Judith's blog

Our final day in Prague didn’t start too well. It was chucking it down when we woke up, but there was blue sky by the time we checked out of the hotel.

We went wandering around the town, but pretty much straight away had to shelter in an ATM booth from a thunderstorm. Once the rain stopped we looked at the market and the funny tourist t-shirts (“Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go to Prague.” “I fear no beer”, etc.). We found the Jewish quarter and then headed for the river to go on the pedalos. They weren’t running when we arrived,  and as soon as they opened, the next thunderstorm threatened, so we decided against it.  A nice lunch later (sausages, bread and beer), we headed back to the airport and back home.

It was a great break and Prague is a beautiful city. Well worth going. What struck us is how clean the place is. There is hardly any litter at all. Prague itself was hardly damaged in WWII (though many people died, of course, including most of the Jewish population), so the old town is completely preserved and there is barely anything new. The range of architectural styles is amazing.

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We picked up a couple of leaflets for walking tours, but were spoiled for choice. There were communist, medieval, history, alternative history, ghost tours, etc. The list seemed endless. In the end we plumped for a general history/most important sites four hour tour. As the tour didn’t start until 11am, we decided to go to the Communism museum, which was fascinating. As elsewhere, the ideals of communism quickly turned into state repression, and people of Geoff’s age will remember the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw pact forces. The museum looks at this and the aftermath, including the eventual Velvet Revolution which eventually saw the overthrow of the pro-Soviet government in 1989, at around the same time as other countries under Soviet control were also gaining independence.

Whilst there we found yet more info on tours and this time found a free one, so decided to go on it instead of the fee paying one. In the event, we were the only two on it, so we had a private show of Prague with a nice young American woman called Emily. Because it was just the three of us, we did it at our pace and got to ask endless questions and get inside info on sights, venues, what it’s like to live in Prague, etc. She took us across the Charles bridge into the lesser town and up and around the castle.

After the tour we went in search of the Opera House and this whacky modern building in the middle of the art noveau district. We were going to hire a pedalo and go cruising on the river, but the wind had picked up so much that some people were having trouble steering and it looked like river boat dodgems. Having laughed at the people in the boats, we declined to provide the entertainment in turn, so went in search of beer instead.

I love finding local places off the beaten tourist track and we stumbled across a small entrance with just a small price list written entirely in Czech. From the measures it was clear what was beer and at £1 a pint, we went in. Behind the doorway was a lovely beer garden and restaurant. We were the only non-Czech people there and muddled through – despite at one point getting coffee instead of pickled cheese. They served the Prague version of tapas and we ate home smoked pork belly, pickled cheese and pepper fish pot. Delicious. It was a lovely place to spend the evening and they had to chuck us out in the end.

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We were getting very bored with the bad weather and it’s my birthday tomorrow. Geoff promised me a fab time down a cave in Wales somewhere, but it didn’t seem that appealing, so I checked out Ryanair and we flew off to Prague! I’ve never been there, so I was as excited as a kid before Christmas.

We got there in the late afternoon and found our hotel was a 5 minute walk from Wenceslas square, scene of the Velvet Revolution. We dumped our rucksacks and went to explore. A tasty sausage and beer later, we reached the bottom of the square and realised something was going on as a large crowd had gathered. We expected buskers, but it was an international pole vaulting competition – in the middle of a pedestrian precinct. I’ve never seen live pole vaulting before. It was brilliant. A group of office workers were having a Coca-Cola Light moment and were adding to the carnival atmosphere by dancing provocatively in their office windows – either that or they were pole dancers moonlighting as secretaries.

We spent the evening soaking up the sun and ambiance walking around, looking at the squares and buildings. Prague is stunning and people were just so unbelievably friendly.

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I went to Malta for Christmas and Hanukkah with the family (15 and a half of us). I don’t really know what I thought Malta would be like, but it wasn’t really like I expected – I thought it would have more of a Greek island feel to it. It’s lovely with beige sandstone buildings and sea wherever you look. We had a drive around Valletta on the first day and it deserves its world heritage site status. Then off to the island of Gozo where we were all staying.

We had hired three farmhouses to accommodate the various family groups and this worked out well. I spent the week sight seeing, walking, exploring temples and towns and we played lots and lots of silly games. On Christmas day we amused (or bemused?) the locals with a treasure hunt around the village of Xaghra. Maltese people are really friendly and when the 4th group of treasure hunters passed there were families waiting to cheer us on.

Great holiday…

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Having only the morning in Naples, I wanted to see the National Archaeological museum, where all the finds from Pompeii, Herculaneum and other Roman sites are held. We got up early to be able to be there at 9am, but first we had to negotiate Monday morning rush hour in Naples. A Swiss woman whom we got chatting to on Vesuvius told us that in Naples a pedestrian’s life was worthless. That is an understatement. There is a pecking order which goes something like this car > bus > moped > pedestrian. Nobody is stupid enough to ride a bicycle in Naples.

Crossing a road was a major undertaking. Zebra crossings are a waste of paint. No one stops at them. I saw the whites of more drivers’ eyes that you can imagine. It took us a while to suss out how it works. Basically, if you look for a gap and then scuttle across the road, this brings out the hunter instinct in the drivers. Never run! If you just step out and walk across with panache, they stop – probably only because blood stains are so tricky to get off the paint work. They see you off with a feisty toot of their horn though.

The museum was brilliant, although some of the exhibits we were looking forward to were out on loan or had been taken away for restauration. What a treasure trove though. It would have been amazing to see all the mosaics, paintings and statues in situ at Pompeii.

We headed back to the train station and Naples is even dirtier than Ercolano. There was a refuse collector strike in Naples a few years ago, but it would be difficult to see the difference, since the locals don’t seem to mind the streets being full of litter the rest of the time.

On getting to Rome airport we went through the gate and had to board a bus to be taken to the airplane. The bus drove in a circle around the plane depositing us just 20 meters from where we had boarded the bus in the first place. This seemed a surreal safety precaution given the traffic fun we had had in Sorrento and Naples!

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I woke up and my whole body ached. I still felt bad, and Geoff had courteously developed sympathy symptoms, although not as bad as mine. We were due to leave the hotel that morning, but considered if we shouldn’t stay. It was going to be our one chance to go up Vesuvius (no rain forecast), and this enticed me out of bed. The thought and smell of food made my stomach heave, but we made it to the train station and on to Ercolano (Herculaneum) where the Vesuvius bus leaves. Our Rough Guide is a little out of date, so we walked through Ercolano to the ruins to get the bus, only to find that the bus leaves from the train station. Modern-day Ercolano is a dump. Full of rubbish and dog crap. The route up to Vesuvisus is a national park, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the municipal tip. On arriving at the car park you have to pay to walk to the crater, another 800 metres, which is definitely worth it. It’s still smoking. The crater is a proper caldera and the views over the bay of Naples, Capri, etc. are breathtaking. We only got just over an hour at the top before the bus departed again and had I been feeling better we would have had more time on top, rather than me having to slowly drag myself up the hill and wasting time because of it.

We got down and went to Naples to find our hotel. It was near the train station, which is the seedy part of town. The Hotel Garibaldi was a 3 star hotel, so nice, but we got there and I went straight to bed. I still couldn’t face any food and we both slept for about 14 hours straight, so we missed any sightseeing in Naples.

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The forecast was for sun in the morning, but rain in the afternoon, so climbing up Vesuvius was a non-starter. We could have gone to Herculaneum, but it’s a much smaller version of Pompeii, so we decided to go around the Amalfi coast. Amalfi is an hour and a half by bus, so we opted for Positano instead. The coast around the area is rugged mountains with few beaches. The road from Sorrento to Positano goes over a mountain and then along the coast next to a sheer drop, several hundred meters high, all the way. On the way up the mountain the bus driver would cut up other road users and then stop to spend time having loud arguments with lots of wild gesticulating. He would make up the lost time driving round the bends like a maniac. At particularly sharp bends he would hoot his horn to give oncoming cars the chance to choose between crashing into us head-on or driving themselves off the side of the cliff. It was like Alton Towers for the bargain price of 1.80 euros.

Positano is beautiful. Built on a very steep sided cove, it straddles its way up the mountain side. There is a small beach at the bottom. As we arrived the sun was shining, but on arriving at the beach it had clouded over. We spent the morning and lunch time there and then headed back to Sorrento. We walked down to the harbour at Sorrento when the heavens opened and we scuttled back to the hotel for more movies while the rain lashed the windows.

Once the rain had a break we went out for dinner. We chose a local (i.e. non-touristy) place where the owner enticed us with deep fried bread balls filled with cheese and rocket. The pizza was great and we ate about as much as we could. She over-charged us for the meal, but she had been so nice, we didn’t quibble. On getting back to the hotel I started to feel decidedly off. Stomach cramps, sore kidneys, waves of nausea and cold shivers later, I decided I probably had food poisioning. It was a long night.

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