5 Terre

My final Italian stop saw me heading north again, this time towards the famous national park of Cinque Terre, five tiny villages set into the valleys and peninsulas of the Italy’s northern west coast.

This was only a two night trip, and as there were no CouchSurfing hosts in the area, I had to stay at a hostel. I had picked one called Mar-Mar in the Cinque Terre’s first town, Riomaggiore. I arrived at around 6 o’clock to find that the office was closed but there was a note on the door with the key to the dorm and some exciting instructions as to how to find it. Soon I had found the place and it was nice. It was more like living in an apartment with a large number of beds in each room.

Also here was Jen from Vancouver, David from Tasmania, and Dan and Brad from Colorado. That night we all sat around and ate and talked until late. There really isn’t much to do in Riomaggiore after dark, especially in the low season. This was okay, ‘though, as I knew it was going to be a long day of walking the following day – I wanted to see all the towns in Cinque Terre, hopefully by walking the cliff top paths between them.

In the morning I woke up bright and early to a beautiful sunny day – I had my sights set on heading to the top of the mountain in Riomaggiore to find the sanctury of Monte Nero. After packing my bag with food, clothes and water for the day, I set off up what can’t really be called the “main road” as it’s the only road which cars can go down. At the top of the road I found the visitors centre and went inside to have a chat with the lady. She told me that the only path closed today (previously the entire track had been closed due to bad weather) was that between the second and third villages of Manarola and Coniglia, I would have to take the train.

It was then time to find the hilltop church and I set off along a road that seemed like it might go there. I could see it up the mountainside to my left, and when I found a little overgown staircase a few minutes along the road I decided to take it.

Stairs

This was not exactly an easy climb. The stairs were made of rocks which had been shoved into the hillside in every which direction. The blackberry was overgrown and prone to attack. The mud was slippery, my arm was bruised. Depsite all this, I soon made it to the top of the path, hitting a main road which lead towards Riomaggiore. The church was further up so I began to walk up this road. Unfortunately I never made it. After walking around for what seemed forever, I could not for the life of me find any other way to get up without walking along the main road for what would be far too long. So I headed back down, but not before admiring the view.

Riomaggiore

Cinque Terre coast

It was time to head to town number two, Manarola. The sun was still shining and the path between Riomaggiore and Manarola was open and easy. It was the kind of path which mothers could walk along with prams. It was great to be back by the sea, hearing the waves crash against the cliffs, smelling the salt blowing around.

On the track to Manarola

In around half an hour I arrived in Manarola. I’d been told that this was the most picturesque of all the villages so decided to give it a good dose of exploration. It turned out to be very small but like Riomaggiore, it was filled with little alleys and passages leading to cool views.

Little Manarola view

I kept walking further up the main road and on my left I came to a staircase. Curious, I walked up it and found a path which led along the terraces of olive trees and grape vines growing on the hill. I walked for a bit, and came to a funny looking railing which I realised was used as the track for a small motorised train to haul the produce up and down the hills. Climbing over this put me deeper into the orchardlands, but soon I was in a bit which seemed a bit dangerous so I turned back and headed up the hill further. This gave an amazing view over Manarola.

Big Manarola view

After this it was time to head onto the next town, Corniglia. The path between Manarola and Corniglia was closed to to bad weather the previous week, so I had to take the train. Soon I was there and about five minutes later my camera ran out of batteries. Stupidly, I had not brought along my second battery. I do have pictures from the rest of the adventure, but they were all taken on the Russian Vilia so I will have to develop them when I get home and I don’t know if they will even come out. I hope so!

Anyway, Corniglia starts with a huge zigzagging staircase and up I went being followed by two dogs. Halfway up the analogue camera ran out of film. Luckily I had another roll! Once I got to the top it was pretty apparent that this town was very small and there was not so much to do there, so I quickly looked around, skipped up and down a few alley ways and began the journey to the next town.

This is where the adventure really started. The track here was not pathed like the track between Riomaggiore and Manarola, this was proper bush walking and it was great (aside from the light rain). The path twisted it’s way around the rugged coastline, alternating between grape and olive groves, and Italian forest. About half an hour along the path, I came to a halt. There was a rock which had written on it “free beach,” and an arrow pointing down the cliffs towards the sea. This was interesting. I had to see this free beach. As I stood there deciding what I should do next, a head popped out from the track leading down to said beach. A familiar head of a girl that I had seen walking around earlier.

Upon enquiring about the beach, she said that she hadn’t all the way because it was a little dangerous, she was on her own, and there was an ominous looking tunnel that she’d just have to go in to if she made it down. Next thing we were both on our way down, scaling the perilous cliff, holding on to old rope to stop ourselves from falling to certain maimment (is this a word?).

Her name was Carmen and she was from Torquay in Victoria, Australia. This was good, we both understood the need to get to the beach so there was no turning back now. Decending the cliff, engulfed in bush we came to a presipice which looked a little ugly. Not to worry, ‘though, there wasn’t time for wimping out. So, with out weight towards the land, we scurried across the gravel which fell under our feet. Soon, out of the bush we emerged into an olive grove. Also included in this area were two abanodned houses and one which looked lived in, though I have no idea how anyone could get the things there to live. There was also a man wandering around, apparently according to Carmen. I never saw him. Soon we had made it to the bottom and it looked tricky to get to the actual beach so we decided to check out what seemed like an old train tunnel. It still could have been, but when we go inside it just stopped. Maybe it was a train house, who knows. At the back there was light streaming in, so we headed towards that and luckily for us, it lead us to a path down to the beach – one which haden’t collapsed in some kind of land slide.

Down at the beach the swell was pretty fierce but we were both glad to have made it. The heavy swell pulled the rocks along each other, creating an all too familiar rumbling sound, and the sand looked like the black sand of home. Soon enough we had our shoes off and were running around in what little sand there was. It was good to finally be on a beach!

After a short time there, we decided to head back up the cliff, a journey which seemed to take about half the time of getting down, even though we went a longer way. At the top, we advised a man who looked about 70 that is was probably not a good idea to go down there. And then along we walked, further along the path through the olive and grape groves. Then there was the sound of mewing, and out pops a cat from the forest. Meow meow, one breadstick, and a lot of us following him brought us too a crazy picnic table with a bucket full of cans of cat food, and about 4 other cats all going crazy. There was a sign on the bucket which asked people to use the food to feed the cats, so that’s what we did. Yum, yum, yum, jelly meat and an old haggard spoon. But the cats were happy.

Onward we continued and soon enough we had made it to the fourth town named Vernazza. This was definitely my favourite town and I’m pretty annoyed that my carmera had run out of batteries because the afternoon sunlight was amazing. Here we did not spend so much time because we knew it would get dark soon, but we did have a rest down at the waters edge by a man made sea wall, filled with local fishermen. I stood upon the wall, feeling the waves crash against it as Carmen sat down below. As beautiful as the town was, we soon decided that we better get going soon as it would get dark pretty fast and shortly we were back on the track, this time through proper forest with no orchards or groves of any kind. This track went up and up and up and we were both knackered pretty soon from the constant staircase walking, especially at the pace we were making to try and beat the sunset.

The next thing we knew we were decending the hill again, back down towards the final town, Monterosso. But on the way down we were distracted by a man sitting in a little hut. “Ciao!” we greeted him and saw that we was selling drinks, including his home made mulled wine which we bought and both thoroughly enjoyed. He told us that we were the only people who had walked past that day, and we sat and had a crazy conversation with him about allsorts of topics, mostly travel and his exwife and son in Vienna. He said that he had lived his whole life in the Cinque Terre and spoke English, German, Spanish and Italian without one lesson of any of them. Now that’s enouragement for the rest of us! While we were sitting and talking, darkness fell and he was offering us a ride up the hill on his little motorised train/motorbike thing which ran on a rail to the top of the hill. So in we got and off he went, only getting stuck for power in one place. It was steep and crazy, but heaps fun, holding on for dear life so neither of us would fall out of the trailer.

Once at the top, he was off down the hill on his Vespa, and we were walking down towards Monterosso on the road. When we made it to the village, we passed a wine shop which was still open and were called inside by the same man who had given us the drink and the lift for free pesto and wine tasting. The red pestro was absolutely amazing (sorry Mum, I couldn’t bring any home).

We caught the train back to Riomaggiore, and just when we thought the day’s craziness was over, we met a 67 year old lady who had just retired and “exploded” was artistic produce, mostly performance art. She the showed us many photos of her in action, including many of her in very litle clothes which were a little disturbing, especially seeing I could not understand a word she was saying. Carmen managed to have a full conversation with her in Italian which I though was very impressive – she said it was the first time this had ever happened too!

Soon we were back to Riomaggiore and the adventure was over. Neither of us could stop thinking about how crazy it was, but we needed to relax, so we headed to Carmen’s apartment which she was staying in and cooked some pasta, drank some wine and watched a terrible B-grade vampire film dubbed into Italian. It was terrible. And that was that. Crazy, crazy, crazy, awesome! I hope all of you reading this get to go to Cinque Terre, it’s an absolutely amazing place!

Scandinavia Initiation: Copenhagen

After a 15 hour overnight train ride, I made it from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. I was sleeping in a little cabin on a very wobbly train. The cabin looked a little like this:

Sleeping Train

On the train I met Bob. Well, I really met him at the information desk at Amsterdam Station. I was there trying to find out which platform my train was going from as I didn’t really believe what I had been told earlier by someone else. He was doing the same thing, except he was clad in leather. Bob was also a Canadian art-director. We got onto the train, talked about all manner of things, but by far the most interesting was the fact that he was travelling around with an 8mm video camera and another oldschool 120 film camera. We’ll come back to Bob.

The other interesting character I met on the train, his name is unknown to me. He arrived in my cabin around midnight during our stop at Cologne and was the first person on this trip who has accurately guessed that I’m from New Zealand and not Australia. We got talking after having to deal with an unruley and obtrusive suitcase belonging to a travelling Jamacian who just sat there in his Timberlands eating piles of junkfood for the entire journey. The talk was definitely interesting, he was a Baroque harpsicord player who travelled once a month from Copenhagen to Cologne for lessons. We talked for around 2 hours, and I think the most intersting thing he told me was how the train system works. The night trains which travel through Germany all stop at Hanover at around 2am. At hanover, depending where the passengers are going (and they are separated by carraiges), the trains start this crazy system of swapping carriages before heading to their final destination. This is why I was initally confused. The sign for my train said Copenhagen, Cologne, Prague, Warsaw and a couple more!

After 15 hours in the wobbely train, we arrived at Copenhagen central in the rain. Although we were in different hostels, Bob and I decided to meet at the station the following day for a wander around. So we parted ways, him walking into town and me taking another train out to the damned airport! Why did I choose the Airport Hostel Copenhagen? Because it was cheap. After a 25 minute walk to the hostel from the airport, a cold shower, and a 25 minute walk back, I had returned to the train going back into the city.

(I can see this becoming far, far, too long. I might have to speed things up a bit!)

I hit the town. I saw the world’s largest carousel.

World's Largest Carousel

Then I witnessed some Mexican buskers, one of which was playing the panpipes while holding their DVD and CDs and constantly glancing over to me (and I suppose everyone else):

Mexican Buskers

Next I walked into the shopping street where I proceeded to lose a small-yet-annoying amount of money to a street gambler. Those of you who know me know that I am not one for the gambling. Don’t ask me why I did it. I only went in for a wee look at what all the fuss was about, then next thing I knew I had my wallet open and a group of Danish men crowding around it, counting how much money I had, and then I had nothing left. That was one lesson learnt the hard way.

I left that scene swiftly and went for a wander around the city. I saw important buildings, pedestrian roads, crazy churches, canals and interesting modern architecture. And statues, oh the statues. Of all the cities I have been in, Copenhagen would be the city of statues. They are absolutely everywhere. I spent a few hours wandering around, but after a restless nights sleep, I became pretty tired pretty fast, but this was ok as I was about to return to my hostel – and a huge party! Just what I needed.

The party went on, the music was terrible, and the bass reverberated throughout the entire house. I finally managed to go to sleep around 3am. This was not all an annoyance ‘though. I met some cool people from Germany, Sweden, Syria, Poland and many more places. But sleeping was a must, the next day was to be a big adventure.

I met up with Bob at the central train station at 12 o’clock and off we set for an extensive wander around the city. Our first stop was the (once) freetown of Christiania. Christiania is an old military base which was taken up by squatters in the late ’70s. For years it was occupied by free-spirits, hippies, yoga afficinados and people of similar ilk. Rules had been set, hash-trade was legal but there was no tolerace of gun, hard drugs or stolen property. This all ended in 2004 when the government raided the freetown, forcing the hash-trade to go underground and change the life in Christiania forever. It is said that within a few years that the community many not even exist, with plans for developments such as a golf course to be undertaken.

Entrance To Christiania

Turkish food was scoffed on the way back into town, and we decided to visit some of the more historical sites of the city. Half of our walk was us looking at the same things that both of us had seen the previous day. We walked down towards the river and found a street full of different coloured buildings:

Colourful!

Further walking saw us finding the statue of the Little Mermaid. We both knew about this statue but neither of us had originally thought we would see it – this happened by mistake as we were headed towards the Freidericksburg Fort, a star shaped inland island complete with bridges, cannons, buildings which was originally self-sustaining. Oh and the first proper windmill which I had seen!

The Little Mermaid

Freidericksburg Fort Windmill

We had been walking for hours and had covered most of the inner city, so after the fort there was only one placce left to visit for the day, the Royal Gardens.  As we were walking there, we spotted one of the coolest bike stores I’ve ever seen. This place made its own bikes, including the frames, and let the buy choose all the options, colours, etc. How grand!

Bike-tastic!

Then it was on to the Royal Gardens, public gardens which are locked at night and house a large number of crazy sculptures. And afterward, for me, almost an hour more walking + a train ride to get back to the hostel.  Luckily for me that night there was no party. Most of the hostel had cleared out and there was only 5 of us left – two german girls, another NZer and I, and a girl from Malta – who just chilled out and watched some well deserved films.

St. Bob and the Dragon

The following day, Ricky, the other NZer, had left. The girl from Malta was moving into an apartment with a Chinese boy, and the German girls  and I decided to have one last look around town before we all left the hostel. They were intent of buy presents for their entire extended family + friends, even though their holiday was only 4 days. So, after much, much, shopping, we decided to check out the Round Tower. I had some documentation but I’ve now lost it so could not tell you what the use of this tower was, but now if you like, you can ascend the never-ending circular ramp all the way to the top and involve yourself in a spectacular view of the city.

View from Round Tower

There was one last stop before we departed for the afternoon, that was the Almond Man. I had seen these around, and they smelt so good that I had to have some – pronto! I’m not exactly sure what these are, but they are Almonds that are coated in some kind of caramelized, crunchy and sweet coating. They tasted amazing, expsecially the hot ones, but after a while you actaully felt very ill. All three of us decided that we weren’t feeling too good after this, unfortunate cconsidering the magnitude of the taste!

Almond Man

“Goodbye,” I said to the German girls, and headed back to the airport to pick up my bags, where I then headed right back on to the train, bound for town. I had slept two nights in the hostel, but I was here for four – the next two were my third CouchSurfing experience. Mee and Mathias were both Business School students (Mathias also produces synth music for advertising, TV and film) who lived together in a pretty massive three bedroom apartment in Freidericksberg. For two more nights I stayed with them. The only full day I was at their place, I actaully only left the house to get something to eat, the rest of the time I spent planning the next stage of my trip and trying to begin to organise how I was getting to the north of Norway.

The following day at 11:32am I was off on another train, leaving overcast Copenhagen for sunny Gothenburg!

Things I Did In Amsterdam

As I’m writing this on a night train to Copenhagen, I’ve decided to change the format for this post. Usually I write things in a pretty linear format: this day, then that happened and it keep adding up. This post will just be a series of points with no time structure, hence the title ‘Things I Did In Amsterdam.’

I spent hours each day walking around the ’straats’ (streets) and ‘grachts’ (canals) until I was too tired to walk any longer. I got lost many a time. They told me the city is shaped like an onion, I prefer to think of it as a rainbow with veins.

Amsterdam Canal

I slept in a dorm with two Swedish girls who were horribly ill, fearing that I might catch what ever they had.

I almost got hit by a bike while using a pedestrian crossing.

Bicycles!

I visited one or two of the famous Amsterdam coffeeshops and then proceeded to wander around the city in marvel at almost everything. I also went onto a balcony and who ever was on the balcony above me was having a laughing fit, which in turn I contracted, me laughing at some guy I couldn’t see and vice versa.

I went on a pub crawl, drank too much then went for felafal with two Canadians. Before our kebabs were ready, the store workers brought us each a bowl of an onion-tomato mix and a bowl of tatziki for putting on said kebab. Being in the state we were, the three of us just started scooping out the onions with the spoon, dipping them in the tatziki and eating them. The sauces were gone before the kebabs arrived, half of it in our stomachs, the other half all over our faces. Following that, we managed to cover the entire table in lettuce. I highly doubt the store owners were impressed.

I went on a walking tour of the city and learnt the history of how Amsterdam was built from just a marsh. How drugs and prostitution become the norm, why all the buildings look like the are leaning over (and they actually are) and a whole lot of other interesting facts about the city.

Leaning Houses

I walked around the Red Light District and checked out the nice ladies in the windows.

I went to the Anne Frank House. The place where Anne Frank and her family hid in an annex behind her fathers office for 2 years during WWII. This was amazing and utterly moving.

I went to the Sex Museum and saw all sorts of artifacts from ancient Greece and Asia, to modern day porn that you wouldn’t tell your friends about.

I taught a small-town Swedish girl to play snap and then I proceeded to lose for an hour. She then taught me how to shuffle cards (by God am I clumsy with cards).

I caught up with Isa, a girl that Matt and I met in Byron Bay when we backpacked around Australia in 2006.

I saw a hidden Catholic church from the days with Catholosism was banned.

Hidden Catholic Church

I shopped in the ‘Nine Streets’ district and bought myself a pretty cool t-shirt after trying on some pixie pants. I also found an excellent market with the craziest used clothes stand ever – it was just a tarpolin with mountains of awesome clothes on it. Crazy! Mama, you’d be in heaven.

I wished all you guys reading this had been there to share this with me. We are definitely all coming to Amsterdam one day, it is so awesome!

I ♥ Berlin

From Prague we drove to Berlin. Initially I hadn’t planned to visit the city, but I’m now very glad that I did. What an amazing place!

We arrived in Berlin in the afternoon, found our hostel (Ollie and Xanthe even agreed to join Willy and I there) and got settled in.  After a short while, Willy and I took a walk around our Eastern Berlin suburb and ended up at what is now known as the East Side Gallery. Rather than being an actual art gallery, this is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall which has been turned into an area decorated by local artists in memory of Berlin’s past.

East Side Gallery

The following day we decided to check out one of the free walking tours which was on offer. This one was run by a company called New Europe and it was really pretty good. Our guide Maria took us around numerous sites within the city over approximately 3 and a half hours, all the while being incredibly enthusiastic and knowledgable even though she was actually from Sweden! A few of the sites we saw were Hitler’s Bunker, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off of the  balcony, various Jewish and Catholic churches, Museum Island, the Jewish Memorial, the book burning square, Berlin Wall + heaps more. It was incredibly informative and amazingly interesting. Berlin is a city with so much history it is unbelievable!

Jewish Memorial

Brandenburg Gates

That night we decided it would be a good idea to go on the pub crawl run by the tour company. It took us to a number of bars in the central Berlin region (three of which I remember) and was pretty fun. There was heaps of free drinks and plenty of people to party with!

The next day I was feeling marginal to say the least. But that wasn’t going to stop us going on the Berlin ‘Alternative Tour.’ The idea of this was to take people around the sites of Berlin which you wouldn’t usually see as a tourist. It was not as informative as the regular tour but we went to some interesting places. Of particular importance to this tour was art. We saw so much street art and began to hear some of the stories behind it.

Little Lucy

Little Lucy (above right), for example, is a character seen sprayed up all over town. It is a story which follows the antics of a little girl named Lucy who is given a cat as a present but soon finds out that the cat does not work as a ‘toy’ should. The above picture is just one of many Little Lucy pieces around town. Around this corner from this Lucy was a very cool steam-punk style mechanical bat-like monster which hissed and flapped it’s wings after a euro was inserted into it. Very cool.

Mechanical Bat-Monster

The tour also took us to a pretty cool rooftop beach bar, a faux waterfall, an apartment building on which all the support pillars are painted with famous faces – called the 50 Faces Gallery – , a shop which sold camping equipment, absinthe, and bongs, and a really cool place – the name of which i forget, which has been an artist squat for a number of years. The entire building was covered in graffiti both inside and out, and you could go inside and talk to the artists and stuff, it was an amazing place but sadly I hear it has been commissioned for demolition. I also managed to buy a pretty cool jacket from a 2nd hand shop which sold its clothes by weight!

Inside the artist squat

On the way back from this tour, we happened to bump into a Hamburg-Berlin road rally, containing some awesome cars.

Kadett C, Hamburg-Berlin rally

That night we decided to go into town and see what was going on.  What was going on was the prostitution scene. In Germany, street prostitution is legal so long as the girl is registered and paying tax, etc. Willy and I were accosted by these women who looked like high profile pornstars on at least 3 occassions, all of them wanting to know if we were keen for pleasure. One even offered for us to take two girls back and swap half way through! Europe is crazy! And I thought NZ was quite liberal… it dosen’t seem so after seeing things like this.

The next day was shopping day. Willy bought shoes, I bought a t-shirt (but not ’till later in the day). We really just chilled out and checked out the local scene. We also thought about going up the TV tower but the line was ridiculously long. The next day it was time to leave on a train: 6 hours to Amsterdam!

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!