Prague 2018.
Prague 2
We promised to come back and do the other half of Prague. The other hilly bit, the bit with the castle, and the hills (Did I mention the hills).
Out of Dublin. Thanks to the modern of modern science and a motorway you can do Belfast to Dublin in just over an hour accompanied by BBC Radio 4 on the way down. It makes life so much easier you can even pretend you’re flying out of the one country. (Well you are, we’ll just have to see what sort of fuckup Brexit makes of it all. Sorry for the language but Brexit and all…..I’ll do something on that on April fools day)
Dublin Airport Terminal 2. drop motor off in prearranged booking. Empty it and head for the airport interior. Usually I’d say follow the crowds, but these days Id be more inclined to read the signs and follow them.
Im using a folding scooter this time. Small wheeled, scootacase. But it comes in many names Great for interior work, airports, hotels, railway stations.
Not so good for cities, European ancient or modern. The saving grace was a thing called a stadium seat. (Done by Poots). Dirt cheap, comfortable, fits into a pocket or tapes up under seat. You’ll thank me on those cobbled streets.
Most folding scooters will go into the rear of a Skoda superb which seems to be the taxi of choice throughout Europe, home and abroad. Off to the hotel this time in the new town (they probably call it that because they’re still building in it)wa.
The first thing you notice are the lack of parking spaces and the amount of cars filling those parking spaces. Not that it seem to have diminished the amount of traffic actually on the streets. Oh the reason for the steep, squared off kerbs its to discourage parking on the already narrow pavements.
I like Prague, I like the people in it. The Czechs anyway and probably the Slovakians. There’s a lot of Russians about these days, buying places up and renting them back out on Airbnb. So property prices have gone up a lot and its not looking like its coming down any time soon.
I can usually put up with most things, except goulash and what passes for bread in the other side of what used to be the iron curtain.
Times haven’t changed. I like Prague, like the people, the place and the beer. I’m indifferent about the food (and the wine. Just don’t. There’s a reason you’ll get Czech bottle openers and not corkscrews. The beers good……..the wine, so far, not so much…. Prague is responsible for the worst meal I’ve ever had anywhere.
It was meant to be Bread and pate, we went looking for it this time round to take a photo and issue a warning order. But its gone, not I suspect shifted somewhere else upmarket with a lot more franchises, just gone.
As I say this isn’t much of a foodie guide. Stick with the trip advisor or McDs stuff. But if I find somewhere incredible I’ll certainly put it in.
Anyway back to 2018. we found a base outside the hotel. A nice student bar mixed crowd and half litres of beer. Pilsner and Kozell heartily recommended. Good mix of music too.
And open late and in no hurry to throw people out.
So we did the other half of the city, realising that it ws all uphill and across the Charles Bridge, we took a taxi up to it and joined the crowd.
We usually travel in early September when its still warm, lower Prague was still warm but up on the hill there was a sharp breeze coming in for those not engaged in a brisk walk.
So the castle itself, chocolate box is a good description, did I mention the cobblestones and theres a big church. And theres a golden lane, full of old houses where the goldsmiths used to live. It’s open to tourists and theres a lot of them.
All walking in the one direction, usually the wrong direction or backwards.
Theres nothing you can do about that, pointless getting annoyed about it. It just is. It doesn’t matter what city you end up in, where you go or what you end up doing.
The amount of people wandering around without the first clue what they are doing or where they are going is astounding, well not astounding, more, how do these people survive at home, if they have a home.
Loretto convent is up by the Castle, its worth a look if you’re into the counter reformation. It wasn’t all cut and tried and apparently the Roman Catholic resurgence started off in Prague. There are books and tours but we were on a flying visit.
Architecture, churches Prague has it all. Just not in a manual SPW wheelchair. some of the pavements just aren’t wide enough to fit you. Some of the Castle area streets are very steep. And almost everywhere you go are cobblestones. I must ask why, is it to reconstruct why had been going on before for the tourists.
The scootacase scooter. Everything you see folds in and folds up. You can lose bits of hands and fingers folding and unfolding. So like everything else. Practise before you go anywhere. This is short and narrow. And will tip going up kerbs you need a degree of core strength to keep the fever the front wheels.
The fact that its narrow, is good on narrow pavements. somewhat unnerving on narrow steep cambered pavements but doable with care . Theres no ground clearance or suspension, so door bars and tiny kerbs can result in a dead stop. Particularly uncomfortable on cobbled streets. A bit of padding on the narrow seat helps a lot. But where this excels is indoors, airports, rail stations, hotels, office blocks, museums art galleries, and trains.
Brilliant and the stated battery range of 6kms. (the battery level is unreadable from where you’re sitting, we hooked it up with a phone app to see how far we had travelled 
for the run from hotel back to the hotel again. We had taken a wheelchair taxi to the castle and worked our way back downhill all the way to the hotel.
6 kms on the button it died at the front door of the hotel. fairly impressive. The couple of hours, bit of a rest, a few beers, head in a book while the scooter charged it meant you could go out again.
The important thing was the overnight solid charge.
The scootacase could be an absolute cracker, with a better seat and suspension.
Maybe its out there, we’ll let you know. It was the same in Vienna and Budapest.
But, a lesson learned.Everything seems to be a compromise you trade size for comfort.
ironside Travel 