According to Wikipedia, "Hair of the dog" is a colloquial expression in the English language predominantly used to refer to alcohol that is consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover. The expression originally referred to a method of treatment of a rabid dog bite by placing hair from the dog in the bite wound. Why is this relevant? Because it goes to the heart of the Tri-Nation 2011 Prague Tour. Let's start at the beginning.
After only a couple of days in Poland, I was once again on a plane. Destination: Prague. Purpose: convening with friends. Mission accomplished. But that would be a short blog wouldn’t it? While some of you may be sighing with relief I’m afraid I won’t let you off the hook so easily.
Firstly, let’s meet the cast. Me, you know but I’m just a supporting actress. The stars of the show are Uncle Mike who I used to work with many moons ago in England and the very lovely Jo, who I met relatively briefly in Rio and Paraty in May/June this year. Uncle Mike is English, but we don’t hold that against him because he travels so much doing good environmental work in difficult countries that he is English in name, sporting allegiance and good manners only. Jo is Swedish but lives in Denmark where she is studying to gain her 10,612th Masters.
Perhaps I ought to have predicted what would happen when I brought together two scary-smart, well-travelled, highly entertaining conversation lovers but I have to confess, I just didn’t really think it through. Had I thought it through, I may have considered procuring some chemical stimulants to enable me to keep up.
On Friday, Uncle Mike and I convened for drinks and dinner while awaiting the arrival of the lovely Jo. After several hours of catching up about travels world-wide, we concluded that I was barking mad. Coming from an Englishman, that’s almost a term of endearment, so it in no way spoiled the excellent Thai curry we were enjoying. After having first been sent to the wrong restaurant by the hotel concierge, Jo located us and joined us for after-dinner drinks. Despite being several drinks behind, she put in a stellar effort and the conversation continued unabated. Deciding to brave the cold and the diabolically unsafe cobblestone streets (a.k.a. after the restaurant politely threw us out), we found one of the few bars that was open and continued solving the world’s problems. The fact that there was little open should have suggested to us that it might be late, but apparently we didn’t much care.
Later that morning, we convened for coffee at a place that sold specialty chocolate - including cannabis-flavoured chocolate. We would have been better off with one of Claus’ gin/cointreau/lemon juice heart-starters. Feeling slightly worse for wear (speaking for myself), we nonetheless persevered and explored the city of Prague. As I think I’ve already mentioned in an earlier blog, Prague is a very beautiful city. Perhaps a little less so in November than it was in May, but since it was slightly less crowded in November, I’ll recommend that as a good time to visit. As a bonus the weekend we were there, the Christmas market had started which created a twee olde world atmosphere in the old town square. Alas, I had agreed to Uncle Mike's terms and conditions without reading the fine print and discovered too late that there was a ban on shopping. Too bad, marketeers. You could have profited were it not for the legally binding contract.
To be fair, Prague is a lot more than just pretty. The buildings are quite stunning and the old city is quite large. Unlike many other European cities where what is left of the old town is a town square, the old part of Prague goes on for ages. It started me wondering how this could be given world wars in the vicinity, so I did some research. Again thanks to Wikipedia (libraries aren't open in Poland on a Saturday), I discovered that Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern. True fact – we saw all that architecture and more. No doubt the fact that all those lovely buildings survived has helped Prague become such a tourist hot-spot. In fact, uninteresting fact number 47: almost 25% of the Czech Republic's GDP comes from Prague and much of that is thanks to tourism.
So, like so many well-behaved tourists before us, on Saturday afternoon we did a boat cruise on the Vlatava River. It was a nice boat, serving nice beer with an audio guide in six languages. What a shame that the English audio guide didn’t speak English. “Welcome-en en are boat en baoarda...scenic overalls.” Huh? I felt I was revisiting chest pains of turkey. Luckily for us, Jo speaks 112 languages, give or take, so we managed to piece together most of what we were seeing. Speaking of lost in translation, there were some excellent faux pas in Prague. Seen on a toilet roll holder: “Big Willy Sanitation Services”. Uncle Mike was in room 401, which was, naturally, on the 5th floor of the hotel. The Mucha exhibition included a poster showing “Weiner Chic” with a picture of a dapper looking art-nouveau-style lady - not exactly sure what it was advertising.
And while on the topic of advertising, let me explain that Uncle Mike takes exception to misapplied monikers the world over. For example, in Australia, the Great Ocean Road should be renamed to the Nice Ocean Road because great is overstating it. In Prague, there was an issue with the astronomical clock. We didn’t find it at all astronomical. It was definitely over-sold by its name, even if it did come with the rather exciting tale of the clockmaker having been blinded upon its completion so he couldn’t replicate it elsewhere. Also, the Church of Our Lady before Týn should be renamed the Scary Church, not just because that would be easier to remember. We were constantly looking over our shoulders, afraid it might release gargoyles from its scary turrets. Too much specialty chocolate perhaps?
When we weren’t eating chocolate, or just eating, or indeed drinking, we were talking and walking. The curious thing about Prague is that there are hoards, yes, hoards, of tourists. Well, that’s not curious in itself. The curious thing is that you take just a small detour away from the main “sights” and the streets become delightfully deserted. Dandering along these streets was much more pleasant than becoming boxed in by a tour group following a monkey on a stick (not a real monkey - no animals were hurt in the making of this blog).
Following a very late (er, early) return on Sunday morning after a Saturday night out in an Italian restaurant and a British pub, we met somewhat later in the day the day than we ought to have done and discussed the pressing topic of the day: hair of the dog. Since we had no idea where the saying came from, we added it to the long list of post-holiday research to be undertaken and headed back out into the city where we dandered some more before finding a cafe near the castle, overlooking the city. In the waning sunlight, we saw Prague glow. An ethereal, golden glow. It was pretty nice of them to put on such a show for us.
And so, we had one important thing left on our agenda. One of the legendary Prague-ian jazz clubs. Ignorance is bliss, or so the jazz man sang that night. Musicians and such artist-types are usually at least slightly outside the mainstream. They’ll be ones that turn up to the party not wearing shoes or without having combed their hair. But why judge? Watching talented people do what they love is a pleasure. Musicians jamming is one of the most euphoric scenes on earth - like puppies playing, but with less shoes involved. When they play, they transcend themselves (the musicians, not the puppies). Percussion is not just bashing some pots. The finesse of a jazz percussionist hitting the rim versus the flat of the drum or cymbal with the tip or the edge of the drumstick is, unlike the clock, quite astronomical. Being able to eek out just the right note, tone, timing, nuance out of a lump of wood or piece of pipe is an extraordinary gift. Why isn’t the use of such gifts promoted as a valuable activity? It makes me sad that all people can’t pursue their own wondrous abilities with their whole souls. But not as sad as it made me to bid Uncle Mike and Jo farewell.
Alas, Monday came too soon and despite the fact that we minimised sleep to wring out every last minute from the weekend, it still went by faster than it should have. And so the Tri-Nation Tour was over for 2011 and we returned to England, Denmark and Poland as conquering heroes, ready for a nice afternoon nap.
Jo and I, with the astronomical clock in the background. I think you'll agree it's not terribly astronomical.
The Scary Church
PS,
In case you are wondering why there are no photos proving the presence of Uncle Mike, that too is part of the terms and conditions. I'm not entirely sure, but I think there is a danger he might explode if he's captured on film, so I daren't try.
No comments:
Post a Comment