Bohemia Bagel. RecommendedNot sure if that somewhat boring description is true for the rest of the country, but in Prague it was a case of all that and a lot, lot more.
I had perhaps the best breakfast, ever, at Bohemia Bagel in Mala Strana. So good (and so big) I didn't need to eat until that evening. The secret was the cold cream cheese contrasting with the hot scrambled eggs. Delish.
As I mentioned in the last post we were surprised to find a Vietnamese food stall in the markets serving authentic pho bo. We sat on rickety wooden benches amongst the other Vietnamese stall holders and slurped to our hearts content. I even surprised the owner by throwing out a "cam on" when we finished.
Jacq, Hany Bany
This Holesovice restaurant even had a bowling alley upstairsLabels: Czech Republic
Old Town street, PragueBut was it a holiday? Kind of. More like sight seeing in fast forward sometimes.
After getting acquainted with the delicious food, cheap as chips beer and smoky atmosphere of the neighbourhood cafe on the night we arrived, on our first morning Jacq and I grabbed the number 5 tram down from the suburb of Holesovice in the north, crossed the river and stepped off in Prague's delightful Old Town.
I soon realised that riding these trams was a blast. We bought a three day travel card for just 200 crowns (£5) at the airport and after that it was a piece of cake to hop on and off any bus, metro train or tram vaguely going in our direction. Reliable and inexpensive. Nothing like London's public transport really.
Not that we didn't do a lot of walking. With camera around my neck and Jacq in tow I'd be scurrying around the side alleyways and poking my camera at the scenes unfolding around every corner. A four hundred year old synagogue in the Jewish quarter. An old man shuffling past a toy shop that sold real wooden toys. A group of students hanging out in a cafe, smoking like chimneys.
Prague was both compact enough and yet filled with enough sights that we walked around for almost two days straight and comfortably saw all the major attractions without having to retrace our steps.
We attended National Day celebrations outside Prague Castle (which was closed to the public for the event) and listened to an enormous cannon somewhere nearby fire off a 21 gun salute at the end, the boom from the shots echoing around the square for seconds afterwards.
The next day when the castle was open we enjoyed a stroll through the Royal Gardens and past a changing of the guard ceremony before entering the castle gates. As the largest castle in Europe it was certainly impressive up close, especially inside the enormous St Vitus cathedral with its amazing stained glass windows.
But to get a real sense of the size of the castle you had see it from a distance. One evening we climbed the Old Town Hall tower at dusk and looked out at the castle on the hill, lit up by flood lights. It seemed to stretch across the entire ridge of the hillside.
With the castle on one side of Prague and the historic Old Town on the other, divided by the Vlatva River, it was Charles Bridge that was the most popular crossing point for tourists. After walking through the deserted back streets of Old Town early one morning I remarked to Jacq that it seemed like we had the city to ourselves. But that was shattered when we came to the bridge, which was buzzing with hundreds of package tourists photographing the numerous statues lining the bridge. In between were buskers, caricature artists and stall holders selling souvenirs and photographs.
The force of tourism was also in full swing in nearby Wenceslas Square, a long up hill boulevard that ended with National Museum. As Richard from our hostel described it, the square was not too bad during the day but awful at night with Brits on stag parties lurching from one British theme pub to another.
Down the hill from Wenceslas Square I photographed the famous Dancing Building, also known as Fred and Ginger, the Crushed Coke Can or the Drunk Building.
After a full day of walking, each evening we looked forward to returning to our quiet neighbourhood to the north for a few beers and a meal. Thankfully most of the local cafes near our hostel had English menus and the staff spoke some English as two days in Prague had done nothing to educate us on the tongue twisting language.
However, I managed to receive a full education on the beautiful Czech beers. For less than a pound I could enjoy a big handle of Staropramen or Pilsener Urquell. Served cold with a frothy head. Again, nothing like London!
Check out the Backpack Storybook Prague photo album here.
Backpack Storybook tip: We stayed at Sir Toby's hostel in a double room for about £38 per night. Just ten minutes on the tram from Old Town. A great place.
Labels: Czech Republic
Peak hour in the pedestrian laneI've heard a saying that London is the world in a city and sometimes it's easy to see why. There are world famous landmarks around each corner, even during a 'boring' old walk from the train station to work.
And the train itself takes me through suburbs home to people from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and yes, even Kiwiland.
Labels: UK
"Erm, I think that's Embankment over there."Definitely, definitely make sure when you pay £13 to ride on the London Eye that the weather is going to be fine.
Jacq in the pod
About the best photo I could manageLabels: UK
Wandsworth CommonThe enormous trees in the common up the road from our house have finally turned yellow, orange and red after a summer of stunning deep green.
I made myself get out of bed early on Saturday morning (it was still dark at 7am) put on a couple of layers, my gloves, jacket, mask and helmet and cycled up the hill to shoot a few frames of the colours of autumn.
It won't be long before they lose all their leaves and go back to resembling the skeletal trees that we saw when we first arrived in London almost 12 months ago.
Back then in late January, Jacq and I cauught the early morning train from Heathrow into the city and sat staring out the windows at a place shivering in the frost. For miles there wasn't a tree with leaves. A far cry from tropics of Thailand we had just left.
Anyway, it's not too cold just yet. Last week in early October I was able to ride about during the day in just shorts and t shirt. This week its gotten a lot colder but still bearable at around 15C during the day and about 5C at night.
Right now I'm on the hunt for warm clothes. This winter I don't care what it costs, I'm going to be warm. A proper winter jacket, beanie, scarf, thermals and gloves are on the list.
I mean, I've moved on since last winter, when I wore socks on my hands for a couple of weeks because I didn't have gloves.
Labels: UK
The Barbican estateUnlike Australia where the term 'estate' tends to mean shiny new McMansion homes in boring but nice outer suburban subdivisions, here in the UK they are typically ugly blocks of flats for poor people.
In the first few weeks of my first job in London, one day I had to accompany two councillors and a couple of photographers on an inspection of one of the city's worst estates. For an Aussie lad brought up in a big backyard, it was a pretty depressing experience to see the drab conditions that thousands of young English kids had to endure.
The estate was made up of several very long, high rise blocks of flats. I was told it had been built by English architects back in the 1950s but it really did look like something out of Communist Russia. In the corridors things like smashed windows, broken doors and and even a poo-smeared wall added to the sense of disrepair and despair .
The lift worked intermittently, meaning when it was on the blink residents had to use the stairs - some all the way to the seventh floor.
On the ground floor things weren't much better. The play area was a rain-soaked concrete pad with a few old bits of play equipment. The imposing blocks funnelled the cold wind straight through, making it even colder than the March weather at the time.
Teenagers in hoodies rode around aimlessly and in the far corner of the estate older lads took it in turns to ride a scooter along the footpaths, scaring the few residents about.
I was so interested about this depressing age of architecture and social policy I even hunted down a book on the subject, Estates - An Intimate History, which Jacq and I both read. It's hard to summarise the why and how of the housing estates, but it to be brief it involves a few of the following: early 20th century slum clearance, post-World War II rebuilding, architects with a love of concrete and governments set on building thousands of homes very quickly with little thought for quality or how humans might happily live in them.
One of the estates mentioned in the book is the Barbican, a large estate in the inner east of London almost right next to the City. It's quite famous for its Brutalist architecture (yes, it's an official term apparently). Out of curiosity Jacq and I made a pilgrimage over there recently to check it out.
It's almost futuristic, in a kind of menacing 1970s view of the future way with brown-grey concrete everywhere, a series of walkways in the sky and hard, unforgiving angles.
But it's also quite pretty. Almost all of the balconies are alive with flowers and greenery. A large conservatory houses palms, cacti and fish in several ponds. The Barbican arts complex attracts people to the centre of the estate by the man made lake and water-side cafes.
It's not necessarily so pretty that I'd ever want to live there. But it was definitely interesting and a lot more positive experience than that horrible estate I visited all those months ago.
Labels: UK
Jacq and the GugeBut it was a positive in disguise as it gave us the chance to spend half an afternoon in Bilbao, where we were flying out from to London.
Having seen the amazing Guggenheim Museum on our way into Bilbao four days previous, we didn't need to think twice before setting out towards the famous building.
Unfortunately it was a grey, overcast day in Bilbao so the photos don't really do it justice. But just being in the vicinity of a structure so bold, adventurous and well, crazy, was a great experience.From some angles it looked like a giant sailing shipped docked beside the river. From others a bronze Sydney Opera House. Up close it was a mind-bending series of lines and curves.
We spent so much time walking around the outside we had no time left to go inside to look at the art treasures within. We'll have to do that next year I suppose.
Labels: Spain
San Sebastian, Spain - I might have raved about the food, the wine, the culture of the Basque Coast a little in the last post. Alright, a lot.
But the other reason Jacq and I decided on San Seb for a holiday was the chance to enjoy the beach one last time before the northern hemisphere winter set in.
The semi-circular bay of Playa de Gros was just a ten minute walk over the river from our pension. Armed with tide charts, swell predictions and hourly wind reports, I was absolutely committed to getting as many waves in the four days as possible.
Unfortunately, the swell didn't entirely cooperate. It was small for the first three days. The big tides made it essential to be in the water at the right time - just as the tide was pushing in, giving a bit if extra oomph to the small but fun waves peeling down the sandbank.Of course, on the last day the swell came up. But by then it was too late. Jacq and I were packed and had to start our four bus, one plane, 12 hour trek back to London.
But it was fun to get back in the water. Sometimes with surfing you actually surf better after being out of the water for a period. I've experienced that before with injuries.
But I've never been out of the water for nine months. And it was embarrassingly obvious. The mind was willing but the legs were doing their own thing. There's a few Basque surfers out there that are just glad I managed not to run them over.
Cold beer, nice wine, great food.After a couple of trips to the continent this year - and just recently back from four days in San Sebastian - I'm digging their approach to food, sleep, style and life in general.
Which raises serious questions about the UK I reckon. How does a country separated from Euroland by a small ditch turn out so different. I mean, Toad in the Hole? Warm beer? Wet summers?
Team Backpack Storybook escaped these nightmarish things for four days last weekend. We flew into Bilbao and took the A8 Autopiste an hour south to San Sebastian, a delightful little place on the North Atlantic Coast with a great Old Town, a reputation for awesome food and ... waves!Our home for the long weekend was a cosy little pension in the heart of the historic Parte Vieja. Narrow lanes shaded by four and five storey terraces. Home to numerous bars, grocers, restaurants, shops and tourist pensions.
Due to a hectic travel schedule that saw us leave our London home at 2:30am and catch four buses and one plane, by the time we got to San Seb mid afternoon and checked in we were in bad shape. We needed coffee and food. Stat.
We tumbled into the first bar we saw. Smoked hams hung from the rafters. Locals enjoyed their afternoon wine and snack. And on the bar top were at least two dozen plates of pintxos, the Basque version of tapas. Order a drink. Get a plate, pick one two five pintxos, pay the barman and away you go.
We soon learned that the Basque way of doing things was to enjoy a drink and one or two pintxos at a bar and then move onto the next. On our first evening we did just that, using my appalling Spanish and some sign language to order tumblers of beer and wine and a selection of snacks which ranged from seafood shishkebabs to mini baguettes bursting with bright red ham. I even tried gulas - baby eels. Tasty and cute.Apart from breakfast, I don't think we ate one sit down meal during the four days. It was too easy, and tasty, to go for the tapas. Even when we caught a bus down the coast to the fishing village of Getaria for a seafood lunch, we popped into a bar for a quick drink. Half an hour later we rolled out with stomachs bursting from the pintxos we hadn't been able to resist.
To see the Backpack Storybook Basque photo album, click here.
Backpack Storybook tip: We stayed at Pension Amauir in Old Town for three nights at around £36 per night. Just about the nicest guesthouse we've stayed in, ever. Ask for Paulo.
Labels: Spain
