Prague around 1990 (by kerouac2)
Oct 21, 2011 21:38:28 GMT
Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 21:38:28 GMT
Just after the "velvet revolution," I felt an imperious need to go and see Prague, about which people were already talking as the "undiscovered jewel" of Europe.
So I rented a car when I had a few days of holiday planned and started driving in that direction. Strangely enough, it was only about 20 years later that I learned that it was totally forbidden to drive a rental car into Eastern Europe without prior authorization.
It is not the closest city to Paris. In fact, it is 1034 kilometers from Paris by road. So I decided that I would spend a night in Germany near the Czech border. Even after looking at numerous maps, I have no idea in which cities I tried to find a hotel, but for some reason, each and every hotel was full. When I was able to converse with the people in either French or English, they had no idea why all of the hotels were full either. There was no regional event or festival in progress, but everything was full. So I continued in the direction of the border with only a few small towns left. It was already about 9 p.m.
In some village, I finally saw a small hotel and I stopped. I clearly remember the abbreviated conversation I had with the woman there. I more or less said "Zimmer?" to which she replied "Schlafen?" making a pillow gesture with her hands. "Ja!"
She showed me to a wonderful traditional German ("clean & kitsch") room where I was very happy to sleep in spite of my empty stomach. The next morning I was served a fabulous breakfast in the little breakfast room. I seemed to be the only customer in the whole place, but in any case it only had perhaps 6 or 8 rooms. I remember that I was shocked by the price I paid -- "almost nothing."
I think I reached the Czech border in less than 30 minutes, and Prague is not very far after that. I took that Praha exit on the autobahn and was immediately stopped along with almost every other car by the police, because the exit speed limit was something like 40 km/h whereas it was impossible to exit at anything less than 80 km/h. (This reminded me of an unfortunate East German incident a year or two earlier. Speed traps seemed to be a part of Eastern European culture.) The policeman was very nice and seemed to be thrilled to see a French drivers licence instead of the usual German or Austrian ones, but then he announced the fine. It was not huge but it was in Czech koruna. We were sort of speaking English, and I told him that I didn't have any -- I had French francs and German marks but no Czech koruna, not until I arrived in Prague. So he let me go without a fine.
I've always been pretty lucky with the police.
I quickly arrived in Prague and went straight to the Cedok, the Czech tourist office, since I had no hotel reservation. They said that there were no rooms available in Prague (and that has hardly ever changed in 30 years), but they booked me in a place somewhere in the suburbs.
With a car, that wasn't too much of a problem, although it was not easy to find the first time. Yes, it was in the middle of nowhere. I'm not exactly sure what it was -- perhaps a recently converted workers' foyer. It was sort of like being admitted to a prison but without the anal probe. The warden was in a grilled box and buzzed doors open and shut.
Actually, the room was austere but not all that bad. There were prison cell aspects to it but also lovely lace curtains, embroidered towels and other strange little frills in this odd concrete tower.
Since I was not exactly a prisoner, I proceeded to discover Prague. Unfortunately, it was so long ago that I can't really name the things I saw anymore, except for the famous Charles Bridge.
Soviet memorabilia was still a hot commodity.
So I rented a car when I had a few days of holiday planned and started driving in that direction. Strangely enough, it was only about 20 years later that I learned that it was totally forbidden to drive a rental car into Eastern Europe without prior authorization.
It is not the closest city to Paris. In fact, it is 1034 kilometers from Paris by road. So I decided that I would spend a night in Germany near the Czech border. Even after looking at numerous maps, I have no idea in which cities I tried to find a hotel, but for some reason, each and every hotel was full. When I was able to converse with the people in either French or English, they had no idea why all of the hotels were full either. There was no regional event or festival in progress, but everything was full. So I continued in the direction of the border with only a few small towns left. It was already about 9 p.m.
In some village, I finally saw a small hotel and I stopped. I clearly remember the abbreviated conversation I had with the woman there. I more or less said "Zimmer?" to which she replied "Schlafen?" making a pillow gesture with her hands. "Ja!"
She showed me to a wonderful traditional German ("clean & kitsch") room where I was very happy to sleep in spite of my empty stomach. The next morning I was served a fabulous breakfast in the little breakfast room. I seemed to be the only customer in the whole place, but in any case it only had perhaps 6 or 8 rooms. I remember that I was shocked by the price I paid -- "almost nothing."
I think I reached the Czech border in less than 30 minutes, and Prague is not very far after that. I took that Praha exit on the autobahn and was immediately stopped along with almost every other car by the police, because the exit speed limit was something like 40 km/h whereas it was impossible to exit at anything less than 80 km/h. (This reminded me of an unfortunate East German incident a year or two earlier. Speed traps seemed to be a part of Eastern European culture.) The policeman was very nice and seemed to be thrilled to see a French drivers licence instead of the usual German or Austrian ones, but then he announced the fine. It was not huge but it was in Czech koruna. We were sort of speaking English, and I told him that I didn't have any -- I had French francs and German marks but no Czech koruna, not until I arrived in Prague. So he let me go without a fine.
I've always been pretty lucky with the police.
I quickly arrived in Prague and went straight to the Cedok, the Czech tourist office, since I had no hotel reservation. They said that there were no rooms available in Prague (and that has hardly ever changed in 30 years), but they booked me in a place somewhere in the suburbs.
With a car, that wasn't too much of a problem, although it was not easy to find the first time. Yes, it was in the middle of nowhere. I'm not exactly sure what it was -- perhaps a recently converted workers' foyer. It was sort of like being admitted to a prison but without the anal probe. The warden was in a grilled box and buzzed doors open and shut.
Actually, the room was austere but not all that bad. There were prison cell aspects to it but also lovely lace curtains, embroidered towels and other strange little frills in this odd concrete tower.
Since I was not exactly a prisoner, I proceeded to discover Prague. Unfortunately, it was so long ago that I can't really name the things I saw anymore, except for the famous Charles Bridge.
Soviet memorabilia was still a hot commodity.