Czech Czech Czech

Prague is a big draw card for Western Europeans. It has fairy tale like qualities (a castle and an old town that escaped wartime destruction), it has good beer and it's cheap.

Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004 but is currently avoiding introducing the Euro in fear of skyrocketing beer prices and economic collapse.

But at the moment it's well worth battling through the hordes of tourists, many of the slow and silver haired variety, to be able to sit down at a nice restaurant at the end of a day of sight seeing, order a garlic soup, a goulash with bread dumplings and a beer or two and only part with the Koruna equivalent of €10.

For an even better Czech experience head to Cesky Krumlov in Southern Bohemia for a night or five. This small town of only 14,000, one castle (including bear pit), a brewery, a winding river for rafting and a nice assortment of shops, restaurants and bakers making tasty sugar covered doughnut things on the cobblestoned streets, is Prague on a small scale but better.

If you are a fan of Hostel, as in the movie, then this may also be the place to relive your nightmares. I am more into the likes of The Illusionist which was also filmed in Krumlov.

Cesky Krumlov

Taking on the Vltava

As well as beer and fairy tales, non-violent resistance is also of some pride to the Czechs. When Czechoslovakia wanted out of Eastern Bloc repression in 1968 the Soviets rolled their tanks into town, but it ended up being at a snails pace as all the Czech villages suddenly had no road signs or place names. In blind navigation and without food, the Soviet Invasion went less than smooth as their supplies also circled the tracks on a constant loop not actually getting anywhere.

Get here before 2015 just in case their fear of becoming another struggling Euro state comes true, or if you are lucky, to see another creative protest in the making.

How could I die without being in Berlin? and other graffiti

Notes on the wall of a toilet cubicle sometimes can be a revelation.
 
Perhaps just as much a notes on the wall of a communist cubicle. The odd person has something really good to say. They had a point. Now in both cases you have to sift through the 'Tony was here' and 'Jono 4 Amy 4 eva' crap to find it.

It's all good, says the East side of the wall.

Could I die before being in Berlin? No, I think not. Would I want to miss colourful people lurking around every corner, old ladies selling amazing vanilla cakes in local markets, thousands of people flee-marketeering on a wet Sunday, Artist living in hobo squats trying to sell postcards, and twenty odd somethings doing the twist in a three by two Kreuzberg bar dance floor on an everyday kind of Wednesday?

Would I want to miss flammable Trabies, the stock standard Commie car that the average wage saving East German waited more than a decade to be issued, driving on the same streets as the newest Mercedes...

A Trabie on the move

International beer festivals, street theatre, wandering gypsies...  Environmental building design, grand arches, Communist bloc work?

The light reflecting, water catching dome of the Reichstag

Karl Marx Allee

Reclycling drink bottles by inserting them into a futuristic scanning hole in the wall AND get money back?

No. You shouldn't either.

But also question; Could I die from being in Berlin? It's a high possibility.


I suspect my arteries are somewhat blocked after currywurst, sausages, a metre long pizza, at least four vanilla cakes and about fifteen baguettes.

My feet shrivelled in shoes full of puddles. Summer in Berlin is not tropical it seems. 

My liver has aged. Berlin after all is known for its nightlife as much as it is its well groomed fascists and jaggard red past.

It's where something is on all night and every night, dressing up for a club is not cool, and it's definitely the only place I know where you can go to a wine bar, have a meal, pour your own wine and then decide what you want to pay. (Just booked your flights? Send me a message and I'll send you the details)

My self respect has also taken a hit. Never before have I woken up on a train at 5am, drooling on Brett's lap, his head also rolling in slumber, being scrutinised by a stranger in a much better state, and realising I was not in bed but approaching the next city. Monday nights out are a bad idea when you are 25, turning 60.

Go to Berlin but for goodness sake, take your time. Your life may depend on it.