Travel Diary 23

Travel Diary 23

Beautiful day for driving, hardly a cloud in the sky and out of the wind, quite warm. We packed up and wound our way back through the edge of the city towards the highway East. We stopped to buy some diesel before we hit the highway as it is always more expensive buying from Petrol stations on the Highway than compared to suburban places.  Cost us 27.9 Zloty per litre which works out to be 1 Euro or about $A1.50. A lot more expensive than what it tells me on the website! It was supposed to be about $A0.98/litre. So fuel costs have risen!

Along the way we saw rolling green fields and large paddocks with some kind of grain nearly ready for harvesting. Looks a bit like barley as it is not tall enough for wheat. Although it could be a different variety of wheat. Not sure and not stopping to find out either!

The distance to Prague is about 500kms and in the end took us longer than expected due to road repairs, one lanes, 60kph driving speeds for anything up to 10kms at a time. When we had completed nearly 200kms it was close to 5.00pm and we called it a day.

After a search on Google Earth, we discovered a camp site which advertised itself well and was only a couple of kms off the Highway very near to a larger town called Brno. We pulled in to discover it was a ramshackle place, mess everywhere and consisted of a paddock with a couple of showers, toilets, 3 or 4 cabins and a reception area which doubled as a pub! The owner was friendly and spoke little English, his barmaid none and we all had a good time miming and pointing and writing numbers down until we sorted out a spot to stay for one night. The price reflected the state of the site and we were the only ones in it!

Small BBQ’s on three legs were scattered and pushed up against one another underneath a tree in the middle of the site, some with burnt wood chips still in them and the grills looking like they had never been cleaned. But we were free to used them if we wanted.

After setting up we went for a walk down the road to see the village we were in. Nothing but houses and small front gardens about 2 m in depth and mostly planted out with roses or long uncut weeds and grass. Gardening is obviously not high on the list of activities here! The road was straight and the village had about 40 houses, one hotel and one store which was closed. Shopping here is not high on the list either!

The hotel looked quiet and we weren’t sure if it was closed or what so in we went to find out. Turns out there was one couple in the dining room capable of seating about 80 and all formally laid out with the best silver, white table cloths and napkins.

The bar had 3 or 4 men in it. One by himself and the others in a small group chatting away in something – probably Czech. We went to the bar and tried to order in English, but had a bit of difficulty. After a minute of this, the man by himself stood up and called out “Pardon! Pardon! I might help?”

To which we responded “Ahh, thankyou! Much appreciated”. He translated what we wanted and soon we had our glasses of local red which, by the way, is quite nice. The bar maid was all smiles and happily took our Koruna off us. Quite a few of them and it takes 27.3 Koruna to make up one Euro and a bit less for one Aussie dollar. So the drinks cost us about 200 Koruna. That seems like a lot until you do the math!

The man who helped us was quite talkative and quite tall and well built. He was dressed in red casual jeans, rolled up at the ankles a little, a white dress shirt not tucked in and brown sandals. Curly grey hair fell around his face and he was quite attractive so Kerrie says. Didn’t do anything for me!

He asked where we were from and then away we went. Turns out his name is Martin Straka. A journalist, author, photographer and TV sports commentator for motor racing. He explained to us that there was a motor race coming up in Brno in a day or two and he was there for that. Also that a lot of motor racing went on in Brno – I had no idea. But that would certainly explain all the photos and paraphernalia in the Hotel on display. Most were from the 1920’s and 1930’s and of racing cars and their drivers from that era.

Martin explained that the village were in was part of the race track as it was a road race back then. Then he took us outside and pointing to the road we had walked down from the camp site, said this was the old straight during the race. When he found I was born in NZ, he said that Denny Hulme and a couple of other Kiwis had raced there in the 1960s and he knew a lot about NZ racing drivers from back then. No Aussies were mentioned. Maybe they didn’t go.

We discussed the little I knew about Czech sports which basically consists of Martine Navratilova and Emile Zatopek – one of the greatest distance runners ever and who I saw at the end of his career in NZ.

We spent a lovely hour with him, swapped names, FB addresses and email address. He gave us the name of two pubs to go to in Prague which he says are typical Czech pubs.  And I asked him to email when his next book is released.

Fantastic guy and as large as life! Later on, after dinner we returned with a Kiwi for a present to thank him for his help and chat. He was quite blown out and did not know what to say. But, he is now a proud member of the Kiwi Recipients Club of which there are, so far, only 38 in the world!!

Back on the road next morning and through tens of kilometres of road repairs. This is the Czech Rep now and like Poland is still a poor country. From what I understand the money for the highways comes from the European Union. Basically that means Germany. So they are busy trying to bring them up to the standard the rest of Europe has. In the meantime, it’s slow driving!

We eventually reached Prague mid-afternoon and settled in. The camp is right in town about 20 minutes from the Old Quarter and has minimal services in the way to toilets, showers etc. But they’ll do!

What it does have is a distinct atmosphere of the 1960’s about it. Long hair and hippie dresses and clothes on nearly everyone. This camp has a big seating area; at night time a fire pit gets going, it has a bar and boy can the locals put away the pints!! Plus, a coffee shop that is definitely straight out a 1965 commune!

Friday and Sat nights is party time till all hours and the Uni students flatting around the suburb, treat it like their local. Friendly enough place and with a supermarket 300m away and the tram stop 50m away, ideal for what we wanted.

We needed some gas for our cooker and enquiries may us realise that no one knew where we could get it. Just lots of helpful “try there at that place”. Which we have come to realise is code for I do not know! So we went to the supermarket and no luck. Found out about another supermarket which apparently is much bigger, but needs various tram swaps to get there and no one knew which trams to get. A young man heard us talking to someone about all this and came p and said “Look, I’m going near there and can drop you off in my car”.

Gratefully we accepted his offer and 15 mins later we arrived. He even went to look up what tram we needed to get back. Decent young man!

The shopping centre is four levels and did have a camping store, but no longer as it closed down. We checked likely places to no avail but got a lead to another camping store even further into town. So off we went.

Took about 15 mins to figure out what all the writing meant on the tram timetable and maps and even then we went too sure. So we just resorted to counting the number of stops we had to take and hoping we wouldn’t forget where we were up to after 20 minutes on the tram.

Prague is a big city and there are lots of people everywhere plus a couple of million tourists milling around or using public transport. So standing room only on the tram and us ducking and peering around shoulders, bags and so on to read the tram stop names and keep accurate count before deciding that Yep, we get off here!

Fortunately, we found a sign that told us the name of the tram stop and it was what we wanted! Now, find the shop. I looked around and there it was, straight across the road waiting for us. We went over and Kerrie went in to ask for the gas. The bloke behind the counter had what she wanted, but he said it wasn’t what she needed. How he worked that to I have no idea! Anyway Kerrie came and got me and I had a look at the can and ordered two of them with no disagreement from him at all! No idea what was going on!

We made the reverse travel back to the camp site which we did rather well using the No5 from Namesti Republika to Flora where we changed to the No9 for the rest of the trip. All good and now we can cook something to eat and heat up water for coffee once again!! Our first excursion into Prague worked out well!

Spent two days in the Old Quarter with the thousands of other tourists. It’s summer break here and families are all on the move and visiting the same stuff we try to. Kids everywhere with lots of bubble blowers and balloon tiers in the various squares entertaining them and making a few Euro on the side. We wandered through Wencelas Square listening to a couple of bands playing jazz and modern music and the whole place is like a festival is going on.

The city is clean and neat and very large. Lots of cafes and restaurants and we found one tucked away down an alley just as it began to pour. Fortunately, it was time for a drink of red and lunch. So we sat down and got served by a Macedonian guy in his late 20’s who spoke Czech, Italian, Macedonian, English, some French and who knows what else. He was a bit of entertainment all by himself. Fun to order with fun to chat with. The lunch was magnificent. Kerrie had something and I had some garlic soup which was much like a minestrone with faint flavours of garlic through it. Fresh bread rolls, a bottle of red and he gave us a glass of something a little sweet and alcoholic to finish up with.

As my foot didn’t hurt so much now, we decided I could do a bit more walking and we went to visit one of the pubs that Martin (our Czech TV Commentator’s recommendation) and after another red, decided it was too quiet and if this was what the Czech’s consider a good time, well, we’ll go elsewhere! I suspect the older generation here are still having bad memories about the Soviet occupation much like the Poles. Tends to make them quiet and very conservative unlike the younger generation we saw.

Back at the campsite, I spent a bit of time helping two young girls repair their tent as they had broken one of the stays. Bad news considering the weather had set in and they and their gear were getting nice and wet!

These two girls are 17 and 18 and having finished High School last year are hitch hiking across Europe as part of their gap year. Apparently Mum thinks they have transport and lodging along the way as they omitted to tell her they were hitch hiking camping! Not brave, just young and silly.

Both girls are well educated, spoke good English and come from Helsinki, Finland where English is taught as a second language to everyone. After some rough repairs, they needed to buy another tent or see if they could replace the stay the next day. Later they came and chatted for a couple of hours and we ending up feeding them as well as they had no food either!

Football mania is huge here at the moment. The EURO Cup is being played and Germany, France, Portugal and Iceland are still in it. Everyone seems pretty happy, especially with Iceland who knocked out England. Apparently this was not expected, but the result was put big smiles on people’s faces. England are not particularly liked it would seem! So to go along with the discussion about all this, people have flags flying from their cars, their house windows and on poles in their gardens. Mostly with German flags. In a few days, France will play Iceland to see who plays Germany. The winner of that game plays Portugal in the final.