A full day in Prague

Blimey, did we sleep well?

Littlun and I got up and went for a little run to explore a bit more and visit the rather excellent-looking bakery that we had spotted yesterday. We headed left from our apartment and ran along the banks of the Vltava, and came across this amazing building...

I know, rather unusual, isn't it? Known colloquially as the Dancing house, or the Fred and Ginger building, it even has its own wiki page... 

More lovely architecture, and we found our breakfast, and even managed to run back with it and not eat it all on the way!

Breakfast consumed we then walked to the incredible Museum of Illusions

And then we headed towards Wencesklas Square, which unfortunately was a very large and noisy building site, so we didn't stop for long... but headed towards the old town square, stopping at a market to get some lunch, and eventually getting to the Astronomical Clock. We'd just missed the hour, so had a while to wait, and decided to duck into the Grand Hotel for a coffee, where we had the most amazing cakes and a brilliant view of the clock.

More walking after the next performance by the clock, this time around the Jewish quarter, but slightly hampered by the cold rain that started to fall, we headed back to the banks of the river and, what a disaster, found ourselves at a river-side bar watching the sun go down over the castle and the river.

Fortified by Staropramen, we headed back to the apartment for left-over pizza!

Sunny afternoon in Prague

 Arriving at Prague central station at about 11am, we grabbed our backpacks and tried to find our way to the tram stop... Google maps struggled to recognise that we were on a different level to the trams and buses. However, we eventually managed to get to a tram that would take us to our apartment.

Because the apartment owner was friendly, we were able to get in early and drop our bags, and we actually were able to stay in the apartment as we agreed to finish off the laundry from the previous guests - how nice are we? But we were able to crash for an hour or so, and eat some leftover train snacks before heading out to see what Prague had to offer.

The apartment was a traditional city centre space, first floor, overlooking the Vltava - an excellent place to start exploring from. Within 10 minutes we had reached the Charles Bridge, having already seen a statue of Bedrich Smetana (you know, the guy from the Music GCSE, who wrote Ma Vlast). Charles Bridge was really busy - many tourists, many trinket stalls and many people visiting shrines at statues. 

We made it safely to the other side of the Vltava, and decided to try a little local delicacy - Chimney Cake.

It's ice cream and fruit and sauce, but not in a waffle cone... oh no, this was in a cone made out of donut. Oh yes, said all the Buckleys. They were delicious! And exactly what we needed to fuel our walk up a really steep hill past the large and well-protected embassies and on up to the Petrin Gardens, and the Maze Museum.

Tried to take the Funicular down the hill, but it was closed for refurbishment. So we walked down again, and found ourselves a restaurant selling possibly the world's largest single-serving pizzas.

Thank goodness for take-away boxes!

Full of beer (or lemonade) and pizza we made it back to our apartment and fell into bed.

 

The Buckleys are off again!

 After a whole lot less planning than our previous adventure (but it still took a decent amount, let's be honest!), the three intrepid Buckleys packed their small backpacks and headed for Birmingham Airport. Not because we were flying anywhere exciting, oh no... we were letting the trains take the strain!

Train 1 (not sure if this counts as a train) - the monorail linking Birmingham Airport with Birmingham International Station. 2 minutes.

Train 2. Definitely a train... Birmingham International to Euston. 70 minutes.

Then a short walk to St Pancras, including a very shiny car

Lunch at St Pancras, and then Train 3, an exciting under-the-sea kind of train, St Pancras to Brussels. 2 hours 5 minutes.

Time for a light tea in Brussels and then Train 4, Brussels to Prague. 15 hours 30 mins.

We had 3 couchettes in a compartment with 2 others. It was not massively spacious - there wasn't much space between the berths at all, and when the berths were down there was no room to sit up on them... lie down please!

And as it was dark for the vast majority of the journey it was also slightly less exciting... Note to self: next time you plan an adventure, think about it first!

However, there was something a little magical and certainly very different about sleeping/dozing on a bed on a train, feeling the motion of the train through your whole body. And also peering out of the curtains to see sleepy towns and cities go by.

The route was Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, Prague (with a few other smaller town stops in between).

The last couple of hours of the journey were probably the most interesting, for me at least, as we were following the Elbe river through former East Germany and into the Czech Republic. And then the final sweep into the city of Prague, again mostly following the river (now the Vltava, which feeds into the Elbe, as I'm sure you knew!).

We arrived in Prague, not very refreshed but certainly ready to stretch our legs!

 

proper whale photos

The fabulous people at the Vancouver Island Whale Watch have uploaded their whale photos from our trip, so I've been able to grab the best ones to show you that we really really did see actual whales, and we weren't just talking fluff.

Pretty epic, eh?

Check out the recent sightings page on their website to see even more, plus information on the different whales that we saw. 

Reflections - size

Some reflections on our trip, after a couple of weeks being back in the real world...

Canada is a really big place, did I mention that? It's really, really big. I mean, you know it's big, but it really is even bigger than you think it is possible to be...

We covered a lot of distance:
Miles driven from Halifax to Quebec City: 1,379

Total train distance, Quebec City to Montreal (156 miles) to Toronto  (338 miles) to Niagara (81 miles) to Toronto (81 miles) to Winnipeg (248 + 984): 1,888 miles

Miles driven Winnipeg to Grand Marais and back again: 135 miles

Flight distance Winnipeg to Calgary: 745 miles

Exploring the Rocky Mountains:
Calgary to RHS (179 miles), RHC to Banff and back (174 miles), RHS to TJC (287 miles), TJC to Little Fort (157 miles), Little Fort to Lillooet (166 miles), Lillooet to Sechelt (178 miles), Sechelt to Nanoose Bay (142 miles), Nanoose Bay to Vancouver airport (162 miles): 1,445 miles (including ferries distance)

Ferries distance:
Horseshoe Bay to Langdale (10 Nmiles), Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay (9.5 Nmiles), Powell River to Comox (17 Nmiles), Swartz bay to Tsawwaasen (24 Nmiles):  60.5 nautical miles

Total holiday miles: 5,592, not including flights to and from Canada. 

Book end flight distances 

Heathrow to Halifax: 2,849 miles

Vancouver to Calgary: 427 miles

Calgary to Heathrow: 4,359 miles

Sub total: 7,635 miles

Total of everything 13,227 miles

That's a long old way.

The Longest Day, part 2

18th August

Sadly, we were now on our way home. Our slightly snippy host had warned us that the drive to Swartz Bay ferry terminal could take a very long time as the road is slow in places, and our ferry was booked for 11:00 so we'd probably hit some rush hour traffic heading into Victoria.

So, we woke up at 6am, did our final bits of packing and tidying (always like to leave a place at least as tidy as we find it), and headed south on the highway towards the ferry.

 

The roads were busy but nothing too bad, and even stopping for a Tim Horton's breakfast (sprinkle donut for A, croissant for K, maple nut donut for me, just because) we arrived at the ferry port in time to get the earlier ferry to Tsawwassen. We even had time at the ferry port to browse the market on the quay and for Alana to spend her last few dollars on a metal Gryffindor sign for her bedroom door.

 

The boat trip was uneventful - we were all sad that it was the last time we'd see the island, at least on this trip. Once we disembarked, we headed for a large Walmart to get the last few bits of shopping - some Cheez-its for the plane, and some other bits and bobs. Then headed for the airport, dropped the car and put our big bags on the conveyor belt. Then realised that I still had my penknife in my carry-on bag. Sad times. I had to leave it behind at security.

Our flight to Calgary was, again, uneventful - Kathy and I watched a re-run of the Spain v Sweden semi-final, and Alana watched Super Mario Bros, laughing out loud at time! It was a little un-nerving seeing the extent of the wildfires, both from the plane window and also when we were in Calgary airport - the Calgary sunset was massively shrouded by the smoke. We hadn't noticed it before when we had arrived at Calgary, or when we had been in the Banff/Radium Hot Springs area, but the forest fires are much worse in that area now.

Our final flight to London was also uneventful. Neither Kathy nor I got much in the way of sleep, but Alana did manage to get a few hours, which was brilliant. As we approached Heathrow we flew over the Olympic Park in Stratford, and got a great view of Tower Bridge and the Thames.

The queue at passport control was not great - about an hour, and there were several families with young children who were obviously very tired and the kids were struggling to cope. But we managed just fine, luckily, and Tom met us the other side of baggage reclaim. Both Alana and I dozed a little on the way back to Basingstoke, and then I had an hour's nap while Kathy and Alana chilled with grandma and Tom.

Then we loaded our bags into our own car, and drove home, arriving just before 7pm. We had a brief de-brief with Karis, Jim and Henry who had been wonderfully house-sitting for us, had some tea, and fell into bed just the 32 hours after getting up.

It was so good to be home. 

Adventure score: 3/10

Tiredness rating: 9/10