Prague - 22-24th Feb

Although I got up early in Brno, most of my day still seemed to be spent travelling. The rest was welcome though, and a few hours relaxing at the hostel gave me the energy I needed before gathering some troops and going out for the night. Although the group got split up fairly early on, it was still a good night, and bars in Prague can certainly be highly recommended!

In spite of that, I still managed to get up early and be out of the hostel by 9 to start what was to be my only full day in Prague, as I had decided (based on insistent recommendations) to slot in another day at my next stop, Cesky Krumlov. This started off well - I managed to take in a good amount of the Old Town before the main groups of tourists got there, and work out a rough itinery for the day to boot, all within the first hour.

After this I hopped on a bus to the nearby(ish) town of Kutna Hora, to check out something I'd first heard of only the night before: The Church of Bones. The bus ride was quite long, as was the walk that followed it, but it was worth every minute. Apparently constructed to remind people of the Eternity of God, without this in mind, you'd hardly have guessed the place was a Christian church. The decorations range from general piles of sundry bones to an amazing chandelier which contains at least one of every bone in the human body. All the bones are genuinely human, reckoned to be over 400,000 in all. Certainly one of the most amazing things I've seen so far, if not the most amazing. Go there! Everyone!

Getting back to Prague mid-afternoon, I managed to fit in a spot more sightseeing, going up to the Karlovy Most, the bridge across the water to Hrady Praha (Prague Castle). By this point my legs were quite tired, and I decided I'd seen enough castles recently, so I settled for a few photos from across the water before heading back to the hostel for a quick rest and freshen up for the main event of the evening...

During my wanders throughout the town, I'd accidentally acquired myself a ticket to The National Black Light Theatre, and mysteriously lost 550 CKR in the process. It was well worth every penny (cent? groszy? I have no idea what one hundredth of a Czech Koruny is :S). For those who don't know (like me earlier that morning), or haven't worked it out, the only lighting used during performances is "black lighting", or UV lights - the kind that make white shirts glow in clubs. Now, I'm not a regular theatre goer, nor am I a huge fan of any form of "modern art", but this show, aptly entitled "WOW", was impressive in every respect, and hugely enjoyable to boot. The way the blackness is used is really inventive, and there's a good deal of interesting methods of involving the audience, too.

A busy day meant an easy night, so I just chilled out at the hostel for a while and rose early the next day to catch a couple more things before moving out. Firstly I went to visit the Torture Museum, which contains quite a comprehensive arrazy of medieval torture devices, with detailed histories, diagrams and explanations. Very interesting, though definitely not for the faint-hearted!

After this, I still had a little time on my hands, so I went to visit the Salvador Dali exhibition. Some very interesting stuff from a few of his different "phases", though not too much of the floppy clock stuff. I did, however, bump into James again, arriving in Prague just as I was leaving. So after the exhibition, we went for some coffee, then I departed on my train to Cesky Krumlov.