Our first stop of the day was a tiny village called Fucking. Yes, that’s right! I felt quite sorry for the inhabitants of the beautiful, remote village. When we got there a chap came out and said, ‘No problems!’ and then took photos of everyone’s number plates. I watched from the back-seat of the Saab. I can totally understand why the villagers would be annoyed at their idyllic peacefulness being disturbed by visiting tourists. I think, if I lived there, I’d set up a stall and sell Fucking t-shirts, and Fucking mugs, to the Fucking visitors. Then I’d move house.
Next stop – the Walchsee Summer Toboggan Run at Durchholzen. We hoped in a chair lift and made our way up to the toboggan station. The views of the Kaiser mountain range were amazing, the views of the tiny cars in the car park were pretty spectacular too! The toboggans looked like folding suitcases to me, I wasn’t sure how they worked. I put mine on top of the metal slide and sat down. ‘I’m not sure how this works!’ I said, as I rolled backwards off the slide and landed on my back, arms and legs waving in the air like an upturned tortoise! The shame. Off we went, down the big shiny slide, and it was wonderful. So we had another go. Half way down on the second run I caught up with Al, who’d waited for me, having seen me roll off the back on the previous run, ‘Oh! There you are!’ he said, thumbs up, and then carried on. I laughed, a lot, and I kept laughing all the way down. Ha ha ha, like a nutter – you see!
On we went, into the Czech Republic. The roads and buildings changed almost immediately. Ashleigh got shouted at by an angry German man and his wife at the petrol station. It was hard to tell what was going on.
We finally made it to Prague, and Rob and Si dropped us off at our hotel, Novotel Prague. The room was superb, spacious, very clean, and well furnished, with a good sized balcony overlooking the street, with views to the left of the hills around Prague Castle.
The bathroom was well equipped with bath robe, slippers, plenty of towels, shoe shine kit, shower cap, nail file, cotton buds and cotton wool pads, 2 soaps, exfoliant scrub, body milk, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner. The mini bar was well stocked, and there was even a Krupps machine. Unlike the Hilton, the big bottle of water was a gift, and it came with two tasty little ‘Pernik’ gingerbread biscuits. Thank you!
We were only a 5 minute walk from Wenceslas Square, where we met up with all the other Czecheap Challengers at the Beer Factory. This was an interesting place, with beer taps in the centre of each table. The bar men did a fire show, I missed this, but Adam was trying to buy a drink at the time, so he saw it all. At one point he thought the mans mouth was on fire. He thinks they used petrol!
We voted for our favourite teams (Rob and Si, of course!), ate our burgers (good chips!), watched the prize giving and got our special medals (top image).
Then there was a weird bit that I have tried to erase from my memory, but it just won’t go. I’m sharing it with you in the hope that it helps me. Sorry. There was a pole, for pole dancing. A couple of the guys started taking it in turns on the pole, I said to Freya, ‘I think they’ve been practicing!’ She said that she thought they’d been doing more watching than practicing. One chap stripped down to his pants, and then his friend, in what must have been an attempt at one-upmanship, took off all his clothes and leapt onto the pole like a white-washed monkey! I wasn’t sick, but it was a close call. I decided the pole should be melted down and buried, or that the ‘albino chimp’ should have to eat it, so that it was stored within him and protected the rest of the population. Bless him!
We had a bit of a wander around with some of the other guys, who turned down the ‘promoters’ offers of the chance to visit ‘titty bars’ or watch some ‘dwarf action’ (What?!), but then, to my absolute surprise managed to steal a disabled guy from a taxi and ride him and his wheel chair up the hill!
It’s okay. Turns out they knew him, kind of. And he didn’t mind, apparently.