Czech out what I did in Prague

Hello and welcome to my travel blog that stubbornly refuses to modernise and become an Instagram or TikTok account. Apparently the peak blogging era ended around 2012 so I'm only a decade behind. Keep it going for another decade and maybe this blog can become a retro curiosity. 

For the first time in several years (and definitely this side of the pandemic) I went on a solo trip, something  that felt slightly odd at first. We had a child nearly 18 months ago and so all trips away have been as a family. Now, that is all well and good and very enjoyable but so is the odd bit of solo backpacking. This blog is called the Inane Babble of a Backpacker after all, not the Inane Babble of a Man Clinging on to His 30s Who Goes On Nice Family Holidays. Maybe that can be the Instagram/Tiktok account.

Prague is somewhere I feel like I should have been before now, it's almost remiss of me not to have been there. The flights there were cheap and cost of accommodation, eating, sightseeing was very reasonable too. Around £2-£3 for a beer was fairly common. And it's very walkable if you're concentrating on the main sights either side of the river. 

My accommodation was in Praha 2, just outside the Old Town area about five minutes from the National Museum. It turned out to be a great location for food and drink options without paying the inflated prices of the Old Town. In fact, I was staying just around the corner from the gothic Church of St Ludmila, the first picture below. And then below that you'll see the first mistake I made...

The Church of St Ludmila.

I'd seen someone raving about these ice-cream filled doughnut cones online and made it a priority to try one for myself. Unfortunately I wrongly chose a cream-filled rather than ice-cream filled option, complete with strawberries and chocolate sauce. It was a LOT of cream and the regret kicked in long before I'd finished it. 

Prague's Astronomical Clock beside the main square in the Old Town. Been telling the time since 1410 – that's a lot of time.

This was just outside the Franz Kafka museum and is a sculpture of two men urinating at each other. Didn't find out why, just took the photo and enjoyed the scene. The base looks like the outline of the Czech Republic and I could google it to find out more but I'm not going to.

Sunset over the Vltava River, which runs through Prague. Prague Castle is on the hill in the distance. 

The National Theatre, with one of the local trams going past.

Praha means Prague in Czech, which is why I took this photo. And a tram just happened to be passing to add a bit of extra je ne sais quoi to the picture.

The Dancing House in Prague, designed by architects Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry. You know what? This building was a bit underwhelming. There, I've said it. I expected more, walked a fair way to see it and it was just a bit 'meh'.

The Electric Sheep Book Bar - great cocktails and live music, delicious chocolate covered pretzels, plus a three legged dog wandering around looking for all the attention it can get. What more could you ask for? 

One of the 30 Baroque statues that are dotted across the famous Charles Bridge. Also one of the earliest known examples of doing bunny ears over someone who doesn't know it's happening, captured in stone.

Aerial view of Prague from the tower of St Vitus Cathedral in the grounds of Prague Castle. Climbed about 250 steps to get to the top of that tower but the views were spectacular.

I suppose there has to be a photo of me in there somewhere to prove that I actually went. A few more grey hairs since the last solo trip, hoping to one day attain 'silver fox' status. Prague in the background again, taken from the top of St Vitus by a passerby who looked like they knew what they were doing with a camera and wouldn't steal my phone.

Part of the Waldstein Garden, next to Malostranka Station.

Water-level view of the Charles Bridge from a little boat tour I went on. Ice cream and a beer included in the ticket price, lovely stuff. Need to update their audio tour though, still referencing Queen Liz, gawd bless 'er.

Front door goals.

Sculpture of Sigmund Freud suspended over a road. Easy to miss when you're walking by at street level, let me tell you.

I loved the design of this Metro station so I made a little video and it turned out very well. Almost looks vaguely professional.

Czech stew and dumplings. Very hearty Eastern European fare - probably not first an obvious pick in the middle of summer but I was determined to try some while I was there.

On my final night I walked up the hill into the middle of a park called Riegrovy sady, where loads of people gathered to watch the sun set over Prague with a drink or two. Castle in the background again. Fire juggling guy in the foreground, low-key smell of weed wafting about, you get the idea.

Interior of the Spanish Synagogue. Very impressive and blingy.

My flight leaving Prague was delayed by two hours so I had some time to kill before I went to the airport. And just so happened to be near the Prague Ghost Legends Museum. I kind of hoped it was going to be one for the enjoyably shit category of museums and it did not disappoint on that front. Although it didn't kill much time before my flight either as I was done in about 25 minutes. This exhibit accurately demonstrates what I would look like if I were a ghost.

Canals and apple pie: a long weekend in Amsterdam

I’m dusting off the blog as I’ve just been on a very new kind of trip – the first time abroad with a child! That child is Vita, she’s nearly four months old and has now been to Amsterdam.

Going on a city break with a baby is a big change but it doesn't completely alter the way you travel. For example, you can still spend the afternoon walking around the canals of Amsterdam, you just need to factor in a few more rest stops and have a ready supply of nappies and outfit changes for all eventualities. 

Most of the weekend was spent exploring the city, including taking the ferry across to Amsterdam Noord, a formerly industrial area undergoing major regeneration. Think large apartment blocks peppered with interesting bars and restaurants at street level – it’ll be unrecognisable in a few years’ time. It’s already very different to when I was last in Amsterdam three years ago. 

One of the culinary highlights of the trip was apple pie in Winkel 43, in the city’s Jewish Quarter. There was a queue outside the door but it moves along pretty quickly as everyone is going in for apple pie, which doesn’t take long to eat when it tastes this good. I asked the guy behind the bar how many pies they get through on a busy Saturday and he said up to 120, which is more than 1,000 pieces of pie.

Whenever I visit a city like Amsterdam I get very jealous of all the cycling infrastructure. London isn’t a bad city to cycle in but it’s got a long way to go before it gets anywhere near the likes of Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Cycling is second nature to the people who live there and it shows how much more liveable a place is people are prioritsed over cars.

This trip was also the first time I've ever received a passport stamp from an EU country. It was a lovely reminder of the fact the UK is rapidly travelling backwards, cutting itself off from its neighbours and generally making a tit of itself on the world stage. C'est la vie.

I love a new passport stamp but would have been happier to not need them from EU countries...

Harriet and Chloe (one of our hosts for the weekend) enjoy a 'Peep Show' in a creative space/warehouse in Amsterdam Noord

Some street art outside the warehouse containing a very nice restaurant called IJver

The canals of Amsterdam. You get all kinds of boats on the canals, from dinghies to houseboats to a boat full of drunk guys (only saw one of these to be fair)

Some of the very aesthetically pleasing homes of central Amsterdam

This street looked like it had been reclaimed for pedestrians and cyclists. Hardly any parking space for cars, loads for bikes and mini-gardens all the way along

Apple pie close-up in Winkel 43

Harriet and Vita with a piece of pie the size of Vita's head in Winkel 43. I graciously gave Harriet the biggest slice and definitely didn't say "oh it looks like I've given you the biggest piece" when I did

Another shot of Amsterdam looking rather pretty in the sun. I feel like I could definitely live in Amsterdam although I suspect the rent on any of the places in this photo would make Elon Musk do a double-take.

9 days in Slovenia and a taste of Trieste

Welcome back for another installment of my travel blog. I've been writing this for long enough that I probably should be an 'influencer' by now. But for some reason there aren't any companies getting in touch asking me to flog products for them on my Instagram account with 200 or so followers. Must try harder.

This trip took in Slovenia, starting in Ljubljana, where we hired a car and headed to lakes Bled and Bohinj for a bit of hiking. Then northwards to the Vrsic Pass, an amazing mountain road that reaches an altitude of 1,611 metres. Back down the other side of the mountain to Bovec for a bit of white water rafting, followed by the Skocjan Caves, Portoroz and Piran. Then home from Trieste.

Joining me for most of this trip was my parents' second-born, Jason (also known as my brother). Other than a trip to Bruges for our mum's 60th, we've never really been on holiday together, so it was time to put our sibling relationship to the test and see if we could handle several days on the road together.

Highlights of the trip included:

• Wandering around Ljubljana and it's pedestrianised Old Town, stopping for a coffee here or a beer there
• Eating a horse steak in Lubljana. Very tasty and barely distinguishable from beef, so I can see how that whole horsemeat "scandal" happened in the UK a few years ago. The only scandal is that I didn't know how good horse tastes until now
• Exploring the area surrounding Lake Bohinj despite a day of nearly non-stop rain. It's much less crowded than Lake Bled, which has built a lot of hotels and restaurants around the lake
• Driving over the Vrsic Pass in Triglav National Park. Non-stop incredible scenery for a couple of hours. Saw a few people cycling it too, crazy bastards
• The Skocjan Caves in south-west Slovenia. Enormous cave network with a giant canyon running through it. Looks like something out of Indiana Jones or that place the goblins live in The Hobbit. They won't let you take photos down there, which is actually quite refreshing and it's so dark they probably wouldn't come out well anyway
• Renting an e-bike in Portoroz and cycling along Slovenia's small stretch of coast to Izola and Koper
• Exploring Piran and getting caught in a massive hailstorm while at the top of the town's clocktower

If you're thinking of visiting Slovenia yourself, I'd definitely recommend it. Ljubljana is ideal for a long weekend break and if you have the time to go further afield, the lakes at Bohinj and Bled are only about an hour's drive away. If you go in April like I did, it helps to have flexible plans if rain makes exploring the great outdoors more challenging!

Ljubljana Castle sits on top of a big hill overlooking the city. It's free to have a wander round the castle and its walls, you'll only need to pay if you want to see the museum inside.

The slightly terrifying door of the Church of St Nicholas. Looks like the bishops are coming out of the door at you.

Continuing the theme of doors, this one caught my eye in the Old Town, just by the river. Ljubljana's a great city to wander aimlessly around if you're in a picture-taking mood. 

Multi-coloured buildings on the northern side of the Ljubljanic River which dissects the city.

Bled Island in the middle of Lake Bled. This is about as close as we got on a very drizzly day, although boats were taking plenty of umbrella wielding groups out to the island. In my opinion, Bled's a bit too built up with hotels and various ways to extract money from tourists, whereas Bohinj is a bit more relaxed and nature-y. (Don't try and tell me nature-y isn't a word, I'm a journalist.) 

It's hard to get that 'hey look at me in front of a waterfall shot' when the waterfall is running so powerfully (caused by snow melting and rainfall) that you get soaked standing anywhere near it.

A fisherman trying to catch some dinner on the shores of Lake Bohinj. We got so wet that day we might as well have joined him in the lake. 

Jason goes for a wander near the top of the Vrsic Pass in Triglav National Park. I do have a photo where he's facing the camera but I'll spare you the horror in case you're eating dinner while reading this. 

 The Russian Chapel on the way up the Vrsic Pass, which was built by Russian prisoners of war during WW1.

With the steel cables and metal posts you'd think this bridge was pretty solid but you'd be wrong. Some of the wooden planks looked like they'd give way to a heavier man than myself. Pretty though.

This is the small town of Kanal, which spans the Soča River, about an hour south of Bovec. Don't know if there's much here other than a photogenic river and bridge. The milky-blue colour of the river was certainly something I hadn't seen before.

Salt flats at Strunjan near Portoroz. Back in the days of the Romans, Piran and Portoroz made their money exporting salt and are still doing so today. There's also a much bigger salt farm at Secovlje with a museum, spa and shop if you're a big salt enthusiast.

Nice little courtyard in Izola on the coast of Slovenia. It's a small town that probably gets overlooked in favour of Koper or Piran by a lot of tourists, but definitely worth a detour.

An olive grove near Portoroz. Some areas of western Slovenia are covered in vineyards and olive trees, which makes sense as it borders Italy and shares a similar climate. It also means that in some places you can get a glass of good wine for €1. Yes please. 

The town square in Piran. If I'd visited in the traditional summer months, I'd have got a lot more blue sky in photos but then it would also have been heaving with visitors, so on balance the mixed bag of weather probably wasn't such a bad thing.

Climbed the clock tower in Piran to get this photo just before a full on hailstorm kicked off. Thunder, wind, the lot. Made for some very dramatic views until the weather got so bad I had to abandon my position and head back down to shelter.

A video illustrating just how much rain and hail there was. According to Google Translate,  Slovenian for 'raining cats and dogs' is 'dežujejo mačke in psi'. (Chances are it doesn't actually translate into Slovenian and that phrase is gibberish, but I'm trying to educate AND entertain).

Old guy fishing on the end of a small pier in Piran after sunset. In case you can't see his fishing rod and it looks like he's just staring wistfully out to sea, I can assure you he was fishing.

Piazza Unita d'Italia in Trieste. Only got to spend a day here but it seemed like there was plenty to do if I'd had more time. Loads of good restaurants for a start, plus museums, galleries and the nearby town of Prosecco.

The famous Irish writer James Joyce lived in Trieste twice back in the early 1900s, so he must have been charmed by it. The city claims he wrote part of Ulysses here, but then every cafe in Edinburgh will tell you JK Rowling wrote part of Harry Potter there, so believe what you want to believe.

Fun fact: Slovenia was my 52nd country. I use an app called Been to keep track of where I've been - you can get it for Android here or iPhone here. Because, for some unknown reason, I'm still not an influencer, I won't be getting any money for telling you about Been but you might find it helpful too.

Tickle my Baltics: A journey through Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Two weeks, four countries, four capital cities and so many  delicious Baltic beers.

We started out in Helsinki, staying with Rob (thanks Rob!) for a few days. A fine city, especially at the end of a sunny May with super-long days to spend outdoors. One particular highlight was an all you can eat sushi buffet. I'd never put to the test how much sushi I can eat before and am happy to report it's quite a lot.   

After Helsinki, it was on to Tallinn, Estonia, by ferry. It only take a couple of hours and the ferry has a band playing slow waltzes and foxtrots which prompted a lot of the older passengers to take to the dancefloor.

I liked Tallinn a lot, it was probably my favourite of the cities we visited. As well as an Old Town you could happily spend a couple of days exploring it has a fun hipster district called Telliskivi, with some great places to eat. We also had a look round the Estonian Open Air Museum, a real must-see if you're a fan of Estonian rural history. I mean, who isn't? (Seriously though, it is worth a wander round.) 

A couple of days in Laheema National Park was next. Renting a car is fairly essential to properly explore Laheema as buses looked scarce and the park is huge and sprawling. Plus, driving on Estonian countryside roads is a lot more fun than British road because there are hardly any cars getting in the way slowing you down. The highlights of Laheema for us were Palmse Manor and a 15km hike through woods and along the coastline. 

Once we'd had enough greenery and fresh air, it was back to Tallinn to catch a coach to Riga. I liked Riga but on a Saturday night it has a strong stag/hen party vibe and does court those groups with a mixture of the good, bad and ugly of bars and pubs. Still, like Vilnius it has a picturesque Old Town and isn't short on places to explore beyond the more touristy areas. Such as Saulkrasti, a beachy getaway to the north.

Vilnius was our last stop on the trip through the Baltics, but with a couple of planned day trips out of the city. One was to Trakai, a large expanse of lakes and woodland with an amazing castle right in the middle that you can row your way out to (or just walk there over a few bridges). The other excursion was to Ukmerge (pronounced uk-mer-ge), a small city I'd never heard of but was a pilgrimage of sorts for Harriet, as her grandmother's family emigrated from there in the late 19th century. It's not somewhere you'd be likely to visit on a trip to Lithuania unless you had a reason to, but it had a certain charm of its own.

I'd say the end of May into June is a pretty great time to visit these four countries. It's warm but not overly hot; it's not high season for tourists yet and there are a lot of local festivals happening to celebrate the beginning of summer.

Onto the photos...

 

Impressive greenhouse in the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, Helsinki

Helsinki Cathedral and its big green domes

Looks like the start of one of those "why isn't this hosepipe working" slapstick sketches. But with a cannon instead of a hosepipe. One of many cannons on Suomemlinna, a UNESCO World Heritage island off the coast of Helsinki.

One of the three monks Ambrosius, Bartholomeus, and Claudius in Tallinn. Look a bit like the Ringraiths in Lord of the Rings

The church in the main square of Tallinn's Old Town

We were in Tallinn during the festival Old Town Days, when they have lots of live performances popping up around the Old Town, like this chamber choir

 One of the stranger bits of the Old Town Days festival was the appearance of Joseph Stalin during a musical retelling of Estonia's history

I love slightly creepy animatronics, like these in the Estonian Open Air Museum near Tallinn. This scene was meant to be telling the story of how, in days of old, men in the countryside would try to impress the local women by telling them jokes and playing some music

 

The doorway of the House of the Blackheads in Tallinn. It was the former headquarters of the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a group of medieval travelling merchants

Inside Palmse Manor in Laheema National Park

Totally unplanned and casual rock-sunset pose

When we arrived at our AirBnB in Laheema National Park, we were greeted by some very loud barking from a very big dog who turned out to be a complete softy within 10 seconds of us getting out of the car

One of Estonia's best art galleries is hidden away in a small town on the coast in Laheema National Park. And this was one of my favourite paintings. It's certainly got a message

Onward to Riga in Latvia and Harriet is stood in front of the Three Brothers in Riga - three houses built 200 years apart, from the 15th to the 17th century

Inside the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum. All the lamps told stories of residents of Riga that lost their lives during WW2

The Brotherhood of the Blackheads also had an HQ in Riga back when they were trading their way round the Baltics, earning the big bucks

The beach at Saulkrasti. Really beautiful long stretch of sand about an hour north of Riga by train. We had pretty much nothing but warm sun up until the day we went to the beach, when a gale came out of nowhere and forced us into a retreat

As mentioned above, Baltic beer is excellent, and the brewery bar Labietis in Riga has plenty to try

Just outside Vilnius Cathedral, when a group of Hare Krishna came by singing and playing their drums and bells. Just out of shot, a nun was lurking nearby, keeping an eye on them. Probably wondering whether to call for backup in what would have been a street-fight worth watching

The 'Feast of Muses' on top of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre

This statue of the Vilkmerge (wolfmaiden) wins the award for best statue in a random office car park. She's the emblem of Ukmerge, formerly known as Vilkmerge

Trakai Castle, about an hour from Vilnius. Well worth a day trip here, where you can rent a boat, pedalo or many other kinds of water-bound vessel

Working the guns hard on holiday

The immaculate gardens of the Presidential Palace, Vilnius

 

And a shot of Vilnius Cathedral and its adjacent bell tower to finish with. Thought you might like to see what it looks like without a menacing* gang of Hare Krishna in the foreground

(*Not very menacing at all)