Day 12 - Klingenberg / Prague / London

Had another German style breakfast with my Aunt and Uncle. I could get used to this!

After showing me the photo album of their trip to Australia, they very kindly drove me into Dresden. We arrived just in time for me to catch the next FlixBus.. The Flixbus’ run every half hour, apparently there is a huge number of workers moving between the cities everyday that drives the demand for these services. Certainly I appeared to be the only tourist aboard taking photos of the scenery.

It was interesting to see the countryside change. The leaving Dreden the area has a mix of mountains, forest, neat farmland and villages. Czechia feels much more open and largely flat, with the occasional tall mountain range.

The FlixBus dropped me off in Prague. I felt the need to pee. I checked a few places but they were all pay-to-pee. No worries, I’ll just head to the nearest McDonald’s…. which also turned out to be pay-to-pee.

I love differences between countries and cultures, and I'm not saying everywhere should be the same. But pay-to-pee can just universally go in the bin.

I located a public park and strolled through, just casually glancing around in an unhurried manner like I was just out for a stroll and my bladder wasn’t completely full. Located an isolated corner with no one around and bushes to screen me, and I dealt with the issue.

Feeling much better I began to explore the city, while kinda wondering what the Czechs would think of me given my first ever act in their country was to take a stealth-piss in one of their public parks.

I strolled along the Vltava River, a very large body of water though quite muddy. It is full of weirs and dams, including one part where people were using the funneled water to go surf boarding. A lot of very large tourist ferries were also moving up and down, so many in fact I had trouble imagining there were enough tourists to keep them all in business.

The weather was quite hot, so I stopped in the shade for a while to book my flight out and plan how I was going to get to the airport (it is unlike me to make plans and book things at the last minute!). Once that was done I checked how much time I had and what there was to do, the main castle up on a hill, something visible from most parts of the city, seemed the best idea.

I continued strolling along until I came to a bridge that led toward the castle. The area was starting to get very heavy with tourists. I started across. It was a pedestrian only bridge and was thick with people. Every so often there were sculptures, some very popular with people queueing up to get their picture taken with them.

The sculpture of Jesus on the cross attracted the biggest queue. People approach and place their hands on two specific places at the bottom. You can see in the photo how those places are much more worn and shiny than the rest.

I crossed the bridge and started making my way up to the castle. At some point I left the main tourist path and started going through side streets. It was one of these side streets that I can face-to-face with Winston Churchill, or a bust of him at least. The plaque displayed one of his quotes:

In War: Resolution
In Defeat: Defiance
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Goodwill

I gave him a pat on the arm and continued on.

Another place of interest I passed was the Israeli embassy. It had far less security than I expected. Did not include a photo of it because it really was not that interesting to look at.

After a long walk up the hill I arrived at the Prague Castle. I checked the wiki, it is literally called just that. It is where the president of Prague hangs out. There are some serious guys with guns standing guard out the front.

I was happy to see that you can go into the castle grounds and around it for no expense.

Inside the castle is the St. Vitus Cathedral. Extremely huge and impressive. The amount of work that has been put into the building is incredible. And it was so large I could not quite fit it all into frame in my photos.

The views from up on the hill are also amazing. The whole city is spread out before you.

Caught a taxi to the airport. Only learnt there that he only accepted cash. So left my bag in the car while I ran in to find a cash machine. It had a minimum withdrawal of 1000 Czech dollar things, whereas the bill for the taxi was only 700. But happy enough to give it all to him.

Got on the plane. British Airways. There is not much seat room, my knees were pushed into the seat in front of me a fair bit. But as it was less than 2 hours it was fine.Read more