Arrived back home tonight and finally have access to send this in some form of civilised manner.
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A bit of a pain to get to our Airbnb, but Copenhagen
is a great place, bicycles and bikes everywhere |
Just a small update on two countries, cities actually, Copenhagen and Prague. This may be boring
Getting
there, well we got an upgrade on IcelendAir to business and quite
enjoyed it. One weird thing was that we were asked to show that we had
return tickets back to Canada. Wow, security paranoia or what?
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| Standard sight all around Copenhagen |
I
love the concept of the Schengen travel area. It's wild, especially
compared to north America. Once inside the area, (easy arriving in
Iceland), there's no need for id on flights. (France being in a state
of emergency, is now an exception).
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Eating out was incredibly expensive.
(You even need to pay E2 for tap water in restaurants).
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| Buy out, eat in, pretty cheap |
Copenhagen, you simply
login through the web to complete your boarding, pick up your passes
at an automated check in at the airport, plus baggage id, self scan and
drop your bag, proceed to gate (still security of course), and even
scan your boarding pass yourself before you get on the flight. No actual
human checks anything about you,
In except for bombs etc
Loved Copenhagen. Small enough to walk around, everything in 2 languages, Danish and English, everywhere
In
the street, it's 90% English. Not tourists, I think that the English
speakers actually live there, and everyone speaks English of course
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| familiar street view? |
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We bike to a market and choose lunch
No one here takes cash |
Lots
of squares, cobblestone streets and shopping areas, ancient buildings
and classical concerts, ours were free. The national museum is
outstanding, so much swag, apparently mostly thrown into bogs as
tribute to various god like beings over the millennia.
I
love their city bikes, heavy, but battery electric with your own
computer tablet to guide, know where to park etc. And the entire city is
pedestrian and bikeaphobes. One lane for vehicles, one for bikes and
one for pedestrians.
Vehicles are relatively rare, certainly compared to the walking masses
Cheap
to fly to, but incredibly expensive. $C15 for a small sandwich at an
outdoor market, and $C2 for a glass of tap water (yes, really),
strange, as food in the supermarket is about the same price as Toronto.
We had a fantastic cheap dinner on our boat house on one of the
central canals, about a fifth the price of eating out. I guess that
means wages are very high
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Finally, I'm in Wenceslas Square. As in "Good King" of course Great open air barbeques selling pig by the Kilo |
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Wenceslas Square, Local Czech beer and great
lump of pig. Nowhere to sit though |
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The famous Prague clock.
I really liked Prague |
Prague, what a
difference, food about a quarter of the price, absolutely packed with
tourists, like you can hardly move, and definitely down market. Going
to change money I saw one of the changers threatening some guy with a
Czech version of a baseball bat
Pretty rough
in some places, and if you get some roasted pig and a beer in the
market (literally just outside our door), you will probably be sharing
a bench with an alcoholic druggy
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Prague is a great place to wander
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Prague Cathedral.
It's lovely
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All good fun of course, but lots of smokers.
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Wenceslas Square, Night time
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Prague
is still a lovely old Bohemian city, dating from waaaaay back, not
plundered by too many hordes, so much is still here from the 14th
century. Some really strange and ancient structures,
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| Museum, Franz Kafka |
incredible churches
and abbey's. I'd get lost really easily if I didn't have my Google
mobile maps
I've never seen a classical music recital be
classified as a "scam" before, but in Prague there are so many such
recitals, just about all of which play four seasons, ave Maria, and
Mozart's a little night music, that they are indistinguishable from
each other. The give away is that the low lifes who usually hand out
invitations to fortune tellers or cheap pizza places around the block,
here are handing out recital flyers
Hmmmm
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| Get the idea? |
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On the Charles bridge with
Prazky Hrad up the hill |
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| Some of my devoted followers |
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Terezin Concentration Camp
near Prague
Feel the Freedom yet? |
It looks like all the down and outs from half of Europe have been washed up here, especially in Wenceslas square
Definitely a centre for tourists, but the locals seem to treat them as ripe for plunder
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| The banks of the Danube, complete with one of thousands of tourist long boats |
Fun places to visit, now back in France, mates, cheese, wine, oysters et al, gnts and still hot enough to need a pool.
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| I expect this view is beginning to look familiar too... |
Been there, lots, done that.......
OK, enough info on Europe for now.
That's it. Ignore or delete at will
