The following day we got up early and headed out to the BMW showroom and museum. The showroom is an architectural marvel designed by Zaha Hadid. The museum itself was amazing. The presentation and interior design was immaculate and the information accurate and very entertaining. They had one of almost every type of BMW you could think of from E21s to Isettas to DTM race M3s and CSLs, M1s, motorbikes and concept cars. Of most interest was the Gina concept car which appears to morph rather than swing open doors and bonnets. It is truely amazing.

BMW Museum

Gina

That afternoon we headed into town to take a look around. The first thing which you notice about Munich is that it is an amazingly walkable city. Almost the entire CBD-kinda area is pedestrian friendly with very little roads. And there were shops selling anything and everything you could want – finally I could buy some ledahousen (not that I did!). The clothes shops I found to be the most interesting because there was many outfits which were purely German in style. We also managed to check out some of the more historic sites including the town hall and square, and many of the crazy statues of Lions that Europe has to offer.

Red flowers and buildings

The following day it was time to leave Munich and head for Vienna. We decided that we would leave in the afternoon after taking a visit to Dachau, the first of the German concentration-camps used in World War II. Dachau was full of history, but bleak and grim in its atmosphere. I dont think that either Willy or I said one word to each other the entire time we were there, it almost felt disrespectful to talk when you were standing in one of the cruelest places in modern history. Just being there as visitors, we were unable to really understand the experience of what it would have been like to be taken from your home and family and housed there against your will. Still standing are the solitary confinement and special prisoner bunker, one of the sleeping houses and the crematorium and gas chamber (which thankfully was never used at Dachau). We returned to the car still almost in silence.

Dachau

We commenced the trip to Vienna. The day was about to brighten up as we were taking a detour to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Fussen, the castle of Mad King Ludwig II which was the inspiration for the Disneyland Castle. It was set up in the mountains of southern Germany and was absolutely amazing. Although only built around 200 years ago, it had the feel of a real medieval castle, complete with towers and walls and forest surrounding it. It was definitely very cool to see a real castle of this type!

Schloss Neuschwanstein

That night we camped not far from the Austrian border, it had got late and we decided to continue our trip to Vienna the following day.

Retro Rides!

On Thursday last week it was about time to leave London. I had been there for too long and finally the date had come for my departure. I was off to Southend-On-Sea, a trip which I had planned months prior to even leaving New Zealand.

The main reason for the trip to Southend was to catch a lift to Gaydon in Warwickshire for the UK Retro-Rides Gathering, very similar to the yearly national meet we have for oldschool.co.nz. Lots of people, lots of cars. Anyway, I took the train to Southend. Well, I took the second train as the one I had booked was cancelled (which stressed me out a tiny bit, but proved to be nothing to worry about at all). On arrival I was picked up by Mark from Retro-Rides in his wide-rimmed, stretched-tyre’d, slammed VW Polo, and after a bumpy ride we arrived at his house.

I was not there long as he was just picking me up. Soon we drove over to Mark’s friend Ged’s place, where I was to stay for the night. That night we ate dinner together, talked rubbish, and they bought me a selection of “beers I have never had before” to drink. Proper British ales.

England's Gold Ale

The next morning it was time to head to Gaydon, but first Ged decided to show me around Southend while Mark did some last minute work on his cars. We drove down to the sea. The day was amazing, one of the finest days I had experienced in England since I had arrived – this summer is very wet! As the weather was nice, we decided to walk to the end of the Southend Pier, the longest lesiure pier in the world.

Southend Pleasure Pier

The pier stretches 1.3 miles (2.1km) from the shoreline out into the sea, so it took a wee while to walk the distance. It turns out that at the end of the pier there used to be a ball room, until it burnt down. There also used to be a number of pubs and restaurants, but they also burnt down, leaving only the rusted steel foundations behind. After a look around the end of the pier, we took the train back along it towards the shore, it was now time to head to Retro-Rides.

We arrived at Mark’s and almost immediately, it was time to leave. Mark and I headed off in his 500 horsepower MkIII Cortina Van, Ged followed close behind in Mark’s supercharged v6 MkIII Cortina Wagon, and bringing up the rear was Mark and Ged’s wives in Ged’s son’s Chevette hatch.

Mark's MKIII Cortinas

Around 3 hours later, we arrived at the Gaydon Heritage Motor Museum, the  spot where the Retro-Rides show was to happen. Camping was the accommodation of the time, but I had no tent! Luckily a member of the gm-t.co.nz forum, Euan, had brought one for me, and amazingly it was brand new and better than any other tent I’ve ever used (he even gave it to me at the end, amazing generousity)! A blow up matress was even included in the package.That night we walked around, talked to a few people, had some beers and a bbq, but all hit the sack relatively early as we were all pretty tired after the journey up.

[image camp site]

The next day was more of the same. Mucking around, talking to people, bbqing, etc – everyone was waiting for the following day, the car show. Oh, and we also went to Santa Pod dragstrip, but to be completely honest, I find drag racing to be pretty boring. We were there much longer than I would have liked too! Gah! But it was OK, because the next day was the show!

[show from above]

Which was pretty amazing. Not only were there hundreds of excellent cars, there was free entry to British motor museum. We spent the day walking around the museum’s car park, looking at all these great cars. Some which I had seen in magazines, other’s from the internet which I had always admired and plenty of other excellent cars. It was especially cool to see one of those MK1 Golfs with the ridiculously tidy engine bay!

[car]

[car]

[car]

To be honest, it is a huge effort to get pictures for this, there are hundred of them and I don’t have the time to upload them all just now. I’ll chuck up a few and then the others later.

I am also changing the sizes of the images on Flickr, it takes way to long to upload all these pictures at 4 meg each.

*note for later,

I will add in the images soon! There are a lot to process.