Prague hotel
Another of my Inter-Rail stories. There may be more later.

Summer 1991. A year or so after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia. We turned up in Prague, and made our way to the youth hostel, which was on the outskirts of the city. In an area which resembled the Jasmine Allen estate on The Bill, only less upmarket. We went in, and were told that despite our having booked it, the hostel was full up and we couldn't stay there. But they would put us up in a hotel instead, for the same cost (i.e. bugger all squared)

"Result!", we thought. After weeks of living in overcrowded, sweaty youth hostels. A hotel. With proper beds, and showers where you weren't in close proximity to someone else's soaped willy while engaged in personal ablutions.

So we got into the hostel manager's Skoda as requested, and he came down to drive us to the hotel. But when he got in, he announced a change of plan. Rather than driving us to a hotel, there was one just behind the hostel which had rooms spare. So out we got again, and humped our rucksacks round to the back of the hostel (which itself was a large concrete edifice) to see an almost cubic concrete building with windows, maybe 10 storeys high by ten rooms wide and long. Struggling through the long grass to the door, we chanced upon a playful kitten, which brightened up our day a bit, and then entered the 'hotel'. We checked into our rooms, which were admittedly quite clean, but the shower was a little alcove by the door partioned from the rest of the room by a fabric curtain. And the toilets were down the hall.

I stripped off, and turned on the shower. It must have run for 5 minutes before I dared to get in. Not that the water wasn't warm, but it looked like the washoff from an iron ore mine. Eventually it was fine though. The toilet block wasn't so good though. The flush for the urinals not only washed the piss pots themselves, but also the floor below. There was no paper in the stalls. You had to bring it from your bedroom. I discovered this the hard way.

There was what appeared to be a radio in the room. In fact, it was a loudspeaker wired to the wall, which had a volume control and no off switch. So you could turn it down to a really low level, but not off completely. Ever read 1984? It only broadcast one voice channel, which we imagined was reading out the fish catches from the Caspian Sea or something.

We of course spent most of our time in central Prague, with the tourists, but had to make our way out to the concrete blockhouse every night. And when we came out the second day, the kitten we'd seen the day before was lying dead.

I have been back to Prague a few times since, and enjoyed it, but this was the only time I've seen its underbelly.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 13:47, Reply)