Hammer and Nail

Well going out in Prague is certainly more interesting when you've got a few locals to show you the ropes. Plus it also helps when you don't have that much to do the next day, it makes drinking a few liters of beer on a school night seem a lot less... bad.
Nail Bar in Prague (I have no idea of it's real name) is a little bar in Praha 2 with a game that would certainly be banned within seconds in any Australian pub, club, bar, bistro, or even backyard. Pictured is the lovely Dita posing with the hammer and one of the large gauge nails used in the game, along with the giant chunk of tree stump. This bad boy is filled with nails that have already been hammered in and it's surface is covered with chunks of sawdust from all the miss-hits of nails from previous games.
You start by nailing in one of these large nails for each player, using the back of the hammer as a measure to make sure they all start off at the same height, and then each person gets one swing of the hammer to try and drive their nail into the tree trunk. You only get one swing regardless of whether you hit or miss and then pass the hammer on to the next person. The trouble is you're using a hammer with a chisel head on the back and you have to use this narrow part to smash in your nail, which also gets a lot more difficult after a few beers surprisingly.
Add to this that the loser has to buy shots (or beers if no one wants shots) for everyone and you have one mean drinking game.
Pictured below is my souvenir woodchip that I knocked off the tree in my first game.

Magic Games

Oh, what a night we had last night.  We met up with a friend we briefly met on a walking tour of Berlin who now lives in Prague and several of her friends for some beverages and some rounds of ten pin bowling.

The venue (called Magic Games) itself was an interesting spot.  It was in the basement of an old building in Prague 10. You walk down a set of stairs and your at the bar, then to the right hand side there are 2 bowling alleys and to the other side there is a pool table, darts and pinball.

The ten-pin bowling was old-school - the pins were on strings and the lanes were very short.  You could basically bowl bare foot if you wanted too (Dita did) and you paid per hour instead of by game.  It worked out to be less than $5.00 AUS, so cheap!

We had many rounds of beer, tried some Czech cheese (Nakládaný hermelín) it was really tasty.  We also got to try some Czech shots which were referred to as "coffin varnish remover" and it tasted like it too.

It was the most fun we have had in Prague so far.  Tomorrow, we pack our bags and head for Dresden.

Sex & Torture in Prague

On our way home from the Prague Underground Tour we ventured into the Sex Machines Museum situated just off Old Town.  The Museum purports to be an "...exposition of mechanical erotic appliances."  Apparently there are sex museums all over Europe, but this one is unique because it focuses on the apparatus people create to try to enhance their sexual pleasure.

It was 250 crowns each (around $10.00 AUS) for admission which was a bit rich, but we paid it anyway. We saw some..erm..mechanical erotic appliances dating back to the 1500's. Some of the things in this museum are quite simply wrong and should not exist - but you absolutely have to go and see them if you're ever in Prague.

The first room had a bra with openings, a love seat and a man's robe with a convenient opening.  The next room actually had a 1925 Spanish porn movie on - it wasn't gratuitous porn, just very very funny.

Other rooms had various old-school methods of contraception, various pouches, walking sticks, belts, mechanical devices, chairs and even wall-mount signs describing various positions.  One display showed piercings that looked like they really could hurt!  I could not believe we were allowed to take pictures! We took very little anyway.  It was an experience to say the very least.

I'm Going Deeper Underground

It's interesting to see how many cities we've been to that have an underground tour. Prague is a city that used to be much lower and it turns out all the old buildings we've been wandering past on the street used to be the first or second floor.
In the old town square, and more specifically the old town hall, there's a room with large tiled mosaics on both walls. Mostly it's used for weddings nowadays but the door pictured leads down to some of the preserved buildings underneath the (current) street level.
Getting down there was much less involved than in Berlin as most of the rooms were used up until quite recently. That and they were never meant to be shelters of any kind, several rooms being used as store rooms or in some cases prisons.
The first room contained a giant burnt cross, one of the many religious symbols that had suffered at the hands of the many religious purges in Prague's history. When the citizens aren't busy throwing town councils out of windows that is. Also along the wall are statues of many of Prague's more famous and influential people including King Wenceslas, a great favourite among the Czech people.

As we continued down we passed through what was once the ground floor of the tower, and then through several old houses which had each been built with a common wall to save on building materials. This was not terribly successful when people had, as we saw in one room, large ovens in their houses and fires quite often broke out. The oven we did see was constructed by Italian immigrants and had several small bones peppered through the stonework. They had taken all the household animals that had died and incorporated them into the oven to keep the good luck in the house.
As we passed over a bridge between houses we saw what was once the original street level a few metres below us and discovered why this had all been buried. During Prague's expansion into a town from a little village on the river no town fortifications had yet been built. Add to this the problem of the river rising and flooding the town and both problems were solved in one go. When building a fortified wall around the town a moat was also dug outside. This earth was used to raise the level of the streets, essentially burying the first level of each house underneath the new streets.
We also saw an example of Prague's old heraldic emblem. The version we saw shows the gate of the Charles Bridge and this was later modified to include a sword in front of the entrance after the residents successfully defended themselves from an angry invading Danish army.
We also saw several replicas of various pikes and weapons used at the time and a measuring device which included scales and the standard unit of measurement in Prague.
All in all another fascinating tour with a lot of the history of Prague revealed and sights we wouldn't normally see just wandering the streets on our own.

Kutna Hora

Kutna Hora is a wacky place, it is located about 69km east from Prague and has had UNESCO World Heritage Site since the mid 90's.

Historically the once substantial wealth and politico-military power of the town(s), especially between the 13th to 15th centuries, was founded on the copious deposits of silver and the attendant boom in silver mining that occurred in the region. However, this has not been the case for nearly half a Millennia now as the towns principle silver mine was irretrievably flooded in the mid 16th century.  The towns’ prestige also eroded drastically over the centuries through the deleterious effects of various wars, the Austro-Hungarian occupation and numerous devastating plagues.

Our first stop was the eerie Sedlec Ossuary. I can’t deny that principally it’s my morbid curiosity with regards to the ossuary, one of the town’s main tourist draws I think, that has drawn me here today.

The Ossuary houses four enormous bell-shaped mounds of bones and occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the centre of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vaults.  One other prominent “artpiece” is the large Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms.  Of the large amounts of bodies bequeathed to the earth as a result of recurrent, severe plagues; 30,000 bodies are estimated to be buried here from a Great Plague in 1318 alone!  This is possibly not a spot for the easily spooked or squeamish but I think this is a really great, not run-of-the-mill sight to see if you’re up for the trip out to it.

Our second stop was St Barbara's Church which was an amazingly beautiful 3 spires Gothic Church. It houses a lot of renaissance and baroque artwork.  The church is visible all over Kutna Hora. Amazingly, construction of this church began is 1388, but was not finished until 1905.

Onwards to the Kutna Hora town centre and a very becalming and pretty one it is too.  The beauty of Prague, but a much quieter and smaller one.
There are many more churches and a museum of the old royal mint.  This involves a local guide which shows you some of the old coins under each King.

This was quite an interesting tour, although again our tour group kept to themselves a lot and weren't interested in chatting to us, we're beginning to think we're frightening :(

After this 6 hour journey, we again went and had a hearty meal and dessert at Cafe Slavia and then a walk along the river before we headed home to rest our tired eyes.

Tomorrow, we do an Underground Tour of Prague's Old Town and a Dinner Cruise along the river.

Ahoj Prague

We departed Berlin on the 14th May (we were a bit sad to leave Berlin, as we had enjoyed it so much) and arrived in Prague after our 5 hour journey by train.  After spending about half an hour in the main station trying to work out the zones and where to buy our tickets from, we were on our way arriving at our destination with few arguments.  We are staying in Nove Mesto (New Town) and we have been here for 3 days now - enjoying all the delicious food and beer.

On our first night we went to Pivovarsky Dum - a small microbrewery just a block from where we are staying.  We tried 0.5L of Štěpán each, which is a classic style czech pale lager with our meals - it was delicious.

Yesterday, we spent our day at the Czech Beer Festival in Letnany. Once we figured out where to buy a ticket from and that we needed a day ticket we were on our way.

We arrived quite early, not knowing what time it opened.  During our wait we came across some English lads from Liverpool on a stag night.  We enjoyed their company for most of the afternoon/evening before we parted ways to go home.
The beer festival was great and so was the food. We drank about 4-5 litres of beer each!

Today, we spent the day walking around Stare Mesto (Old Town) soaking up the beautiful architecture and old facades. We then had some lunch at Pastacaffe - great pasta dishes. Then for dinner we ate at U Pravdu which is just downstairs from where we are staying.  David enjoyed some pork ribs (1kg) and I a sirloin with potatoes, garlic, onion, bacon & cheese in a scallop pan with 0.5L of Pilsner Urquell (seems to be a popular beer in Prague). Again, very delictable, but oh, so very full.

Tomorrow, we head to Kutna Hora.