Prague is an easy city to get around in. Most of the sights in the centre are within walking distance of each other, and for the rest, you can buy an all-day transport ticket for a very reasonable price. The buses and trams come every few minutes. And then there’s the underground…

One of my English students, born in what was then Czechoslovakia, gave me some advice. ‘Go on the underground,’ he said. ‘Parts of it are really deep, and those escalators are something else…’

He wasn’t wrong. The unsuspecting first-time traveller faces three problems on the escalator. The first is the speed – you are whizzed down at what feels like several hundred miles an hour, and then shot off at the bottom. The second is the advertisments you pass on the way, and try to read, just to convince yourself that you really don’t speak a word of Czech. These ads are placed diagonally – so while you’re trying to keep your balance on this speedy moving staircase, you’re tilting your head and leaning over to see the ad better. And, because the wind blowing down the escalator has come straight from the north pole, you are simultaneously rummaging for your woolly hat and jamming it on your head…

But once you get the hang of all this, public transport is the way to go in Prague. On our second day (click here for pics of the first day) Son 2 and I visited the memorial to the victims of communism, a chilling set of statues at the bottom of Petrin Hill,

followed by lunch in a ‘literary cafe’, full of old pics and atmosphere. (The omelette was amazing, too.)

Back on the tourist trail, we saw more of the usual sights, like the astronomical clock, which attracted a huge number of tourists:

and the hanging man, which depicts Freud and his struggle with the fear of death. It was created by artist David Cerny, who also made the upside down horse statue we saw in the last Prague post.

The day ended here: (Svejk is the main character in the novel of the same name, written by the Czech novelist Jaroslav Hasek.)
Great pretzels, and the chicken and garlic was lovely too…

To be continued…

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken