DAY 7

Day 7..... out of Austria... strangers in the Czech Republic

Well here we are once again folks.... bad news for those of you who are bored of our reports is.... yup, thats right... another Internet cafe!

Obviously in a different Country this time... what fun would there be in going to two in the same location, after all!

Tonight, we're coming to you live from the beautiful City of Prague, in the Czech Republic. In the hottest and stuffiest Internet Cafe in the world... I am sweltering in here... not to mention slightly scared; Due to a technical restriction, Mike has had to return to the Hotel to upload more of this evenings Pics onto our USB Key (yay! I hear you Cry... more pics!)... and im all alone in a strange city.... although to be fair, most people in this room are American.... (Hmmmm..... not sure if thats more of a concern...)

The day has been, as ever, eventful, with another small run-in with the local Police..

.. but its ok, no money exchanged hands... which is more than can be said for the Audi Turbo that I was following!!!

In fact, the Austrian Gendarme didn't really say why he stopped us, but checked the car was legal and that all papers were in order (which of course they were!) We even had our Austrian Vignette on display!. He politely suggested we should have a GBJ sticker on display for when we cross the Czech border, so that has now been added to the bodywork. It looks just great. Honest.

Fortunately, the nice police man spoke English, and was even kind enough to pull us in outside a quality car showroom....

Anyway, we left him and continued our journey North, until we were soon very close to the border...

..where we got stopped again as we exited the Austrian Border!.. and once again as we entered the Czech border - but no problems were encountered.... well, at least we don't think so - as we don't speak a word of Czech, who knows what they were shouting!

We were now in completely foreign territory with no knowledge of the language and no local currency.... which left us with a bit of a dilemma as to how to go about ordering lunch... but the solution soon came to us...

After all, a Big Mac is a Big Mac in any language! And they were bound to take Euro's! (and they did!)

Fed and watered, our next task was to find fuel..... not really expecting to find anything even half decent, let alone any with enough Octane to actually ignite, imagine our excitement on seeing the next sign!!!

I mean..REALLY.... Jersey barely has 97 Octane.... and the Czech republic has 99+???? There is something seriously wrong going on back home!

So tank full, just the Intercooler spray requiring a drink, and us requiring coffee, and we returned to the surprisingly good roads, headed for Praha.. aka Prague!

The picture doesn't show it, but i think i was the only car in the car park that wasn't a Skoda! They are just everywhere! Old ones, new ones, souped up ones, even RS ones!

The driving was a mixture of beautiful sights and insane Czech drivers...

Still, when in Czech, do as the Czechs' do...right?

A couple of hours later saw us arriving into Prague itself, where not only did we have to dodge other cars, but also Trams now!

We were slightly alone with relation to Naviagation.... Autoroute 2003 has no roads what so ever in the Czech repulblic (or any other Eastern European country for that matter!), however we came prepared, as a little research before leaving Jersey had uncovered the fact that Autoroute 2001 has far better East European coverage!

However, the downside to this was that there was no Hotels listed on the map, so nightmare of all nightmares, we had to resort to one of those old fashioned paper ones! Can you believe it?

Once again with Mikes excellent navigating, we soon discovered which streets of Prague were one-way, and after a few tours of the City (purely for sight-seeing purposes, you understand) we found a Novotel, and a Hotel Ibis right next-door.

The Novotel was 190 euros; the Ibis was 78. Unfortunately, the Ibis only had a double-room free, but it did have a secure Garage. Guess who's sleeping on the floor then!!

After a brief moment of confusion where we tried to enter room 310 of the Novotel instead of the Ibis (how were we to know there were 2 lifts from the basment, taking us to 2 different Hotels?!), we off-loaded our usual collection of bits and peices and went on a sight-seeing walk of Prague.

Before long we were hungry again (it had been many hours since lunch), and having had such a non-local one at that, we decided real Czech food was the order of the evening. The only trouble was deciding which quality local restaurant to choose from....

Well, that brings you pretty much up-to-date; As soon as Mike returns, i'll upload the other pics, then sign off and head back to the Hotel for a relatively early night!

Some where between tomorrow morning, and 5.30am Friday, we have over 900 miles to cover in order to get to Calais to catch our Chunnel to the UK.... but as some of that will be through Germany, i'm sure we'll manage to make up some time somewhere along the way!

Until tomorrow (hopefully), its goodbye from him, and its goodbye from me! Nash le Danou.....

Garry and Mike