Travelogue Catch Up

I've been waiting to post on our late-May trips to Wales and Prague for awhile due to delusions of picture-labelling over-achievement but time is marching on and so is the blog. Better something than nothing. So…our most recent long term trips happened in late May when our friend John came to visit for the week of Memorial Day (coinciding with an uncreatively-named "May Bank Holiday" here).

After a day of the usual visitor acclimation, we hit the road in our borrowed Honda Jazz once again, this time setting out west to the rolling hills and winding roads of Wales. All of the signs in Wales are in both Welsh and English, and so the words "SLOW" and "ARAF" are painted in big letters on the road as you go through towns. We enjoyed telling each other to araf down, and "araf your roll", so, basically you could say we speak Welsh. Our first stop was Devil's bridge, named this because people thought only the Devil himself could have built the original bridge in the 12th century. I was kind of disappointed, and I think the three of us could have done it in 3-4 days with hour lunch breaks. It is pretty interesting thought because now there are 3 bridges stacked on top of each other, plus there is a 90 foot waterfall nearby. After a hike down to the waterfall in the rain, we drove to the coast for lunch (Welsh Rarebit, which has no rabbit in it) and down to Hay-on-Wye, a town with the largest collection of used book stores in England.

Hay-on-Wye was packed with visitor since it was their annual book festival the weekend we were there—called “a Woodstock of the Mind”. After a rainy few hours browsing the musty shelves of many a bookstore and a few purchases, we left the crowds of Hay and headed to Abergavenny where we were staying at the Blacksheep Backpackers Hostel. We had a great dinner at the Bear Hotel on the way (some really good local ale and a Welsh black beef steak) and finally got into Abergavenny long after dark. Driving the streets was straight out of a horror film, with driving rain, no one around, and no sign of our hostel. I managed to understand enough of the thick Welsh accent of a gas station employee to make it in the direction of the hostel. John and I got out of the car in the driving rain to inquire at some pub that might be a hostel, and were met with three grizzled old men smoking cigars and drinking their closing pints on the small porch of the bar. "Yur a bit late for drinks! Closin time!" They managed as we approached. We had to push past them to get in anyway, so I asked if this was the black sheep hostel. They stared at each other long enough in silence that we just started in anyway, and as we were going through the door a light came in the mind of one of them who yelled: "BLACKSHEEP!!" in this hilarious scream of drunken recognition. On our way out to get our stuff they thought we might be their taxi. Thankfully it was the hostel and we locked the door to our room and slept in the safety of being separated from drunken Welshmen. The Welsh people are a merry bunch!

The next day we toured an amazing castle, then spent the afternoon in the Welsh capital of Cardiff before heading home for work the next day. It was a great trip (click here for pictures) and though it rained quite a bit we loved Wales and were impressed with the friendliness and warmth of the Welsh. It's crazy to have this "other country" just an hour west of Birmingham!
After a day back in the office we left Wednesday morning for the capital of the Czech Republic and the "Paris of the east": Prague! Coming into the city on the bus from the airport was really neat, the language is so different and harsh sounding, and it was a very industrial area near the airport, so it felt kind of 'Soviet'—just over 15 years ago this would have been behind the Iron Curtin.

The city was amazing and we couldn't believe how well preserved everything was even after Nazi occupation and 4 decades of communism. Because Prague was sort of between two fronts and not German home soil (thus not bombed by Allies) it was fairly unharmed. Apparently one of the (only) comical events of destruction during Nazi occupation involved statues of composers on top of the main music hall. Nazi soldiers were sent up to destroy the statue of Mendelssohn because of his Jewish background, but the statues were not labelled. Finally they picked the one they thought was him and destroyed it. The statue was actually one of Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer!

We enjoyed some fantastic Czech beer and sausage, took a river boat tour of the city on the Vlatava river, and made a train journey out to the county to see a castle there one day. Prague has some amazing architecture and a very medieval feel, maybe more than anywhere we've been yet. It is a great city for just walking around in, and we could have done that the whole time. Though it is getting more expensive, it's also a very cheap destination (for food and beer especially) and we were amazed how far our British Pounds went there. In no particular order, our pictures are posted here.

After 3 nights there, we drank out last Budvar and flew back to Birmingham, for a final night out with John. It was great to have him here and we had such a good time…and set quite a pace! We were ready for the relaxation of the work week after a holiday at that speed.