Before setting off on this jaunt through Eastern Europe, if you asked me which place I was looking most forward to visiting, I would have told you
Prague without a doubt. Now I couldn't be happier to be away from there.
Ever since living in L
ondon many years ago, I wanted to visit the
Czech Republic and see Prague. I had heard such good things about it and seen some amazing photos. I was a must see place on my list of European cities to visit. Right from the outset however things were not matching up to that romantic image I had in my head.
We set out from the main train station in Prague with an innocent enthusiasm. We were still feeling a little down after the visit to Auschwitz and thought our New Years in Prague would surely be a remedy to that. We easily found the our city centre shared apartment/hostel (
A Downtown Hostel) which we had booked many weeks ago for the festivities. Unfortunately however when we arrived at reception we were informed that our reservation, along with others who had booked had been bumped in place of a large group booking. We were quickly told however that another place had been organised for us. Grateful for this I asked to be shown where on the map it was situated, only to be told it wasn't even on the map. It was in fact about 30
mins out of the city. Angrily I informed the guy in a polite fashion how "pissed off" I indeed was. Not happy with the situation I politely told the guy to shove it in order to go off and find something more suitable. The search began in earnest at about 1pm. After having been to every hotel, hostel and accommodation booking service in the city centre which included being told to "F*!K OFF", we realised 6 hours had past and our search was still fruitless. Zoe still feeling sick had been sat at the
Irish Pub all afternoon minding the bags. The last thing she wanted when feeling heavily weighed down with a nasty cold.
At the end of my tether, I went back to the reception and told them to fix this problem. At this point I was told that the previous offer was now fully booked out. Facing the very real fact that we may be sleeping at the train station that night I sat quietly in despair looking at accommodation websites on the
internet all of which rang out that all too familiar sound of "No Availability". Another hour and a half later we finally got news that a place had been found. It was only two stations from the city and centre and with little other choice we had to take it. We were informed a car would pick us up and drive us there. In the car whilst driving to the hostel we were told it was actually 3-4 stops on the train. I was pissed off, but not shocked and well we didn't really have any other option.
Walking in to the reception was like walking in to a prison. Basically we had been placed i
n nothing more than a hostel for homeless people -
Hostel Argentinska15 (note - the
photos in this link make the place look so much more than it is!). In fact residents were being moved out of our room so that we could take it over. Fortunately we were joined by two Japanese guys who had faced the same fate as us. I affectionately named the Ari and
Gato. We didn't see much of them - they couldn't stay away from the place long enough. Our room was barely more than a pit. Although we did have beds, they were stained with, well... Who knows what. The draws were full of porn playing cards and the permanent residents of the building were reminiscent of the characters from 'Twin Peaks'. We feared that we had walked in to a scene straight from the movie 'Hostel'. To make things worse, in the basement of the building next door there was a night club which was decorated with weird metallic statues and had a clientele which looked like they were straight out of the 'The Lost Boys'. The 'shit splatters' on the wall and the need to shower standing in a rubbish bag only added to the experience.
Morning came and we had survived the night. We decided to try and lighten the mood a little, look fruitlessly for some other accommodation and see a few of the sights - after all, it was the last day of 2006. While the 'old town' might have looked a little on the grand side, trying make your way through a million visitors to the town meant there wasn't going to be much moving about or good photography opportunities. With an ever failing traveller in toe we headed to the Irish Pub for some food and drinks to welcome in the New Year. As midnight approached we went out in to the square hoping to see some fancy fireworks only to risk our life by drunken hooligans throwing their own fireworks in every direction. Poor Zoe, still not well and really could have benefited from a few days in bed, in a warm room, not travelling through Eastern Europe from one hostel to another in the freezing cold. Shortly after we saw the new year in, we decided to return to the hostel. Timing which we couldn't have chosen better if we had tried. Upon return there was a dead body being 'bagged up' on the road in front of the hostel. The poor person had obviously been hit and killed by a car while crossing the road. A great start to the new year for some family. We stood there watching. Why? I'm still not sure.
When we finally pulled ourselves away from this grim scene we moved swiftly to our room where we made the decision to leave promptly in the morning. This was a far cry from my idea of waking up hung over in a city centre apartment of a picturesque Prague after a great night partying to spend the day walking around looking taking in the sights.
Read about the journey so far:
"Arbeit Macht Frei." - Auschwitz, Poland
Warsaw to Krakow - Warsaw & Krakow, Poland
Perogie Galore! - Warsaw, Poland
