There were some locks on that bridge too.

The last city I visited on my eurotrip was Copenhagen. I got one wonderfully sunny July weekend (20-21/7) in the cool of the Scandinavian capitals. It is also the only city that I didn’t get a map of. I didn’t need one, I had a great, full-time guide in Markus.

Markus and I were in the same class at the international school during the year I lived in Tanzania 1999-2000. We weren’t close in any way, but friendly, and when Facebook spread out over the world like a pandemic, we became Facebook friends. (I was actually the first among my Swedish friends to become a member of Facebook, because I got invited by one of my other Danish Tanzania friends, Rikke. Unfortunately, Rikke had just gone abroad herself, otherwise I would have met up with her too in Copenhagen.) When I wrote to him about maybe grabbing a beer or something during my stay in Copenhagen, he offered me to stay at his place – and that, my friends, would just have been rude to refuse. And it was a great decision, because he and his three roommates were so laid back and made me feel at home – completely confirming my prejudices about Danes.

Having a personal guide is great in most ways – but what I realized afterwards, when going through the photos, was that I’ve very much attached my memory of the names of places and what the guidebook had to say about them on those maps. Now, when I didn’t have a threadbare free tourist map covered in notes to glance at, I no longer remembered the names of the places that I had been to. So, I’ve had to guess and google. In case of mistakes, forgive me. I was completely whacked by this point, and just floated along in the heat, happy to be able to rely on Markus knowing where we were.

Nyhavn. Probably the most photographed spot in Copenhagen.

 

 

During the summers, Markus works as a waiter at a restaurant here. According to him, this guy sits there almost every day, playing the same songs over and over and over. Markus does not like him.

Some ocean kayaking in front of the new Copenhagen Opera House.  

Me, by the monument in the middle of the square that is surrounded by the Danish Royal Palace, with the marble Frederiks Church in the background.

Strøget, where all the shopping is being done.

 

Some more kayakers in a canal. 

 The Christiania post office.  Further than this, I couldn’t go with my camera. I was kindly asked to put it away. But it was a very hippie kind of area to walk around in. Very much the rebellious Danishness that we hear so much about in proper Sweden.

The train was twenty minutes late when we crossed the Czech-German border.  I was worried for a while that I would miss my connection in Büchen. That would have meant a two hour wait for the next train to Copenhagen in Lübeck. Now we’ve passed Berlin and the train is back on schedule.  There’s just something about these Germans. They know what they’re doing, and they do it right. It feels good to be heading north again, for so many reasons.

The guy sitting in the unreserved seat got off in Dresden, so I moved to that seat and am still sitting in the same compartment as when we left Prague five and a half hours ago. I’ve mostly worked with my photographs, but the last hour I’ve been reading. The book about witches, on the computer. I also have the textbook in glaciology for the field course I’m going on in August, but I don’t feel smart enough for it now. I’m afraid nothing would stick in my traveling brain. So, I’ll dig into it as soon as I am back home.

Which is on Monday.

Three days.

Crazy shit.

Finally! The ocean! The first glimpse I’ve had for four weeks, on the ferry between Germany and Denmark. It felt liberating.

Vampire romance. The new season of True Blood has started now. That requires a TV show night with Natalia when I get back home!

Waiting for Markus at the Copenhagen central station, smiling at the huge No Smoking sign, relieved at the fact that people actually obeyed it. I really am Northerner, heart and soul.

I did a mistake. The train from Prague to Hamburg, which I am on, is overcrowded and I just grabbed the first seat I could find. Then, I checked the reserved list, and realized that my seat is reserved from Dresden to Berlin. When I checked the map, I saw that Dresden is pretty close to Prague. The seat next to mine is not reserved at all. I should have checked before sitting down, and not just gone for the seat closest to an electricity outlet. Well, I guess I’ll have to sit in the corridor once we reach Dresden. That is also part of the Interrail experience.

I think I might get similar problems on all the trains I’m supposed to catch today. I just realized it’s Friday, and a lot of people are probably going to Berlin or Copenhagen for the weekend. It’s going to be a long day.

The John Lennon Wall is situated on a back street on the west side of the river close to the Charles Bridge. Since the 1980’s, it’s been covered in paintings of Lennon, Beatles lyrics and general political graffiti. The owners have tried to repaint it several times, but it always gets covered with new graffiti.

A Swedish guest graffiti artist in Prague, mayhaps?

As for street art in the rest of Prague, it wasn’t really that impressive. But these crochet fishes by the river were nice.

According to Google Translate, it says “IPAK to the ATM I fell asleep in coma”. It doesn’t make sense at all. So I guess Google Translate isn’t infallible.

One of the places that Marek told me to visit was the Vysehrad. It is a fort on a hill in the southern end of central Prague, probably built in the 10th century. Legend has it that the hill is the location of the first Prague settlement – even though any archaeological findings to prove this have as of yet not been found. Today, the fort is a lovely green park, with an nice view of the river and the city.

The view of the river from the fort walls

What makes a visit to Vysehrad well worth the effort to visit is the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul. It was originally founded in 1070-1080, but has since then burned down and been rebuilt in Gothic and neo-Gothic style. But really, from the outside, the basilica doesn’t look like much.

 

The doors are nice, but it’s what’s behind them that takes your breath away.

 

The wall and ceiling decorations in this small basilica are exquisite.

 

 

The earth tones created such a calming atmosphere.

 

 

And the paintings themselves were incredibly beautiful. These angels, all the flowers, the detail!

   

And the paintings of saints on the pillars. I’m quite sure this style is late 18th century, so the basilica must have been renovated many times since the 11th century – but it made for such a refreshing and nice change from all the dark and heavy icons of Jesus on the cross and Virgin Mary that had decorated the walls in most of the other churches and cathedrals that I visited during my trip. 

I sat in the basilica, just watching the walls and the ceiling, constantly seeing new things. I couldn’t get enough of it, that’s how amazed I was. And I thought: this must be the most beautiful church I’ve ever been in. Pardon me, it might have been the mood I was in, and honestly, how can memories every compare to the real thing the moment you’re there. So I might have exaggerated a little. But I’m certain that in the context of my eurotrip, this was really something extra. Traveling through Europe, you end up seeing many many churches – but my favorite among all the huge cathedrals and gilded domes, turned out to be this small, insignificant basilica in Prague. It was magical.

On my second day in Prague, I kept clear of the major tourist attractions, and walked around in some other parts of the city instead.

In Holesovice, I met up with Marek, a guy that I had sent a couch request to but who couldn’t host me. He wanted to meet up, however, and though it ended up being a very short visit, he gave me some great tips on where to go during the rest of my day.

There, for example. One of the Czech cubist buildings. Pretty cool, huh?

 

In a small park, I was met by this: women doing yoga, and people stopping to watch the women doing yoga. Quite funny.

 

The Vltava in the evening sun. The bridge is the Karluv, and in the distance you see the twin towers of the St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle hill.

I’m in Prague. My day yesterday was really nice. All the tourists at the castle were kind of over the top, but the Botanic Garden afterwards was incredibly calming, and almost completely empty, and made for a really nice stroll. I have nothing at all against Prague. I’m just –

– so fucking exhausted. And I don’t really know when that happened. I think I was fine when I left Belgrade, but then my phone got stolen and I had all that trouble with the train to Prague being more than two hours late and I had no way of contacting Martin and just having to be on my toes all the time. Maybe I’m not that fine with losing my phone anymore. Or then I’m just over-stuffed with seeing new places, experiencing new things. I’m sick of castles and museums – I would like to spend an entire day just sitting in the shade of a tree, reading a book. But the book I had was in my phone and for god’s sake, I’m in Prague! I can’t just sit here on Martin’s couch and waste the day away. I’ll just have to suck it up, get dressed and take my sore feet out on yet another city tour.

I’ve even checked if I could change my train ticket from Copenhagen to Stockholm to Saturday, but that would mean doubling the price of the ticket and I want to see Copenhagen, I really do, I’ve never been and I’ve heard it’s supposed to be awesome. It’s just, right now I can’t even seem to muster up the energy to go to the bathroom.

I’m homesick. I want to speak Swedish. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want to go home.

Of course I had to check out the Prague Botanic Garden too. But things always take longer than you expect, and in the end I didn’t reach the garden until after six. The greenhouses had already closed, but luckily the outside garden was still open, and entrance free of charge.

It was a lovely little green jewel, wedged in between concentrated city mess. (Later, I learned that this was the old Botanic Garden. In the north of the city, there’s a bigger one, and apparently more impressive. But I feel this downtown botanic garden was fine for me. My time in the city was limited, and rounding up the day in a garden like this was exactly what I needed. Some green balm for the soul after all that stressful sightseeing.)

They even had a geological garden! A big part of the garden dedicated to displaying boulders of rocks of different kinds, with information boards next to them of how they had been created and where in the Czech Republic you could find them. Wonderful!

At the beginning of the Karluv Most (Charles Bridge), there was almost a traffic jam with all the tourists. It’s the most famous historic bridge crossing the Vltava in Prague, more or less connecting the castle hill on the west side of the river with the old town on the east side. The construction of the bridge was started in 1357.

And the bridge is very wide, too, lined with vendors selling jewelry and other knick-knacks.

Scarred by all the totally worthless photos taken by strangers of me during this trip, I decided to take the photo of me on the Karluv myself. I had bought a pair of earrings on the bridge just a minute earlier, and listened to Swedish Radio podcasts, as always. I think it turned out quite alright.

 

A bit further south along the east side of the river, I met this awesome building.

 There was a boardwalk along the east side of the river where people sat, walked, biked and drank beer at makeshift bars. And I felt that this was part of the real Prague, where people went to enjoy themselves, the sun and the lovely city that they live in. This was one of those places that aren’t in any guidebooks, but that become small golden nuggets among your travel memories if you manage to find them.

I sat down on a bench, ate some nuts and watched the sun slowly set behind the castle hill.