Day 2: Bohemian Beginning
Woke up this morning and took a long walk across Prague (the capital of the Czech Republic and the Bohemian region), since the hostel I'm staying in is in an out of the way neighborhood, Holesvince, that's being 'gentrified' (eg its full of old communist-style industrial buildings) some of which are being converted into apartments/lofts. Good news about it is other than guests at the hostel I'm staying in there are very few tourists around, so I got to walk through a cool, local Czech market on the way to Prague Castle which was my first destination.
I spent a lot more time at the Castle than I thought I would since it was probably the coolest one that I'd seen and had great views to the city from the tower Cathedral within its grounds, only 276 spiral steps up. The castle took up a lot more time than I thought it would, since its huge and there's a lot to see there. Many historical periods are evident in the architecure, the artifacts, or the many museums: 'Good King Wencelas' reign, the Austro-Hungarian empire's reign, Gen. Patton and the US Army's occupation, Communist leadership, and today it is the seat of the Czech president. A random fact about the castle is that a number of defenstartions occured there (or throwing people out of its windows to kill them, if you're not up on your St. Albans 10th grade vocabulary words.)
I spent the rest of the day wandering the streets on the 'left bank' of the Vlatava river in neighborhods that I thought were great as they were populated with small winding streets, big hills, and large baroque mansions. There was also a mountain bike race going up and down the cobblestone hills at higher speeds than seemed safe. To end the day, I crossed the famous Charles Bridge (featured in the opening scene of the movie Mission Impossible.)
Econ observation of the day: For a city where everything is so cheap (and not a relatively rich one) there's a high percentage of Audi A8s, their top of the line car, than any other city I've been to. Most cars, however, are Skodas which I have heard of before but not seen; these are the bottom-level cars manufactured by the Audi-Volkswagon company. The Skoda brand doesn't exist in the US. It seems strange to me that Audi-VW company has recently introduced the A3 in the US, but hasn't tried selling its low-end Skoda cars there if its really trying to reach a broader market.
Weird sights of the day: 1) guy's dog who was trained to carry around his pet white mouse on its back, 2) 'modern art' that featured two male foutains peeing that reached down and adjusted the angle of their streams, sometimes crossing them.
I spent a lot more time at the Castle than I thought I would since it was probably the coolest one that I'd seen and had great views to the city from the tower Cathedral within its grounds, only 276 spiral steps up. The castle took up a lot more time than I thought it would, since its huge and there's a lot to see there. Many historical periods are evident in the architecure, the artifacts, or the many museums: 'Good King Wencelas' reign, the Austro-Hungarian empire's reign, Gen. Patton and the US Army's occupation, Communist leadership, and today it is the seat of the Czech president. A random fact about the castle is that a number of defenstartions occured there (or throwing people out of its windows to kill them, if you're not up on your St. Albans 10th grade vocabulary words.)
I spent the rest of the day wandering the streets on the 'left bank' of the Vlatava river in neighborhods that I thought were great as they were populated with small winding streets, big hills, and large baroque mansions. There was also a mountain bike race going up and down the cobblestone hills at higher speeds than seemed safe. To end the day, I crossed the famous Charles Bridge (featured in the opening scene of the movie Mission Impossible.)
Econ observation of the day: For a city where everything is so cheap (and not a relatively rich one) there's a high percentage of Audi A8s, their top of the line car, than any other city I've been to. Most cars, however, are Skodas which I have heard of before but not seen; these are the bottom-level cars manufactured by the Audi-Volkswagon company. The Skoda brand doesn't exist in the US. It seems strange to me that Audi-VW company has recently introduced the A3 in the US, but hasn't tried selling its low-end Skoda cars there if its really trying to reach a broader market.
Weird sights of the day: 1) guy's dog who was trained to carry around his pet white mouse on its back, 2) 'modern art' that featured two male foutains peeing that reached down and adjusted the angle of their streams, sometimes crossing them.
posted by Traveling Brian at 10:46 AM
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