Arthur and I waited by the roadside a lot longer than we should have for our buses. We’d almost lost the warmth of the sun by the time they arrived. It was a damn shame to part ways with Arthur. We’d had a good laugh together and it would have been good to have travelled more with him. Maybe one day. Today, however, I was travelling to Nuremberg.
It was just a short flixbus to Nuremberg (Nürnberg) and I planned on meeting Polly, to collect my GoPro and laptop. It also allowed me to escape the mayhem of Munich’s post-Oktoberfest streets.
I also took the time to check out Nurnberg and try drei im weggla (three sausages in a bun) and the Nurnberger lebkuchen.
There’s also a golden ring in the town centre. You’re supposed to rub it for good luck, but I missed out on that opportunity due to the crowds of touring pensioners. All true.
I also completed a Parkrun whilst in Nuremberg. If you haven’t heard of Parkrun, I really recommend checking it out. Organised 5km runs all across the world, every Saturday to support Alzheimer’s research. It’s free. You only donate what you want or purchase clothing from Contra.
Oh, and I got my haircut for the first time in another country.
Though all of this was just exploring, whilst I waited for my birthday and my new workaway opportunity.
Polly had to leave for Passau and needed time to settle into her apartment, so I looked for a cheap place to stay for a few days. My birthday was just around the corner and I had to make my way to my new workaway opportunity.
I settled for Prague. Stupidly.
Not realising Prague was hosting several festivals and also forgetting England had played a football game against Czech Republic the night before and that people were still filtering away from Oktoberfest, everything was fully booked. I guess you could say I was unable to czech into Prague…
I exhausted all available Couchsurfing options, so weighed up my remaining options:
- Take a night bus somewhere and sleep for the night, catching another bus in the morning back again.
- Stay up all night and check-in midday the next day.
I chose the second option. Weary and worn from the day’s hike in Salzburg I dropped my bags off at Hostel One Miru – the hostel I would be staying in the night after. The following is all very confusing to write and involves a lot of going backwards and forwards.
I attempted to get a party mood on in the bigger Hostel One, but it wasn’t happening. I was far too drained. Fortunately, a hostel became available at 1am.
Once again, I returned to Hostel One Miru to collect my bag and proceeded to the available hostel – Advantage Hostel. Nothing special, but it gave me a bed for the night.
There’s something about Prague. Everyone seems to love it, but for me, negative vibrations supersede the positive. Maybe it’s just because of the bad experience I had last time I was in Prague, involving a bouncer in chapeau rouge – again another club that people seem to enjoy, even though the bouncers are complete arseholes.
This is why I returned to Prague this time around – to see if it was just the first experience, however, the same bad energy lingered around me.
Even so, I tried to explore with an open positivity. I walked around the city snapping pics and I tried the fried cheese.
I also jumped on a train to Karlstejn and checked out the castle. I met Raul, a Spaniard, on the way to Karlstejn and we were both planning to hike from the castle to some abandoned quarries, so we hiked from the castle together.
Before we left the castle we grabbed a “black magic” icecream.
Seriously, there can’t be anything healthy about the tar coloured ice-cream, but damn it was good. I believe it was invented in Czech-Republic.
We started off the hike behind the Karlsteijn castle through an Autumn forest. The narrow pathway between the trees was decorated with the Autumn fall, oranges any yellows. There were some beautiful views that pictures can’t capture. We climbed over hills, through dense forest, falling, sliding and cursing, through farmland and small towns.
The quarries were not as amazing as some of the blogs I’d read, but they still expressed beauty in their own way. The colours of the autumn leaves. Cave entrances were dotted around the vertical quarry walls, which surrounded the dark body of water at the bottom.
We pushed on to take a train from the next town. We still had to cover a lot of ground before sunset.
We got lost again, though it wasn’t such a bad thing. We ended up on top of Svatý Jan pod Skalou, which translates to ‘Saint John under the rock’ – so we were on top of the rock.
We arrived too late to venture inside, however, the baroque-style church has cave-like rooms contained within, so if you ever go on the hike yourself, I’d say that sounds pretty cool.
But from here we had a further 7km to Beroun and it was already dark. Luckily I had my headtorch as there wasn’t any moonlight either. We walked and walked.
I tried to wave down cars in an attempt to hitchhike but to no avail.
Finally, with 1km left to go a car finally pulled over. The driver turned out to be a nun from Svatý Jan pod Skalou!
So we hitchhiked to Beroun with the nun and jumped on the train which was about 45minutes back to Prague.
It’s fair to say I was shattered, and so I grabbed a late-night KFC and hit the sack.
The rest of my Prague stay was fairly chilled.
A few of the Oktober fest crew were studying in Prague, so we walked around the light festival, had a burger, drank beer and flipped coasters.
I also met Sol from Wales and Vincent from California in Hostel One Miru. We drank beer in the dog-bar “Vzorkovna” where a dog literally just walks around.
Other than spanking Sol at Fifa, we just chilled, listened to music and watched comedians.
Which is just what I needed after an intense week of travelling, partying and hiking.