I woke early today after a restless night, half dreaming about the History of The World. Travelling to places like Italy, Czechia and Estonia can do that to you I guess, or maybe you shouldn’t mix dark beer with light beer, or maybe I just didn’t drink enough beer. Anyway being unable to set right the follies of earlier times while asleep particularly those enacted by Church and State I decided that maybe 42 was after all the answer to life the universe and everything (please  refer to The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy). Secure in my new outlook on life I decided to have a cup of Nescafe which incredibly has 43 beans in every cup……is the coffee trying to tell me something?

As it turned out we went to see a couple of photographic displays and it seems my restless nights sleep pre-empted the subject matter.

Exhibition 1. Josef Sudek – Topography of Ruins Prague 1945.

Sudek took over 400 photos of the ruins of Prague after the allied forces mistook Prague for Dresden and bombed it in 1945.

Exhibition 2. Josef Koudelka: Returns.

Including the events of August 1968 and other works. Being a bit over graphic recordings of futile violence I went for a walk while Jen looked at the exhibition.

This has been a depressing post so…….. to finish on a high, how about the Prague Beer Bike, a multi seat bike where the punters sit at the bar drinking beer supplied by a centrally located bar tender pedalling their hearts out while the driver navigates the traffic.

Or maybe we would be better off arming the Rabbit members of the “Bunnies for Unified National Niceness In Europe Squad” or “BUNNIES” as they prefer to be called.

A “BUNNIE” Ensuring niceness is maintained.

Ok beer is cheap in Prague, it has to be when they drink so much of it. However to put things into perspective:

One medium pizza  = 170cz

One Latte = 40cz

One 500 ml. beer = 40cz

Coke 500 ml. = 60cz

One 300 ml. water = 35cz

Tram ride to top of hill on Funicular Railway (cable car) = 18cz

However, and this is the bit that rattles my grunnions….

One SINGLE USE OF PUBLIC TOILET = 20cz (mind you Broom Hilda, the toilet Nazi, pretty much keeps an eye on you to make sure things go as they should). As Derryn Hinch would have said “Shame Shame Shame”. How can you charge so little to fill someone up with beer and then charge so much to recycle it. No wonder our friend Minushka Dolejsi changed her name and moved to Australia. You can run but you can’t hide.

I should note that the prices above are if you eat and drink with the locals, go to the tourist areas and you can double these prices and add a bit for good measure, pretty much like everywhere else on the planet.

So we went up the hill today:

View from Petrin Observation Tower.

Looking straight down.

Below:

Memorial to the Victims of Communism showing seven bronze figures descending a flight of stairs. The statues appear more “decayed” the further away they are from you – losing limbs and their bodies breaking open. It symbolises how political prisoners were affected by Communism.

Observation Tower.

Monastery.

Mornng Tea Stop.

2 X 3 Pack Hydra.

Monastery

World biggest metronome

Funicular Railway.

Looks like they will be building a metronome in Dubai!

By the way we solved the riddle of the beer consumption figures.  Beer is available from just about every shop, in fact it’s difficult to go more than a hundred metres or so without seeing beer for sale. On top of that we spotted these guys doing earth works and apparently the beer companies sponsor the work… complete with umbrellas and everything. The big guy … he’s the guy in charge of beer distrbution.

This post has “R” rated content. If you feel you might be offended then I suggest you look the other way for the next picture.

The Sex Machine Museum with over two hundred and fifty “things” or so they say.

Well that’s the “R” rated bit out of the way back to proper Prague.

The Czech Republic is one of the most non religious countries in the world it contains just over ten and a half million people with 1.3 million living in Prague.

With a long and diverse political history Czechoslovakia became Czechia or the Czech Republic by way of a peaceful revolution in November 1989 and  returned to a liberal democracy.

In 2006 the Czech Republic was recognised by the World Bank as a “developed country” this coincidentally was about the time McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King and Subway got there greasy fingers in the Chimney Cake Market.

The Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption in the world at 161 litres per person per year. Beer production started in 993 and they have been at it ever since. As a tourist I feel obliged to sample as much of the local product as possible and I have been giving it a good try, however I fear five or six days just won’t be long enough. Maybe I have to get up earlier.

Yes yes, pictures I know.

Prague Train Station

Alternate Transport

“Czech Musicians” – statues by Anna Chromy’ at Senovážné square. The dancing statues all play different instruments and are blindfolded. They represent the major rivers of the world. The statue with a mandolin represents the Indian river Ganges, the statue with a flute, the Amazon river, the statue with a violin, the Danube and the one with a trumpet, the Mississippi river.

Rivers

Jewish naive artist and  fervent Zionist Robert Guttmann (1880–1942)

Robert Guttmann

Fish Foot Spa

Old Town Square

Low Rise Accommodation

Brian?

Kafka

Witch Free Zone

By the way Belarus Has the highest alcohol consumption in the world by a comfortable margin at about 18 litres per person per year of full strength alcohol. Less comfortable are the eleven percent of the population that are physically dependant on alcohol.

The original plan for Prague had a list of things to do, not a list fixed in stone mind you just a rough sort of list. The kind of list you have when you go shopping, it’s variable depending on what you see, what strikes you as interesting, flavoursome or just totally different so you have to add it to the list. Just like the grocery list we checked it off as we went.

See big Czech Castle and Church……… Czech!

See exhibition of world class photographer……….Czech!

Cecil Beaton social climbing photographer to Monarchs and Stars.

Liz Two.

Another Liz.

Mick Jagger

Ms. Monroe.

What Cecil Beaton Said of Sir Michael Phillip Jagger :

“Lips of a fantastic roundness, body white and almost hairless. He is sexy, yet completely sexless. He could nearly be a eunuch. As a model he is a natural. There are moments when little is said but a few grunts, tough banalities, but much is sensed. I feel he is his real self.”

Mick basically said of Cecil Beaton “…he wore a nice white suit and matching fedora and took pretty good pictures”

See Czech Hare Krishna marching band……….Czech!

See Loony Tunes Czech political protester………Czech!

Note Tinkerbell backpack

Firmly against balloon tax.

We also Czeched out these things to day:

Australians!

Giant bear.

Building art.

Art.

Almost anatomically correct

Rabbit.

Ther are lots of statues in Prague, my favourite commemorates Alfredo di Lelio who is credited with the invention of modern fettuccine. According to family accounts, in 1892, Alfredo di Lelio began to work in a restaurant that was located in piazza Rosa in Rome and run by his mother Angelina. Di Lelio invented “fettuccine Alfredo” in 1908 in an effort to entice his wife, Ines, to eat after giving birth to their first child Armando. Our late and great friend Renato Tardiani would  no doubt have been able to confirm these facts.

The statue depicts Alfredo in early attempts at getting the fettuccine “al dente”.

Thinks. “I should have stuck with the spaghetti”

By the way there seems to be a lot of Chinese visiting Prague. I suggested to Jen that they were Chinese Czeckers but then wondered if that was politically correct? Oh well.

Good news everybody, when you fly Czech Airlines from Venice to Prague you get your washing done for free! This deal is for a limited time only, that is to say it has to be bucketing down rain and requires the baggage Muppets who load the plane to leave the baggage in the middle of runway number two while they shelter back at the terminal. Venice airport has no air bridges to load passengers so transfer to plane is by bus. If it’s raining they don’t put you on the plane which is logical. Leaving the luggage in the rain however strikes me as borderline moronic, have they not heard of the humble yet very waterproof, not to mention cheap…. POLY TARP. Where’s the Spanish inquisition when you need them!

As a result of the Czech washing regime, the rain (resulting in flight delay) and not too bright shuttle bus driver we finally arrived at our Prague Air bnb at midnight. On the plus side the Accommodation is excellent.

A quick couple of pictures from around Prague:

Weird panorama of main street. Jen on the right.

Free Bridge Show.

Crowded? Quite!

Boutique bar.

Chimney cake-ice cream

Street view.

The Europa Hotel.

Tomorrow tourist stuff. Churches, museums, architecture, all the really serious tourist stuff. None of this striking a pose with a selfie stick camera for these culture seekers.

We returned the BoBo Mobile to the airport today in advance of our flight to Prague. It might be slow but 30 litres of fuel for 5 days driving, so that’s good, especially if you are a clown on low wages.

Anyway back to the topic for the day……..

The Venetian Crime and Punishment Exhibition.

When it comes to grizzly forms of punishment these guys had it in spades. Whether it be the Council of Ten, which turns out to actually be sixteen (but that could be down to the decimal system) or the Spanish Inquisition you wouldn’t have wanted to upset these guys. Draw a rude picture of the local priest…. that’s a flogging, cuss him…..that’s you’re head gone, be adulterous…… that’s some other bits gone. You get the general gist of what’s going on right?

The Doge and his henchmen (made up of the rich and powerful) kept a very tight rein on all social and moral activities in Venice and had some really inventive ways of keeping the peasantry and the aristocracy for that matter in line. The Spanish Inquisition…. even cleverer!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so if and only if you are not faint hearted check these instruments of investigation out they are guaranteed to tickle your giblets, bother your toes and generally lead to a full confession….. guilty or not!

ONE LAST CHANCE TO BACK OUT. GO NO FURTHER IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH………..

O.K. THEN, IF YOU’RE REALLY SURE…….

YOU ARE SURE AREN’T YOU?…….

HERE WE GO THEN……

The Rack, with rolling spiky bits.

The put head between blocks and whack with mallet business.

The Select-a-mask game.

The Garrotte, now this is a real pain in the neck.

These and many more timber and metal contrivances were used for hundreds of years to punish, extract information and generally tame the non-compliant populous mostly in the name of God and his representatives.

Probably a page from a contemporary comic book, “The Priest and Doge go to town”.

By the way, these days they just use these guys..

Our last day in Slovenia was spent up in the north visiting the the lovely Triglav National Park where we explored Tolmin Gorge (much less crowded than Vintgar Gorge) and Grad Tolmin an ancient Castle atop a hill out of town described by the tourist office as a short walk from the car park. In reality Grad Tolmin is over four hundred metres pretty much straight up, could be there was a language issue in the description, it is a short walk but not and easy one. Anyway both were well worth the visit.

Panorama from 430 metres up.

View from the castle.

Looking down to the river.

The Bears Head.

Jen heading toward the light

The gorge.

By the way the Lancia review I promised:

The Lancia, not sure of model because the badge fell off sometime back, did a reasonable job going up and down hills and was only passed once by a push bike. Liberal use of the gear stick ensures slow but continual forward motion and it is possible to achieve something like the recommended road speeds. I feel the addition of a large plastic wind up key to the hatchback would make this an ideal car for Bobo and his friends to perform their highly amusing contrivances while circumnavigating one or even two of the three rings at any half decent circus.

After our last day in the land with language of the superfluous “j” we “motored” back to Venice to catch the “Venice Secrets – Crime and Justice Exhibition” before flying to Prague.

Gourmet Eh!

Postojna Cave

Graffiti inside the cave dates to 1213 indicating a long history of use. The cave itself is older by many millions of years.

Electric lights were fitted in 1884. Electricity was connected two years later (just kidding, maybe).

In 1872, a train for tourists was added, pushed by the guides while they explained the cave. Obviously jobs were difficult to find in the 1870’s.

During World War One, Russian prisoners of war were forced to construct a bridge across a chasm inside the cave. They cooperated no doubt thinking they could slip out the back while the guards were out eating there kraski zasink (Cured pork neck meat to you and I).

During world War Two, German occupying forces used the cave to store 1,000 barrels of aircraft fuel. In April 1944 this fuel was set alight and the fire burned for seven days, destroying a large section of the cave and blackening the entrance and all the stored World War One surplus kraski zasink.

The cave system is over 24 Klm. long  and runs electric trains to move the tourists as quick as possible (time is money), it has a post office and a gift shop underground. The tour is quick and there is not much time for photography, the underground gift shop being the only stop without a time limit.

All this adds up to a Disney like experience, think “Indiana Jones and the Cave of Tourists” ride.

At the Station.

The Ride.

The underground gift shop.

Photo from the walking part.

From the train.

Also in the area and included in our “Super Expo Package No.1 with benefits tour” were:

A display depicting the evolution of life on earth, not bad, less visitors. Naturally it included the inevitable evolution of man.

Butterflies nailed to boards and hung on the wall.

A cave insect/animal display, interesting and informative. No photos, sorry.

The worlds largest cave/castle experience. Predjama Castle is a Renaissance castle a twenty minute bus ride away with it’s own cave system, we did it in fifteen minutes as our bus driver was obviously in training for the next formula one championship.

By the way, tomorrow we put the “would be” Lancia to the test and see if it can climb a Slovenian hill without assistance from a cave guide desperate for work. Stay tuned!

Back in the early seventies (that’s 1970’s not 18) Lancia made a two door sports car called a Fulvia, a great rally winning sports car. I always wanted one of these iconic sports cars so I was not disappointed when Hertz swapped our Fiat hire car for a two door Lancia five speed manual in cobalt blue that was being delivered “fresha froma the garaga”, how good was this car going to be after fifty odd years of engineering development, excitement plus, blasting down the autostrada at mach one, roof down, probably a paddle gear change. No better still we’ll hit the back roads and re-live the nineteen seventies Italian Rally Championship, …. this was going to be a drive!

Not disappointed that is until the Lancia emergeda froma the garaga

How the mighty have fallen 1.3 litre diesel, really…….?

Anyway this is our ride to Slovenia and this is Lake Bled.

View from the lookout.

So many stairs.

Safety first.

The Castle.

LJUBLJANA

Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia has a lovely bridge across the Ljubljanica River. Legend has it that Jason and the Argonauts killed a dragon while Jason was establishing the city and that it is one of the four statues on the bridge. So add that Jason’s fight list: Harpies, Seven headed hydra, Medusa, the list goes on and on. All this from a young Todd Armstrong, born on July 25, 1937 in Missouri, USA… in the 1963 version anyway.

Another local legend claims that if a virgin crosses the bridge the dragons wag their tails. We waited and waited and waited and……….

No discernible tail movement.

VINTGAR GORGE

The name Vintgar probably originates from German Weingarten (the vineyards in the nearby Podhom), another interpretation says that the gorge section resembles a wine glass.

Vintgar Gorge was very busy even though it was mid week. It is quite pretty but would have looked better with less visitors. The gorge is accessed via a narrow walkway “attached” to the cliff walls with various bits of “structural” steel and timber. Attached and structural is a bit of poetic license as the walkway quite often re-locates itself to a less desirable and much lower position within the gorge. The walkway has been described as and “engineering wonder” largely I feel because it’s a wonder it doesn’t re-locate itself more often. Anyway we safely traversed the gorge’s one and a half kilometre length and after a quick calculation on the iphone engineering app, that all careful travellers should consider downloading, we returned by the longer more arduous route (sans walkway).

The gorge

The walk back.

Plenty of visitors.

Section of walkway.

By the way the section of walkway above has been replaced.

Bonus pictures

Brian,(Eastern Sparrow?)

What Sup! This Sup.

Some sort of shop.

Fish in the sky with clouds.

Two oared gondola.

Lookout.

Green stuff

Church bells rang contiuously.

Gorge.

Look for Hummingbird Moth

On a sad note we were very disappointed to learn that we had made a grave error in our holiday planning. We arrived at Bled two weeks too early and as a result will now have to forfeit our chance to see the Okarina Championships.

Ho boyj I wasj really lookink forwarj to the playink off betweenj Guillaumme Perret and Natacha Atlas.

It would be very easy to get into a castigation of current merchandising and the like in the greater Venice area. So let not do that. Let’s look at some exciting stuff. Let’s talk money, ghettos, banks, Shakespeare and the like.

In the early 1500’s Venice, being a very open minded city allowed the Jews (who were looking for a new home) to live in an area of the city where the foundries were, these areas were known as “geti” now Ghetto. The Jews handled the banking and money trade, which Venetians for religious reasons could or would not. The Jews set up Venetian tables or banco for money exchange now banks. This is the setting for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice a great comedy about money, love, deceit and betrayal that sees most of the cast including Bassanio, Antonio, Jessica, Portia and Shylock get their just deserts.

The really good news is the worlds oldest bank is in Venice and it’s now a bar.

By the way, if you are not up on banking a Giro is the exchange of money from one account to another so Bancogiro is the exchange of money at a bank from one account holder to another. Sorry Ollie I know you knew that, any teacher worth their salt knows that. That reminds me the word salary comes from salt which was the method of payment in Venice a while back (salt being a valuable commodity). These days it’s Euros … salt bags full of Euros.

A Sotoportego is a passage through a building to the other side. So Sotoportego del banko giro means you can walk through the bank pay money and realising you are now fresh out of ducets, throw yourself in the canal.

Why do modern clocks and watches only have twelve hours on the dial when there’s twenty four hours in a day?

Two times twelve o’clock. This is a proper clock!

Two or three days is about as much as a normal person can comfortably spend in Venice particularly if cruise ship days are included. On these days the number of tourists swells by up to three thousand in one hit. These extras have a few hours to see the city, that is to cram in as many churches, pizza bars, gondola rides, and high end shop visits as possible. On cruise ship days the locals are easy to spot, they are the ones hiding on the top floors and rooftops, or skirting the back streets to avoid the dreaded selfie sticks (we saw a lot of back streets). Those brave locals that do mix with the masses of ship folk can be seen spitting vitriol at the aforementioned and who could blame them after all Venice was founded as a safe haven for the people escaping persecution in mainland Europe.

Will tourist dollars keep Venice afloat? Probably not. The water levels in the canals are rising slightly year by year and the city is actually sinking on it’s foundations. A few years back work started on a flood mitigation plan in the Venice Lagoon, the company doing the installation however went broke so until that is sorted Venice will have to put up with the odd knee high flood, but don’t worry there is now a smart phone app to predict water levels.