Prague 25th - 27th July 2010

Arrived in Prague in early afternoon and realizing that I hadn’t had a decent feed in the last 24 hours went to burger king to gorge on a whopper meal. Not a decent feed I know but a large one.

It was raining fairly heavily but luckily the hostel wasn’t far from the station. The AZ hostel was a budget choice, and I would get what I paid for. I walked into my 4 bed dorm room and was hit by an unbelievably strong smell of bad feet. Not since Richard “Moldham” Oldham’s efforts on a fourth form school walking trip had I smelt anything like this in a hostel. To make matters worse the bed furthest from the source of the smell (a dirty pile of clothes near the window) had the hardest mattress id felt since a night spent in a Tibetan monastery in India……So the choice was between an eye watering stench or a hard night sleep…opted for the brick mattress after some debate. (Later that night the source of the smell would enter the room wearing boots I think he actually dug up from a WW1 trench) To make matters worse there was an exercise studio below the room that would repeatedly pump out the first 16bars of various Chicago house tunes at a ridiculous volume with a Czech fitness instruct shouting over a mic “up..up ..up”. AZ hostel has leapt to the top of the bad hostel list despite having decent enough facilities outside of room 101.


Spent the evening walking round town feeling knackered after a couple of nights out previously. The City itself was impressive…had a look around the old town trying to spot locations from the classic 80’s INXS video for “never tear us apart” ….Then I saw the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. A dude wearing one of those Ostrich suits ( same as the one David Brent wore on Comic relief day in “the Office” ) verbally advertising a Thai Massage parlour on the street with the amount of enthusiasm Evans shows for after dinner chat ( ie. very little) “massage” ….( yawn)…“uh Thai massage” ….( sigh ) “Thai massage here“……What a way to make your money!! …was laughing out loud for 2 blocks afterwards. Once I had regained my composure headed back to the hostel for a quiet night listening to radio 6 through the intermittent wi-fi connection.

Before the end of the evening myself and “swamp-thing” were joined in the room by a shell suited American in his late 60’s …something dodgy about this guy ….always had a mysterious duffle bag in his hands …gave off a similar impression to a certain glam rock musician who got into a lot of trouble in Vietnam recently. Not long after the lights were turned out the room filled with the sound of commercial waste bins being mechanically lifted loudly into a garbage truck on the street outside. The air soon also filled with the smell of wet garbage …(in this case actually quite refreshing in comparison to the socks smell from hell!! ) Slept that night with earplugs in to blank out the snore chorus going on in the room… yep AZ hostel was the pits alright…..

Next day was woken up by the sound of “Garry Glitter “ about to lock me into the room with the only shared door key…not a good start to the day…..

Once I was up and out on the street things improved dramatically though, the sun was shining and my mood was instantly improved. Got a cheap breakfast and spent the day wandering around the city. The views across the river to Prague castle , and back from the other side, are among the best in any city ive been to. Saw a cool Dixieland jazz band playing on one of the bridges and then found a Tesco to buy some cheap but nutritious food….. Prague’s architecture and various statue filled squares seemed endless and I wandered until around 5 in the afternoon at a slow place with no particular direction….a good day!

After playing guitar in the hostel for a few hours headed out to spend my last 39 koruna… ended up buying a large coke at McDonalds ( the cheapest price in town at 37K) and giving my last 2k to a tramp ( of which there were many in town ). With no urge whatsoever to get on the beer that night went back to the “AZ “around 10 to write this blog and anticipate another awkward nights sleep…..

Prague was an awesome city for sightseeing. Some of the views of boats on the river from the bridges in the late afternoon were truly inspiring….overall a positive and anecdote filled couple of days. Didn’t really meet any cool people in the hostel but that’s okay as feel refreshed after a couple of early nights in room 101 and saved some money .…..now its time to hit Berlin and start a week of madness, ( Berlin/Amsterdam/ Hamburg) before heading on to Scandinavia…