PRAGUE

Above - the detail above the entrance to the Prague Castle Cathedral, and a view of the City froom the Castle. To the right is a shot of the Presidential Palace which is also part of the Castle.

Things didn't work out very well for us in Prague.Carol had a cold when we left and this got rapidly worse. We had arranged for a car to take us from the Airport to the hotel as we were arriving late evening. Sure enough there was this young man with a sign "Carol James" and he took us out to the car park where he had his two door Skoda of unkown vintage. But it bumped and rattled it's way into the city and we found the Seifert Hotel with no trouble. Then he gave us a bill for 750 czech krowns about $60!! At least we were helping a poor Uni student!!

The hotel was excellent and we crashed ,only to wake up in the morning suffering from the virus that we had brought with us. After brekky we headed to the Old City which was about half and hours walk away. Very interesting because of the spray can graffiti which adorned evry spare piece of wall. We discovered the beautiful Old City which is absolutely original. During WW2 the Germans occupied Czechoslavakia (as it was then known) without any resistance so there was no war damage that so afflicted other European cities.

We decided to become good tourists by having a "traditional Czech lunch". In Len's case this was Roast Hares legs in red wine sauce served with dumplings. Not a success - the hare's legs were like 10 year old Biltong and the dumplings?Once cut into edible portions and consumed they took little time in joining up again in his gut and forming a cannon ball type feeling. After lunch we walked up to the Prague Castle which is not really a Castle in the traditional sense, but a collection of churches/residences/palaces over an extensive area, all overlooking the city. After an hour the pain in Len's guts was becoming unbearable and we quickly started to make our way back towards the town where we intedded to bus back to the hotel. I knew I would'nt make so we jumped into taxi waiting at the kirbside.The driver quoted 400czech krown for the trip. At the hotel he changed this to 475 - wrote an illegible receipt out and then promptly said he had no change from the 500 offered!!

While Carol argued the toss with him Len raced into the hotel, threw himself at the loo and evacuated his bursting stomach in forceful fashion. Several hours later we both had thoughts only of lying down and dying!

Needless to say we did not venture out into the Prague night deciding to have a totally good sleep in. Woke in the morning still feeling like hell but as we had a wallking tour paid for with a tourist agency, we bravely staggered into the Old Town and found our guide who was absolutely delightful. We were the only two on the tour, and drove in a bus up to the C astle (thank heavens I could not have stood anbother climb up all those steps). So we learnt a lot of the history of C zech Republic and the time during WW2 with the Germans and then subsequently the communist regime.

End of part 1.

OXFORD

Today we decided to take off for Oxford which is almost 100 miles away. We made to mistake of being lazy about getting away and were sorry when we realised that we were spending more time driving than we had to sightsee in Oxford!

So after finding a car park ($13 for 3 hours) we walked into the city centre and there was just so much to goggle at. It is a bit like Cambridge but with much wider streets to accomodate the hundreds of bicycles. The other significant thing was the continual procession of coaches and buses - there is a coach service to London with a coach departing every 10 minutes!

We headed for the University college area and spent quite some time in Christ Church which is both a college and a cathedral. It dates back to the 12th century and is awe inspiring. The tower at the entrance (photo above) was designed by Christopher Wren who I am sure every one knows designed St Pauls Cathedral in London.

Both John and Charles Wesley studied here and were ordained in the cathedral - going on to found the Wesleyan faith. Bob Hawke also spent time here drinking yards of beer although there does not seem to be memento of his incumbency!!

Walking away from this College you are immediately amidst many of the other colleges and the Bodlian Library -sadly all off limits to visitors. Hunger struck and we had an excellent lunch of fish and chips (how do they do it so well) and then we had to hurry off to the carpark before our time expired. We really haveto go back to Oxford and spend a lot more time there.

The drive home was one of Carol's map reading specials avoiding the motor ways! We passed the Woburn Safari Park. This is part of the magnificent Woburn Abbey estate which is the home of the Duke of Bedford who's family have lived there for over 400 years. The estate comprises some 3000 acres of parkland stocked with many types of deer, and there is a brick wall around the whole thing! It seems t o go on forever. The safari park was an initiative of the current duke's parents who decided post WWII to underake extensive renovations rather than pass the property over to the National Trust to settle enormous death duties. We are certainly going to return there for a visit