more walking in prague

There are two very distinct characteristics of Prague. One, the Gothic architectures; two, the ubiquitous cobblestoned paths. I swear they are a killer to my precious toes! Not to mention I was walking in flat-soled boots meant for walking long distance. Still, it hurt a lot.
Torture chamber man.

:: Put your hands up for Prague. I'm on the top of the world, looking ::

After an arduous climb up cobblestoned steep paths (really felt like you're going up the Great Wall of China), we finally reached a high point where we could have a bird eyes' view of Prague. The view was splendid indeed and the streaks of pink and purple splashed against the blue sky like an artist's work on blank canvas.

There... the fruits of my long, hard hike.

:: At dusk, the spires on the mosque stand out amongst the rest of the houses and buildings ::

:: My back view and the accidental gorgeous comet-like Aeroplane trail above ::

:: The famous Prague castle ::

:: After walking up MORE cobblestoned paths- except this time they were even steeper- we arrived at the second tourist hotspot. The first (which was the bird eye's view thing I was talking about ) is only a prelude to a more spectacular, magnificent entity.
pro
The Prague castle is so gargantuan that even when I lay prostrate on the ground, I was unable to capture the entire castle. The photo does injustice to how it looks like in real life.
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:: Interior musical decor of winged cherubs strumming harps and violins inside Chapel of Mirrors::

Opera concerts are considerably cheap in Prague. I love! We went to watch a Christmas opera concert with songs from Mozart and Beethoven. Opera is a large part in European tradition, especially Vienna, Prague and Italy. My first and last Opera concert in this Europe trip, undisputedly a charming experience!

The Chapel of Mirrors (where the Opera was held) is also a significant place. Aa gentleman rang a bell and began explaining the significance of the place for 20 mins or so, in Czech, French and Italian. Unfortunately, no English so...
The only thing I gathered was...lots of Baroque art in the Chapel of Mirrors ! :)

:: Sat in the 3rd row from the FRONT ! I';ve got VIP seats ! Aha yippee yay !!!
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:: Czech-style Absinth! ::

Also referred to as 'Bohemian style'. Originated from Switzerland, Absinth is well-known for its addictive and psychoactive deleterious effects. Artist Van Gogh cut off his ear due to excess Absinth. No messing around with Absinth!

:: Kitchen in the hostel. Not bad I say, feels like a mini apartment of sort ::

:: Shot of the bathroom ::

Hostel Albert has cosy rooms but I had to overcome the scariness of having NO receptionist and a pitch dark receptionist desk. The rule is if the guests need anything, we could sms them. So yeah, no room service, no reception, no physical "help line". Apart from that, we stayed on the first floor and a chill ran down my spine when I saw the stairway leading upstairs. It was, also pitch dark. So, I wondered, even as I am typing this now, whether we were the only occupants in the whole building. And mind you, it was not a rectangular, glass walled building as you might perceived, try a dark grey medieval castle. I take comfort in knowing that the tram stop (the tram runs 24 hours, phew) is located directly outside our temporary residence.

We were given the main door keys and when we first returned, the entire place was, pitch black as well. No thanks to their automatic light-saving bulbs.
Hostel Albert left me quite an impression. On the last day of Prague, the staff promptly smsed me this on my handphone "Hi. pls leave the keys in the apartment. thanks". So much for being there. Technically, they were, but only on the first day to collect payment.

Off the beaten path of Czech Republic

Here is a visual slice of Europe. I uploaded a video of the beautiful Vltava River which gracefully snakes under de famosi Charles Bridge- one of Prague's most enthralling tourists' attractions. Watch the waters scintillating, literally like diamond-shaped stars on the water!


:: The maverick musician from 'The Bridge Band' (literal yes, but that's what they call themselves) who uses metal thimbles and egg beaters to make drum beats. Unprecedented, off-cap to him ;) ::


:: 'The Bridge Band' consisting of mainly older musicians ::

They are superb, we even bought their CDs for 15 Euros ! Astounding, tracks-halting voices and really cool old-school musical instruments they used, those that most of us would have deemed as obsolete. Apart from musicians, there is a plethora of Caricature artists and glass jewelry sellers trying to vie for tourists' attention and of course, their moolahs.

:: The entrance of the famous Charles Bridge::

This is not the best of shots but it is the best I could manage whilst squeezing amidst a massive crowd and watching out for any pickpockets ready to prey on the gullible Singaporean. Prague will not be Prague without Charles Bridge. This magical city of bridges, cathedrals, gold-tipped towers and church domes, has been mirrored in the surface of the Vltava River. We had a bit of a problem getting around Prague and communicating with the people because Czech language is incredibly difficult to pick up. German and Dutch were much easier. Oh, and of course I had the aid of my English-German guide book and German friends around.

:: Bohemian kings, some of whom ruled as emperors of the Holy Roman Empire including Charles IV who built the 'new town', Nové město, an important hub at that time ::

:: I managed to capture some intricate detailing of the entrance of Charles Bridge's friezes::


:: More Gothic statues along the Bridge heavy Catholic/religious innuendos, an influence originated from the Holy Roman Empire rulers ::

Even along the streets in the city center area, Prague is replete with medieval Gothic influence. A tad too much for my personal liking.

:: Vltava River . It was a glorious sunny winter day that makes almost any photo pretty ::

:: And nothing beats Czech beer. Smooth texture. perpetually cold and a delectable faint whiff of alcohol when gulped. Although I would add that nothing beats beer in Europe because they are so ridiculously cheap. You can purchase beer for 1.50 Euros (S$ 3). Not to mention, they really aid in keeping you warm in winter! ::

Prague is famous for hand-made glass ornaments. Anything glass. Czech beads, glass earrings, glass teardrop shaped stuff (see on top) ::

Notice

I am aware that the travel blog competition has come to a close but nonethless, urged by some avid readers (thank you all ), I will still be blogging about my travels to Prague, Vienna and Paris. I am going to catch some forty winks now, have a plane to catch in three hours' time. Paris, here I comeeeeeee!

Stay tuned !

But before I move on to Prague...

I figured I must share this with you people since my friends reckon this event to be the main highlight of our trip to Saxon Switzerland.
Correction, I consider this, rather unfortunately though, the only highlight of that particular trip.

Perhaps, it is good to know that Dresden is extremely close to Saxon of Switzerland, the latter an ideal place for hiking in the mountains with beautiful scenery, throw in the large boulders, bizarre stone formations (the mountain range was created after the sea retreated and left sandstone as the remains) , cliffs and the famous Bastei Bridge to boot. Dresden is also the capital of German Federal Free State of Saxony. For the longest time, royal Kings like King Augustus resided and ruled there. So you get a clearer picture. Dresden, Saxons.

So anyway, t'was my brilliant plan to take a day off in Dresden and plant ourselves into the wild Saxon Switzerland which is about 30 km upward the Elbe river from Dresden. In layman's terms, it is about half an hour by train from where I stayed in Dresden. This is a mountain area made of sandstone is and absolutely gorgeous even though it is possibly an adventurous, no i mean crazy idea, to head up there in winter, especially when we the sun begins to set by 3:30 pm. We took the interurban U-Bahn train to Pirna !


only to get stopped by 2 undercover policemen (we conveniently mistook them for thugs or underground drug dealers) at the tourist information centre! One of them approached me upfront (never confront a woman frontally, it's so intimidating I tell you) and demanded to see our passports and documents etc, which of course we hesitated a little because there really are so many scam police stories around, enough to make us apprehensive. Anyway, to cut a long story short, there was quite a big hoo-ha going on and to add fuel to fire, they were speaking in German whilst we were speaking in English. It's like as the Chinese idiom goes, playing piano melodies to a cow.

C'mon, just because we look like foreigners doesn't mean we are illegal immigrants- that seems to be their fear. ppfft. How insulting. So here is a picture of us in the police car. The bo liao things border policemen do.

I was so upset, not so much because I was in the police car (although the whole event seemed a tad 'kafkaesque') but more so because i DID NOT GET TO SEE SAXON SWITZERLAND!!
Not to mention it is one of the places I was in charge of researching for. :: Border policemen (not the undercover ones) ::

Anyway, all's well. The misunderstanding was cleared and the funny thing was that they actually apologised, shook our hands and said we could take a picture. Rather polite I must say. Interestingly enough, Saxon Switzerland has a castle built to jail high-ranking prisoners, this explains the paranoia of the border police. Haha!
So much for all the hype about sandstone, mountains and cliffs :(

Little things

:: On the way to Prague: The breath-taking view of cottages planted alongside emerald green waters and lemon-green hills ::

The blogging affair is beginning to take a toll on me. Days are cut shorter, the weather got colder, train schedules, bus rides, hitch hiking, more planning, more photos, more memories to take stock of. All that traveling is beginning to weigh.

But then, I remembered how life springs little surprises on us when we least expected it to.
Like the picturesque view from the windows as the train rumbled and whistled from Dresden to Prague. Transient but absolutely gorgeous scenery makes train-taking such pleasant journeys. Beautiful things in life are ephemeral because they force us to sit up and pay attention. That is why everyone loves travelling, that is why everyone loves sunsets.

Medieval town Dresden

Christmas Eve saw us moving on to the last state in Germany, Dresden. Bunked into A & O hostel and it is an excellent choice for backpackers. It costs about 10 Euros per night and i would gladly rate it a 4.5/5 in terms of service, cleanliness, efficiency and overall layout. I have high expectations usually for accomodation and I must say, I am impressed. Made some friends in the process, more backpackers from Canada, Japan, Brazil and Mexico. It felt like a mini backpackers community :)

We reached Dresden in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve and I was appalled at the sight that laid before my eyes. Dresden then, could only be described in absence. No shops as their windows were shuttered, no proper vegetation save for some dried weeds by the roads, no flowers, no people, no crowd, no restaurants. Zilch, nada, nien.



I was so amazed by the empty street, I felt like I owned it. Occasionally, one or two cars whizzed by, other than that, the roads were quiet. Wine bottles that rolled on the floor sounded almost eerie. To freak myself out further, I pretended to be a zombie from the movie '28 days later'.
;)
:: Christmas dinner ::

This year is interesting because it's the first year I've spent Christmas without (not only without turkey) dinner! How ludicrous aint it? Christmas without dinner? Boy, I was sufffering from hunger pangs. But misery loves company. All the other backpackers in my room arrived to find only closed restaurants on X'mas eve faced similar plight. We pulled our resources together and snacked on a meagre dinner comprised of some chips, an orange and 4 slices of wheat bread.

I tried not to think about home, hot cocoa and turkey. Or Christmas ice-cream cakes with peppermint mocha. This is how it goes, some days we had to rough it out, some days we allowed ourselves some epicurean indulgence. Afterall, a backpacker's got to have some good fuel too right? Try lugging all that luggage around in the harshness of winter whilst trying to find your hostel ! :(

:: As the name spells it, 'Theaterplatz' ::

:: A peek of King August the Great from the arches that darkened against the glinting sunlight at 'Theaterplatz'::

:: A bird's eye view of Zwinger Palace. Indeed Baroque style- vast space, fountains (though not spurting in winter) and gardens ::

The next day, we took a tram down to the famous 'Zwinger' and 'Theaterplatz'. Apart from being a ghost town, derelict as can be on Christmas Eve, there is actually a very distinct old world charm about Dresden. Magnificent castles, garbled fountains and horse carriages trotting on the streets, actually just walking around the medieval town felt like I was transported back in time. Afterall, time is only relative, as Einstein puts it.Once in a while, a gentleman opens the door for you, or takes off his hat and bow. Seriously, how often do you get that?

Dresden makes a good stopover if you're coming from Berlin or Leipzig. By car, it's only about 2 hours' drive or less. It is close to Prague as well. What I personally adore about Dresden is the architecture it boasts. And of course the Baroque style that speaks of the very essence of the architecture.
I love Baroque art. English gardens, sculptured fountains, vast space and the very fact that Baroque architecture is made with the intention to impress an audience.

:: An interesting fact. These buildings were once plated in shiny copper, before time and weather rusted them into a peculiar shade of green ::
:: The princess surveys her city beneath her ::
:: And she walks down to greet her people ::

Into the wild

On Christmas eve, we drove to Pegau, a forty minutes drive from Leipzig to visit the old, small village-like town. Pegau is famous for traditional wine-making since the early 17th Century. This trip I have deliberately avoided travelling to the West, meaning Frankfurt, Munich, London. The east, sometimes more unexplored, speaks in a louder voice. In a large city, we struggle to make our voice heard over the din. Traversing from one cosmopolitan city to another would have rendered my trip meaningless.

:: Sunset at Pegau. A star-shaped sun encircled in gold pierced through the dark silhouettes of the trees in winter ::

:: The white froths waves, like fingers snatching and pulling at the dark blue stream ::

Geography can induce such joy at times. Half of the world is suffering from Man's mishandling of his own environment-global warming- all the more this compelling landscape inspires awe. Nature has a sublimating effect of making us feel so small, so tiny, so insignificant. At the same paradoxically, it magnifies our perspectives, enabling us to find (at least I hope to find), amidst such untrammeled beauty, more accurate views of human nature.

:: Giants in the making ::