28 August 2013.
It’s our last travel day. We’re going back to where we started – Prague.
The trip from Vienna to Prague is a short one. But very quickly, we experience the difference between Austrian and Czech roads. The latter being a lot bumpier. In fact, it felt like we were driving with various flat wheels, and we constantly had to ensure that the now plentiful shopping bags in the overhead storage did not spill their contents all over the bus.
Our lunch stop is in Brno. You just have to love the Slavic languages. They can easily get by without vowels. Like their word for our favourite mid-afternoon treat – Zmrzline (ice cream). It is even possible to have an entire sentence with no vowels, although people would probably wonder what you are on about: Strč prst skrz krk. (Put your finger through the neck). No wonder we struggle to hear any recognisable sounds in this language.
Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, and has a fascinating Astronomical Clock on it’s main square. The clock was designed to remind people of Brno of the 1645 battle, in which the town was saved against attacks by a Swedish army by a smart trick: the Swedes were planning to abandon attempts to conquer the town if they did not accomplish this by midday. But one of the town folk overheard this, and chimed the noon bell at 11 am. Today, at 11 am, this new clock releases a glass marble, that runs down the inside of the clock. And so, if you stick your hand in the slots on the side of the clock, you can attempt to catch the marble, and keep it as a keepsake. We did of course try to displace the hopeful candidates already waiting with their hands in the slots, but they firmly suggested that we should rather wait our turn, and try on some other day…..
I loved driving through the outskirts of Prague. You get to see the real city, and I was happy to see modern office buildings, shopping malls and industrial buildings.
After supper at our hotel, we ventured off into the city with some of our tour friends. But first we wanted to see the Lennon wall. After Lennon’s death in the 80’s, Czech people started writing Lennon-inspired lyrics and graffiti on the wall, as a memorial to John Lennon. The Communist authorities took this rather personally, and tried to paint over it several times, but sentiments of love and peace ensured that the Lennon wall survived to this day. Our names are also written on it now. 🙂
We continued to experience some of Prague’s nightlife, although some of us older folk decided to retire a little earlier than our younger friends.
