Saturday 12th
September 2009
After a long week we
headed to Stanstead airport, to catch our flight to Prague, to meet up with
Emma and Maneesh (who were two months into their European van tour). While awaiting our flight, James
happily spotted a ‘Rocky Balboa’ pokie machine, and after sliding in a five
pound note, he walked away with 60 pounds! So we celebrated by buying some nice
champagne, to celebrate our arrival to Prague. We arrived to find Emma and
Maneesh holding a sign up for “Mr and Mrs Atkinson/Team JJ”-as they call us,
with an awesome picture of the VW Van drawn beside our name. It was such a cool
welcome and we were all excited to see each other. We then headed for a camping ground in Prague, north of the
river in Trojska, in the van called ‘Sven Heiden’. We set up camp and Emma and Maneesh presented us with gift
bags each-including some chocolate, lollies, fireworks, toys and earplugs!
Awesome! We also got to sample a few beers over dinner, including a 24% beer
called Primator-this turned out to be the boys favourite beer!!! It actually
still tasted like beer! We settled in for the night, playing a few games of
500.
Sunday 13th
September 2009
We started the day
walking around Prague mainly around Old Town, starting with the beautiful
astronomical clock, where on the hour it chimed and had figurines of apostles circling
around it. We strolled across Charles bridge and took in the views from Prague
Castle, then looked through St Vitis Cathedral, which was filled with very
detailed stained glass windows. On the way back down the hill we stopped at an absinthe
store and confirmed that it originated from Czech Republic. During the day we managed to sample our
first pretzel, and Trundel (a cinnamon/sugar coated cylindrical pastry) along
with some awesome beef goulash and bread dumplings for lunch. None of us were
very keen on the beer we had-Pilsner Urquell (the local beer). Before dinner we
decided to stock up on more beers including more Primator, Budweiser Budvar
(Budweiser being stolen by the
Americans from the czechs) and Erdinger (our favourite German weissber).
Dinner was at a pub
called Koala Bar where we sampled more local delicacy including sour crout and
beef with cream sauce.
Monday 14th
September 2009
As we left Prague
behind and headed south, we were excited to head to Kutna Hora (a place we had
all heard about from friends back in NZ). Kutna Hora is an ossuary and Roman
Catholic Chapel (built in 1400’s) with
a surrounding burial ground. At the time that The Plague struck, the town found
their small gravesite wasn’t big enough for the deceased victims. Beyond extending the grounds, to honour
the dead, they decided to dig up people’s remains, bleach the bones to clean
them and use them to decorate the chapel. The church holds the remains of up to
40,000 people, which was completed in 1870. The effects you will see from the
photos are amazing, particularly the pyramid around 5 metres high of skulls and
the chandeliers. Being all of a medical background, we spent a good hour
walking around, identifying the bones and taking pictures. It was a highlight
of the trip. James also managed to
set off an alarm at a wishing well display area by putting his arm through a
grating when throwing a coin! Woops! Thankfully he wasn’t kicked out.
We crossed the road to
have lunch at the local café where we had yummy traditional Czech potato
dumplings, chicken breast and cabbage.
Marking the sides of
the country roads were often fruit trees. We managed to stop off and pick some
pears on this day too, although they weren’t ripe (Emma found out the hard
way).
We drove to Cesky
Krumlov and settled in at a local camping ground. We were surprised to find 37
other vans there, whom all turned out to be French, travelling together around
Europe with their dogs in tow and everything! James parked up the van (his
first driving experience in 6 months) and Emma cooked tea after initial
celebrations of champagne and cheese. After more primator beer, we decided to
let off more fireworks, to the cheering of the French crowd!
Tuesday 15th
September 2009
We parked Sven (the
van) on the outskirts of town and headed on foot to wander around Chesky
Krumlov. A very quant town, we
enjoyed wandering the streets taking lots of photos. Emma and I managed to pick
up some leather gloves each for 15 euro (bargin). Morning tea was enjoyed
having curd and apple strudel (girls) and pizza (boys). We crossed the river
and walked up to the top of the castle for a picturesque view. On the way down,
in the once moat area, we spotted two grizzly bears sunbathing and eating cream
buns provided by staff. The size of their claws was impressive! We stopped for
lunch and tried their local beer-Eggenberg dark beer, which was great and ate
deer goulash/roast duck with dumplings and cabbage for lunch. Before leaving
town, the boys stocked up on fireworks, meeting a couple of NZers also doing
the same, on their way to Octoberfest. We headed south and crossed the Austrian
border, to stay the night in Waidhofen. We settled in for the evening with
cards and more fireworks…although it was abruptly stopped when fellow campers
became upset with this.
