February 2014

[iguana]

This month Emily and I went to Prague for Emily's birthday, had an impromtu visit to John Lennon airport in Liverpool, and went to a photography exhibition in Greenwich Observatory.

Mystic Caverns, Halls of Mirrors, and Gothic Bridges

Mystic Caverns

I arrived in Prague around midday and met up with Emily at the airport, since she had flown in from Sweden after doing an Arctic Science course out there (snowflakes and iron mines and aurorae oh my!). We dropped off our stuff at the hotel (our room was the Franz Kafka room in the attic) and went to Petrin Gardens, where we walked up the steep hill alongside the funicular railway.

We stumbled upon a quirky little building on the way up the hill and were invited in by the resident artist, Reon, who appeared from behind a painting displayed in the front doorway.

This was Reon Argondia's Magic Cave (translated), which we descended down into by way of a spiral staircase decorated with whimsical paintings of personified star signs.

There was complementary mulled wine which we enjoyed on a seat on our own in the cavernous lower floor, filled to bursting with more mythical paintings and rocky stalactites on the ceiling. Enya played in the background.



After enjoying the atmosphere for a while we made our way back out and continued up the rest of the hill.

Halls of Mirrors

We reached the top of the hill and walked up Petřín Lookout Tower, which gave us a wonderful view of the whole of Prague.

Although it was nearly sunset, the clouds were just clearing, as they remained for the rest of the holiday.



Next door to the lookout tower was a tiny yellow castle which turned out to be the Hall of Mirrors. While this sounded like a fairground novelty, the interior was really smart and the whole place was really good fun to explore and get lost in.



We caught the funicular back down the hill into town, which was neat, and wandered around the centre of town for a little while before having dinner and making our way back to the hotel.

Hilltop Castle

The next day, we walked up the hill from our hotel to Prague Castle, which looks over the entire city. Inside the walled area there is a multitude of multicoloured houses, and St. Vitus Cathedral, which is absolutely massive and has some lovely stained glass windows inside.

From there we took a tram into town and walked to the old town square to see the Astronomical Clock chiming.



We ate lunch in Café Louvre, which has previously hosted guests such as Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka. The food was good and it was fun to imagine Einstein discussing his latest work with colleagues over lunch in the same restaurant.

After lunch we caught the tram to Vyšehrad, a historical fort, which we walked around for a while, and saw St Martin's Rotunda, which dates to the 11th Century.



In the evening we wandered around the Prague Castle again, which was practically deserted at that time of night. It was nice to roam around without any crowds getting in the way!

Gothic Bridges

On our third and final day, we took the chance to see Charles Bridge in daylight for a change, and get some photos of it since my mum had requested some.



The bridge is famous for its statues of various saints lining each side of the crossing, as well as the gatehouses on either end.

We also climbed up the tower of the old town's city hall, which gave a great view of the Old Town Square and about the only view of the strangely-obscured-at-ground-level Church of Our Lady before Týn, inside which is the tomb of Tycho Brahe, which we also visited.

Finally, we walked up to Letná Park, which gave another great view of the whole city, particularly the river flowing through it.



Prague really was a wonderful place to spend a holiday in!

(All my Prague photos.)

Landing in a storm

Perhaps you remember the massive gale the UK had on the evening of 14 February? Well, we flew back just in time to catch it!

The pilot announced before our descent at Gatwick that it was pretty gusty down there and we might end up having to divert to somewhere a bit further north, maybe Luton. A collective groan went up from everyone as we had already been delayed at Prague.

We didn't initially divert, and on our first attempt at landing (yes, you can see where this is going) the plane got increasingly bumpy, shaky, and then throw-you-out-of-your-seaty. Emily later told me I was looking reassuringly relaxed, but in actuality I was repeatedly telling myself that surely EasyJet don't hire madcap pilots and that maybe it might be better to crash land at Gatwick than get diverted to Luton? Also my hands were white and shaking pretty much uncontrollably.

The pilot eventually realised he was unable to land safely, at what must have been only a few dozen metres above the actual runway at Gatwick. We pulled back up pretty quickly and climbed to less windy altitudes. The cabin crew, having no idea what was going on (I imagine the pilot and copilot had more important things to think about), announced something about how turning the plane into the Vomit Comet was in fact a normal operating procedure. Uh-huh.

We headed North and continued flying for a while. I'm not entirely sure how long since I was trying to regain control of my arms. Finally they announced that we were going to be landing at John Lennon airport in Liverpool tonight.

Fortunately I was spared the terror of another landing by cunningly timing my throwing-up for the descent. Yay!

After the pilot came into the passenger cabin to take a bow, we were transferred onto a couple of coaches and spend most of the rest of the night driving through the rain from Liverpool to Gatwick. The staff at the Oxford Welcome Break service station were understandably a bit confused when we asked them where we actually were, during a brief driver break en route.

Southeastern Railway services were also entirely not running that morning due to the storm, so we caught a couple of buses back from East Croydon instead. We got in at about 8am and had a nice sleep!

So anyway, I got a good story out of the whole experience, no?

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013 exhibition

The Greenwich Royal Observatory had a free exhibition with the winning entries and other great astronomy photos from last year's contest. We went along to the observatory, since we need very little temptation to enjoy Greenwich Park.

Some of the photos are online here: here. We were hoping to buy a print of our favourite, Green Energy (Earth and Space runner-up) but unfortunately they had sold out.

We finished up the day with a cup of tea from the cafe there, and a nice walk around the park and through Greenwich Market.