Prague
Mark Barlow's stag don't, 17-22 May 2012
Page 3
We wandered slightly aimlessly around in search of a bar which wasn't as busy as this square (the locals were gathered for the big match - Czech Republic vs Slovakia in the ice hockey) and which served relatively cheap lager (so off the beaten track a little).
We found quite an upmarket bar who perhaps weren't used to seeing twelve beer-drinking men take over the beer garden. Or perhaps they were. Jon (I think) meanwhile, couldn't quite cope with beer drinking. They were on a separate table primarily because they had been slow to finish their beers. Adam K, the best man were it actually a stag do, had insisted on ordering a full quota of 12 beers every round. But different people drink at different paces, and Chris had to shepherd them to the next venue due to mildly superior local map knowledge (we'll see why this is only mildly later). Note: he was not one of the slow drinkers, even allowing for him tipping one over the person opposite. Anyway, matters were compounded by the order of some fruit juice concoction that looked a little like carrot juice from memory.
After partly horrifying the staff (although really we were quite well-behaved) and enjoying the unique toilet facility (one in, one out, with key-only access), we headed to the next venue of choice, although already there was difficulty in getting everyone together. The ice hockey was being shown live here, although we were too far away to see it. Big cheering ensued which we took to mean that the Czechs had grabbed victory. It was only the next day that we discovered that, in fact, Slovakia had won. Anyway, Adam K instigated the first drinking game of the night (if you don't count the fun and games previously experience) - Arrogance.
The rules of Arrogance were to start with an empty pint glass and pour in as much of your existing beer which you would be prepared to down in one should you get the coin toss wrong. If you get it right, you pass that pint on and the process repeats itself, but with an accumulating quantity of beer. The boy Barlow kicked things off, stupidly pouring in half a pint. I think he managed to win this, but I'm not sure, and it did signify some slightly foolish pouring choices. Inevitably, the travelling pint tended to get stuck with the slower drinkers, and the faster drinkers had largely finished their pints anyway. As we were only staying here for one drink, the success of Arrogance was minor and short-lived. Which was useful in the battle against contagious diseases.
We were now looking for venues to watch the Champions league final (Chelsea vs Bayern Munich in Munich) and stumbled across this basement level bar. Some complained about the lack of atmosphere (i.e. there was no-one around), but, as some others pointed out, we had a couple of tables that could house us all and our own big screen (albeit, it turned out, with no commentary and a unique narrow-screen format). However, as kick-off approach the bar got busier and busier such that there could be no complaints about atmosphere. The stayers felt vindicated.
More another time.
Ok, so where were we? Ah yes, in some underground bar watching the Champions League final. Mark shares an amusing word with Chris. This should perhaps be a caption competition.
The relentless pace (it wasn't that pacy) was getting to some people... Good locked arm system for head support, though. We had an attractive waitress who was most notable for her ability to carry multiple pints through a busy crowd (there were a few more orders of 12 beers, although she had to do that many in a few stints). Amazing skills.
This is all a bit blurry, perhaps reflective of our states at this time, but it looks to be a bullet penalty perhaps taken by Bayern Munich. I did take a video of Drogba winning the Champions League for Chelsea where quite a few people went a little crazy in celebration. I had a feeling that they would win the penalty shoot-out, even when they went down early on.
As soon as the match had finished the place emptied and, after a bit of messing around, we were on our way too. There then followed a slightly aimless walk in search of the next bar. It was quite late by now (it was about midnight I think) and we had to put up with seedy looking gentlemen trying to sell their bars. We ended up in one bar where the sofas had a number of girls sat alone on them, so we shuffled tightly together stood vaguely near the bar. We had a very quick drink and left, but the best man was soon suckered into another venue. A schism started to form as some of us as Chris mentioned of a multi-storey club he remembered from a previous visit or two which played music from the 80s, 90s and 00s. The downside was that he didn't know quite where it was - he just knew it was "towards the river".
So we broke into two parties, but then our party then broke in two again as some went off to try to persuade the other party to join us. We didn't see them again that night. In the end, there was just Chris, me and someone else (name fails me right now). It was quite a long, faintly comical walk, as we seemingly chased an apparition of Chris's mind. As we got closer, some locals did advise of a venue nearby, although we were a bit sceptical since we felt it could be easy to take advantage of us. Nevertheless we took their advice and found a club under the Charles bridge, next to the Ice Bar. It felt surreal that this very touristy place had converted to a club by night.
The ceiling near the bar had some funky lighting.
By this stage, I was getting quite tired and the music was not my cup of tea. I half-heartedly did some moves that could perhaps, when looked on kindly, be described as dancing, but I was going through the motions. For some reason, I'd ordered another pint, as if I hadn't enough, so I went to sit down for a bit and decided I would leave once the drink was consumed. As you might guess from the photo of these two, conversation was not of the highest quality.
Here is the nearby Ice Bar, which I snapped as I left. Having a map in my pocket and a pretty good idea of the layout of the land (having wandered around Prague for a couple of days), I bee-lined the hotel, picking up a gyros cone on the way back. However, for Chris and his companion, the journey home was less successful. They left the club an hour or two after me (I think discovering that there was some better quality music on other floors - it had been a bit of a maze and hard enough to find the ground floor dance floor), but headed seemingly in the wrong direction. After maybe an hour of walking they got a taxi and it took a good 15 minutes to drive them back to their hotel (it was about a 15 minute walk back to the hotel for me). So they didn't get home until maybe 5am or 6am.
Earlier that day, Matt had picked up this beer from a shop, and I took a picture the next day. Unfortunately, I never got chance to drink it and, having failed to give it Chris for his birthday, I ended up handing it over to the airport security staff as it was not of acceptable size for transit.
Given the lateness of their arrival back from a night out, the stag party were slow to get going on the Sunday morning. That and they only had one bathroom and one toilet between 10 of them (doesn't bear thinking about, does it). Since Matt and I had to check out by around 10am, that meant we were forced to the streets to amble around. This place had an interesting combination of things that were forbidden - presumably camcorders, cats and knives are allowed.
Luckily, the weather was lovely as we sat in a square by this monument.
Some were taking it a little easier than even we were. We waiting until he demonstrated that he was alive before we took a photo.
We crossed over the river further south than we had done previously, and headed up the western bank, seeking new sights.
We noticed a tapas restaurant on one of many slivers of land in the river, with room enough on the inside for boats to go through.
With not much to do but wait for semi-regular news that the stag party were perhaps going to be a bit longer than previously thought, we got there early (about noon) and had no trouble in getting a table.
We ordered a fairly light selection of tapas, partly because it was fairly early in the day, and partly because it was quite pricey.
The food was very nice, though, and we drained a couple of beers as accompaniment. It was a very relaxing, pleasant way to spend lunchtime. We then heard news that the stag party had found a location on the west side of Charles bridge, so we continued our way northward to rendezvous.
Unusually, someone had done a mural quite far up the wall on this building.
There are some nice bits of Prague... and some not so nice bits. Nice wheels!
We caught up with them outside a bar restaurant and we had a few more beers as those who hadn't lunched, lunched. Eager to try more venues, we continued our way across the bridge, where I had the idea of trying to get everyone in a photo. Unfortunately, even though we had met up with the two rogue stag party members (who were staying elsewhere), three or so of our party had wandered further across the bridge and so were not featured here. Nor was I, obviously.
Here is the Charles bridge entrance on the east sde.
Once over the bridge, we tried the Ice Pub (the "one and only in Prague" - not sure how much of a boast that is). However, there was a 20 minute wait and, given time was of the essence (in particular, we had a flight to catch, but we also had continuous drinking to do).
These looked like nice places to go, but probably quite expensive.
We found another bar with a beer garden, which had gigantic pretzels hanging on the tables (which was too much temptation for some). In the back left, you can see Adam (formerly to be the best man) engaging in a game of Slap Each Other In The Face (or something) with someone else. Matt eagerly photographed this.
And finally... we headed to a microbrewery for one last drink. This photo is a little misleading as we followed them in, but it serves as an apt goodbye to Prague.
The flight was a little delayed on the way home and, as explained previously, we had to hand over the can of Duff to security, but we did get home in reasonable order.
The stag party, of course, were staying another day or two, and I don't have details or photos of the high jinks that they got up to. I do know that they went to the beer festival later on the Sunday. One day, you'll have to ask them what they did.
The end.