Blog notes, firstly I have not as yet re typed the Cruise blog but intend to so if for no other reason than I promised Karen Butchers. Secondly Michele has not done a Spain entry and probably won't as it is so long ago now. Therefore this new post covers Prague and London. The next will probably be Dubai then the boat.

Since the Boat

Since the lost blog what has happened?

Monday 10th August to Wednesday 13th August, Prague.

Left the boat in lovely Budapest on the morning of Aug 10th and about 1/3 of the boat travellers journeyed to Prague by bus. The trip itself was about 8 hours and a bit boring, mostly on a motorway and we wondered whether or not Scenic should do this transfer either by air or train if practicable.

It was also memorable for the wrong reasons as there were only two breaks, the first of which was at a clean and reasonable motorway roadhouse. The second was scheduled for a lunch stop at a hotel, however for some reason to do with timing was instead made at a lower standard roadhouse where the food options were average to say the least. The general consensus was that if we had known we all would have bought sandwiches at the first stop.

The hotel in Prague on the other hand was very comfortable and well located for our three day stay.

Prague is said to be the Paris of the east and we could see why. We were some 100m off the middle of Wenceslas Square, which is really a very wide boulevard about 1 km long rather than a square.

On our first day we did the obligatory walking tour of the castle, the Charles bridge, the old town, old town square with the astronomical clock (dates to 1420), cakes and coffee. It is really impressive to see the attempts made to preserve these old areas.

The afternoon and the next day were at our own program and we went at our own pace. As usual Lesley and Michele spent a good portion on retail therapy.

As with all the towns we visited on the tour, Prague was in full tourist season, full of visitors of all ages and tourist shops the same everywhere with similar ranges of goods. I love (heart) Prague, Paris Budapest or where ever T shirts, local and not necessary local football shirts, carry bags with the name changed and nick-knacks. The real trick is picking the somewhat unique ones for the country or region.

Our last tour dinner was at a “traditional Czech” restaurant and other than it was very hot was a pleasant way to finish the tour.

As with all tours there were a range of co travellers mostly from Australia, with couple of Kiwis, Canadians, Yanks and Brits.

One lady would be a real role model for the Bubbles girls. Janet was a sprightly 92 year old travelling on her own and keeping up pretty well. At one stage she queried whether the “slow walking group” would be too slow (and they were as it was made up of a few strugglers) and on the last morning in Prague she took a lady about 20 years younger to the astronomical clock and then pointed her in the direction of the hotel so she could continue on alone to see some of the other highlights. Not only was she physically up to it but was a very knowledgeable, independent thinker and good company.

Michele and I parted from Lesley and John in Prague (if not explained earlier Michele’s sister Lesley and Brother John were on the river cruise), as they went to Dubai and we went on to London.

London Thursday 13th and Friday 14th August

Although we only effectively had two nights and one day in London, we made good use of them by seeing both, Billy Elliot and Hairspray and spending a delightful time at the British Museum.

Stayed at a hotel in a chain recommended by Geoff’s niece Rebecca which turned out to be a great choice as it was located in a fairly quiet street right behind the British Museum and only 50m from Russell Square. The latter was a very peaceful respite with beautiful Georgian Gardens. Michele was particularly interested in that the plants in the garden beds were the result of a collaboration with a local school where grades 3 and 4 had researched and visited Georgian gardens to determine the type of plants used in that era and then helped plant them, to a truly great effect. We would recommend The Grange –Whitehall to anybody visiting London as well located and reasonably priced by London standards (just under 100 UK pound a night).

We chose the location as it was close to Covent Garden and the theatre district, but would you believe that Billy Elliot was on the other side of town just behind Buck Palace and opposite Victoria Station. However even this turned out to advantage as to get there we walked the tourist route and killed two birds with one stone. Shaftsbury Avenue, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square (fenced off due to a concert or whatever so Aerlyn would not have been able to climb a lion as she did in ’95), The Mall, the gardens, Buck Palace (passed at 6pm and saw them change the guard although not the ceremonial one). Dinner in a Pub and a spectacular theatre performance. The lead boy was truly fantastic as for that matter were the rest of the cast. Home by underground, left mortgage with station master, although as this was our only UG trip we were able to redeem the same the next day. Don’t ever complain about the cost of Brisbane Bus fares!

As noted above visited the British Museum and although we were “museum’d” out a bit (lot) we still enjoyed our couple of hours there mostly in the Egyptian and Middle East section but also in the special displays of clocks and watches and the history of coinage and money.

The only London lowlight was dealing with British Airways who managed to seat Michele and I in separate rows for the second time on a long haul flight (this time to Dubai, the first time on the NY-London leg) and in this instance were unable to re-seat us. To cut a long story short BA have a terrible booking and seat allocation system and even poorer public relations. In addition their in-flight service, at least in Business, is far below the other airlines we have flown with as part of our one world ticket (although to be fair the in flight staff were polite and efficient). No wonder they are going down the gurgler!

Given the choice we have resolved to never fly with them again.

By coincidence Michele was chosen as one to fill out a survey in which she gave them a real serve, particularly in regard to our being left hanging on an international roaming call for some 15 minutes. We are determined to send them the bill for the call.

Had drinks to celebrate that Friday is Bubbles day before seeing Hairspray which although very different to Billy Elliot is another great musical theatre experience. This time the theatre was only a few hundred metres away and an easy stroll home until we reached our street corner at the same time a fire engine, siren blazing and lights flashing did a two wheeler around it and nearly sucked us into its slipstream before screeching to a halt behind another appliance and a couple of Police cars right outside the entry to our hotel. Flashing lights everywhere!

Passports in flame? No instead an accident between a cab and a car the cause of which or even the action of which was difficult to determine in such a quiet low speed street. Notwithstanding what seemed to be a low impact apparently the rear seat passenger was in a bad way and getting him out via the door (wide door in a London Cab) not practicable or else desirable and we watched as the firies first took out the rear window and then the side windows. Interestingly the ambulance was the last vehicle to arrive.

Trust the Brits to put on a show for us on our last night, we just hope the passenger was OK.

Saturday morning once again saw in a Taxi to Paddington Station and then on the Heathrow Connect to the airport, a really efficient was to get to and from the airport, only this time our train was cancelled and we got a free upgrade to the more expensive and quicker Heathrow Express an even faster and more impressive alternative and one which did not entail a change of train to get to terminal 5. Win-win all round. To all the cities we have visited before, each time you re-visit, you see a different face of the city or perhaps the memory is fading and it all seems new again.