Last Saturday in Europe

Saturday 28 July 2012 –A lazy, beery day in Prague and our last weekend in Europe.

Day 106 and 53 to go

The thunder is rumbling overhead and the rain has lulled to just a drizzle at the moment. It opened up earlier, just as we were almost home. Our washing was bound to be wet again. Bugger.

We had a very lazy start to our day. No alarms to wake us we slept through til 8am. Paul was up having a shower and then returned to get busy working on the water pump trying to reinstall the one-way valve that he seemed to manage. Yeah.

I got up, had breakfast, collected our large bag of washing that I gave to the house owner to do for us in her machine and then I went for a shower.

When I returned we went to the outdoor area to use the net and to play cards while we waited the 2 hours for our washing. It was starting to warm up and became quite humid while we sat there. The time disappeared fairly quickly and once we had our washing back we were able to, have a quick bite and catch the 12noon bus back into Prague. We swapped to the tram that would take us to Prague Castle. The tram was packed with other tourists seeking to do the same.

Once off the tram we wandered through some of the Castle gardens and then entered the castle walls via the Powder Bridge to check out the largest castle complex in the world.  We wandered into St George Square and then into the Basilica, that was so tall and full of beautiful stained glass windows.
We wound our way passed opulent buildings and over the cobbled streets before emerging again at another gate. As we were not interested in going in to any of the buildings we decided to make our way down the street and back onto the tram this time heading for the next stop on Paul’s beer tour; Pivodum where Paul tried their sour cherry and abbey beers. He said they were the best he had had on the trip so far and seeing he had had just a few I believed him.

With the first pub down we got back on the tram to arrive at our next stop; U Fleku. This place was very deceiving as it appeared small from the road but it actually reached out way back with an enormous beer garden. While Paul had their dark beer, we were offered a shot each of the local liquor, a heavy clove and cinnamon mix. It was a little hard to sip but was more manageable with the ice cream and fruit we ordered. 

Stop two completed we walked about 400m to Novomestsky Pivovar, a brewery and restaurant. Paul had a tasting plate of 4 beers – banana, ginger, coffee and caramel. He followed this up with one of their dark beers. Where we sat there were large copper kettles on show.

Ok so you can see the beers mounting up and we were only half way through. We walked on to a small brewery, U Tri Ruzi. This was not on the list but was somewhere we had passed previously so we stopped in and Paul had another dark beer.

Across the street was the final bar on the tour, U Zlatheo Tygra. It is a tiny pub and one of the oldest in Prague. When we walked in we were greeted by a an arrogant bar man who grunted instructions at us. Paul had a beer while I attempted to fan away the smoke fumes. If I never see or smell another cigarette in my life it will be too soon. With the beer downed we beat a hasty exit with Paul giving the barman a few choice words on our way out.

Our final beer stop was U Medvidku another brewery over a large area. Paul was here to try the Oldgott and the X33. We shared a table with 4 Russian blokes who were friendly but somewhat sleazy. They were very impressed when they realised we were from Australia sharing their food and having their photo taken with us. Paul enjoyed the beers greatly. He said the X33 was a great dessert beer, but he could not have too much as it was very strong and would have him pissed too quickly.  As it was with all the beer he had had this afternoon, he was struggling to stay awake and out of the loo.

We left the pub in search of food, but had to stop in a small square for the loo again. While Paul found an underground one to frequent I stayed in the square to listen to a violinist and piano accordionist play. They were quite hypnotic. We sat and listened to them for a while before crossing the street and having dinner at a local restaurant. I enjoyed a lovely glass of Italian chardonnay with my pasta.

With our bellies full and Paul & I ready to leave town for the night we made our way back through the main streets and onto a tram. As we did so it began to spit and this is when it began to become a little more torrential. All we could think of was our lovely clean washing, that would have been dry would now be soaked again.

While we waited for the bus the rain came down harder, thankfully by the time we were off the bus it had stopped and we could walk back to the van without getting soaked.

Once back we bought in the washing and placed it within the van in an attempt to help it dry out. We also needed to soak up the water in the van that had found its way in through the open vents. Bugger.

I unpacked the bag and then attempted to use the computer only to find that the power was not on. Paul attempted to fix the situation with little luck so he saw the landlady (witch) to tell her to throw the trip switch. She was not particularly helpful and didn’t particularly want to listen to what she was being told. Eventually she threw the trip switch and the power was restored, by now we had been told we were to leave the next day. I guess she doesn’t like being shown how to do things.  

So knowing we would need to move on tomorrow morning and not having the cash to be able to pay up we once again jumped on the bus and underground to the ATM to grab some more money and then returned 30 min later.

Once in Paul looked up places we could head to tomorrow and then we went down to the outdoor area to share the very dark space with some of the other campers. Only 1 of six light globes was working. We played cards by the light of the computer screen. When we finished our game we decided to head back to the van, it was still spitting but once in the van it was warm and dry. We were straight in to bed where I read some of my book before lights out.

If we have learnt anything to pass on it is give CAMPHERZOG a miss, there are plenty of other camping spots in the same street that have better facilities and nicer reception staff. (No Witch)