Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Internet access is scarce here, so updates are few and far between. There are Internet cafés here and there, of course, but Eloïse keeps us from going to them. Travelling with a baby is quite hard work; infinitely doable, but hard work.

After spending time in the Central Bohemian town of Kutná Hora and then doing much hiking in East Bohemia, we drove down to Olomouc in North Moravia. This really is a fantastic town, and relatively undiscovered by foreign tourists. I would write at length about what makes the town so great, but I’m borrowing the receptionist’s laptop in our hotel, so I have to keep this relatively brief.

Because Internet access is proving so infrequent for us, I’m keeping a diary of our travels on my own laptop and will publish it when we return.

Since I last wrote, we have overnighted in Kutná Hora, Jičín, Teplice nad Metují and Olomouc. Each of those was for two nights, except for Kutná Hora. We’ve been doing a lot of hiking, which has yielded spectacular scenery, but also been very tiring. That’s the net result of dragging Eloïse’s carcass up and over hill after hill. It’s been well worth it, though; the experience has been very rewarding.

Tomorrow, we head for Žilina, over the border in Slovakia. We expect the countryside to get wilder now, as we gradually head north-east to the mountain range of the High Tatras.

We’re not saying goodbye to Czechia for long, however. In a few weeks, we’ll be back here again towards the end of our trip to sample South Moravia, South Bohemia and West Bohemia.

After four days in Prague (Praha), we’re moving on; to Kutná Hora, to be precise.

I’m very sad to be leaving Prague, I have to say. It’s the only city I’ve ever been to that I like as much or more than Amsterdam. My mind is already wandering, imagining having a second home here. I thought I liked Paris a lot, but this place takes the biscuit. It’s like Paris in many ways, but much more unassuming.

On the other hand, there’s a sense of raging progress here, as the city forges ahead, making up for the time lost under communism. Prague is up-and-coming in some ways, has already decidedly arrived in others. It’s vibrant and bold, yet subtle and bashful. All things to everyone, I challenge anyone to come here and be unaffected by the place. How could anyone want to leave, once they had sampled the confluence of historic streams that lend Prague its uniquely characterful blend of historic perspective and wild, youthful optimism?

The unrestrained nightlife; the beautiful girls; the endless exploration of a classical, unpretentious city, teeming with back alleys, home to irresistibly furnished cafés and eateries, tucked away, just out of sight. The city is rediscovering itself, assuming its rightful place as a premier European capital, one to be seriously reckoned with.

It makes one wish to be two decades younger, footloose and fancy free again. What a splendid place to experience a mid-life crisis.

That’s how I felt back in 1989, when I first visited Amsterdam, and that’s how I feel again now after two days in the Czech capital, Prague (Praha). What an incredible city!

I’m typing this at the keyboard of a computer in our hotel’s foyer. It’s a Czech keyboard, but the characters produced by each key don’t always match the Czech notion of what should come out of them. It’s excruciating!

Anyway, we’re a few days into our trip now. We spent one night each in the German cities of Leipzig and Dresden before crossing the border into Czechia. Once across, we spent two nights in Dĕčín, where absolutely no-one spoke any English. My pidgin German was a lifesaver, since our efforts in Czech are less than stunning.

On the second day in Dĕčin, we went for a 16 km hike in the forested hills surrounding the nearby town of Hřensko. Wiesje spent most of the day with me in our new baby-carrier, something that left me sore and aching by the end of the day.

For the last couple of days, we’ve been hanging out in Prague, a city about which I could endlessly wax lyrical, were it not for the fact that Sarah will be pining away for me upstairs, so I’d better just leave it at this. We have a few more days left in Prague before we head further into the Republic, so we’re going to keep our fingers crossed that the weather remains dry and enjoy our time here to the fullest.

Needless to say, the whole family is enjoying this trip a great deal already.