Dresden was sweet. We got there at around 10pm, and the next train to Prague was 6:30am, so we set off wandering about the city. With wicked architecture and sculpture-work over everything, most features of the city were lit up at night. As it started to get late, we grabbed some McDonalds, consulted a public city map, and headed to wards the most promising looking park.
When we arrived, with a slight drizzle in the air, we found that there were no benches in said park, so we shored up under a tree on some grass. As well, we had left our bags in a train-station locker, and thus had no extra warm clothes, so I went to sleep curled up on the grass in shorts a t-shirt and a light sweater; serious bohemian style (ironically, Prague, where we were heading, is in the heart of the region Bohemia). And as always, as Murphy’s Law is ever evident, not two and a half hours later, someone fired up a generator and began to set up for a market. So at around 4:30am, Samantha and I headed back to the train station to get coffee and wait for our train to Prague. About four hours later, at 8:30am on Friday the 23rd, we found ourselves in Prague.
First off, the Czech countryside is incredibly ghetto, yet still very pretty… Lots of fields and greenery, with a lot of really run down buildings… When we got off at the train-station on the outskirts of town, we changed our euro’s into krouns (100kc = 4euro = 6.50can), and caught the underground metro into the heart of the city. We got off at the Museum stop and wandered down Wincelas Square heading to our hostel. Prague is amazing! Tall buildings, curvy streets, wicked architecture, and art noveau (which I’m a big fan of… as well as Alphonse Mucha, who is from Prague, so his art is everywhere) everywhere you look. We made it to our hostel, although it was much too early to check in, so we left our bags and took off to explore the city. Wandering aimlessly without a map we found out way to the Florence market, where I happened to buy a pair of brass knuckles and a couple butterfly knives (getting those knuckles home is going to be tough, ugh…).
We continued to wander around that area, checking out all the crazy antique shops, when we decided to try and find Charles Bridge (the Karlov Most). Now, it turns out that we had gotten a little disoriented, and were wandering up and down the totally wrong stretch of river looking for Old Town and the Karlov Most. After some time we came across a city map beside an underground metro entrance, near where a movie was being shot. Upon closer inspection, we found that the metro station entrance was fake, and the map and metro sign were for Paris. Ah, set props. Damn. Eventually we found a real map, realized that we were technically outside of the Prague city proper, and jetted our asses over to Old Town. We wandered through Old Town with it’s narrow bendy streets and awesome squares.
Saw the cathedral with the two-story outdoor astronomical clock, and headed to the Karlov Most, which provided an amazing view of the city from the water. You could look up at the lush green hills, the Hradcranny (Prague Castle) on the top of another hill, and the awesome buildings all about. We wandered over the river, through more of the town (which was full of tourists and marionette shops), bought some Absinth (oh God I was in heaven!), and eventually headed back to the hostel to check in, and get some shut-eye for the night.
Saturday morning came and we slept in a little, glad to be waking up in a bed instead of a park, then set out into the city. We stopped at a café and grabbed large sized Irish coffees and I ordered a Romeo y Juilletta Corona cigar from their cigar menu, and we had cigars and alcoholic coffee to start the day. From there we wandered around the city some more, stopping at an army surplus/antiquities store we had briefly checked out the evening prior. And I bought myself a little present to myself. Sometimes you just gotta splurge, so I bought an authentic WWII German SS Mauser Bayonet, and an authentic WWII Iron Cross medal. Oh so very cool…
From there we wandered back down through Old Town, across the Karlov Most, and up to the Prague Castle. Built in the most strategically perfect spot, on a hill near a river, it was huge, beautiful and majestic. We explored that area for a bit, before heading down the hill (with the best view of the city ever!) and to the Czech Sentate, with awesome sculpted rock walls and an aviary, all made to look like natural rock (you really oughtta see the video…), and peacocks that roamed around at will. We explored the city some more, grabbed food at the street vendor stands in Wincelas Square that had amazing deepfried foodstuffs and sausages for pretty cheap, then headed back to the hostel to ready ourselves for the coming concert.
Getting to the Nick Cave concert was a bit of a gong-show, as we wound up at the wrong venue, not pointing any fingers on that one (Samantha!). Luckily, I saved the day by getting us to the actual venue, and admitted just minutes before Nick Cave came onstage. We grabbed some beers and proceeded to groove out to a spectacular show. Nick Cave put on an awesome concert featuring mostly his new album “Dig Lazarus Dig” and finished with “Stagger Lee,” one of his best songs off the album “Murder Ballads”. After the concert we headed back to the hostel and got some shuteye.
On Sunday we explored the city some more which included hitting up the market again so I could grab a few gifts and pick up some more illegal weapons to “not smuggle home” and heading down to the riverside to rent a paddle-boat to check out the city from the water. At Samantha’s behest we acquired the swan paddle-boat, and though it seemed much less efficient than the regular paddle-boats, we travelled in pure style. Enjoying some Corona’s we paddled around for an hour, then set off exploring again. We eventually wound up climbing the hill to the Petrin Tower through a beautiful hillside park that houses the “Funicular Railway”. Yes, the “Funicular Railway”. What is a funicular railway you ask? Well, it’s a really badly named trolly/tram that takes you up or down the hill. Fun fact eh?
Anyhoo, we stopped for cappuccinos at a café at the top, enjoying the wicked view of the city, all awesome buildings with red roofs and a fairytale atmosphere. We wandered further up, checked out the little churches at the top, then took the Funicular Railway back down. As it was getting late, I picked up a bunch of absinth to bring home, and we headed back to the hostel once more to get some sleep and prepare for our upcoming trip into the Czech countryside; to Kutna Hora and the church of bones.
On Monday we caught the ghetto Czech trains to Kutna Hora, a small town about an hour and a half train ride out of Prague. On the train Sam and I may or may not have consumed some LSD that I had ingeniously smuggled to Europe by dropping it in liquid form onto the pages of a book.
Getting off at the station there we noticed a peculiar smell in the air and later realized that it was unburned tobacco, when we found out that the Phillip Morris tobacco plant (which makes Marlboro cigarettes for the Czech Republic) was in town on our way to the Ossuary. We eventually got to the Sedlic Ossuary (the bone church), and feeling a little out of the normal, my mind was about to become completely broken.
The Ossuary was perhaps the single coolest place I’ve ever been in my life. A burial chapel completely decked out with human skulls and bones all decorated in baroque style. Four huge pyramids of bones stacked and fitted perfectly without any shoring, and topped with giant wooden crowns in each corner of the hall. Streamers of skulls and crossbones hung everywhere, there were sculptures made of bones (big bone-flowers near the altar, and a massive chandelier made from every type of bone in the human body). Words can do no justice at describing this place, so I suggest looking at my pictures and video. Utterly breathtaking… Like Tim Burton decided to decorate a church.
All I know is that if I ever get married, I want it to be there… Anyhoo, we explored and admired with a Lucy in the Sky reverence for more than an hour, and left only because it was closing.
From the Ossuary, we wandered around the pretty little cemetery that surrounds it, and off to it’s sister church down the road. Which was much less impressive, though amusingly a large section of the church was owned by Phillip Morris, and houses PM’s offices. Gotta love a church mostly owned by a tobacco company. I bet the Pope would shit a brick if he knew what was going on there…
Eventually, we headed out of Kutna Hora, caught the ghetto train, and at where we were supposed to transfer, got on a train heading in the wrong direction. Getting off at the next stop, we walked forty minutes back to the train station we had just come from, and boarded the proper train back to Prague, where we wandered for a little while, packed up, and slept our last night there.
On Tuesday morning we were originally going to head home to the Netherlands, but decided to go back to Kutna Hora, so Samantha could take pictures with her Kiev (neither of us thought you’d be able to take pictures as it’s a church, but lo and behold, you WERE allowed, so she just HAD to come back with her cameras).
So once again, we trained out to Kutna Hora, chilled in the amazing Ossuary, took more photos and footage, then headed back to Prague where we eventually caught a night train heading to Amsterdam. On said train we met an interesting and crazy e-tarded Russian DJ who goes by the name of DJ Festival who was sharing our train-car… Here’s a little bit from my travel Journal:
12 Facts about our Train Partner:
• His DJ name is DJ Festival
• Neither Sam nor I remember his real name
• He spins mostly hard trance
• He is from Siberia, Russia
• He was on his way to sell himself to music clubs in Amsterdam
• He does a lot of Ecstasy
• He isn’t interested in how Amsterdam looks, just its music and drug culture
• His grandfather was in the SS and he knows some amusing German phrases…
• He got a kick out of my SS Bayonet
• He used to be sort of a regulator working between the judges and police in Russia (corrupt country, no?)
• He played us trance of his that he thought reflected us respectively
• He was chasing absinth shots with a cucumber (you know how Russians chase vodka with pickles? Well, guess a cucumber is kinda close :P)
Any way, after a seventeen hour train ride that included attempts at fitful sleep and an overbooking of reservations that meant Sam and I had to be bumped to another car, we arrived back in Enschede, where a decent nap lay ahead… God damn I’m going to miss Prague...
Coming Next: The Amsterdam Tattoo Convention!
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