Sixty Summers by Amanda Hampson

Author:Amanda Hampson [Hampson, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143792116
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

In the late afternoon, they went out into the streets of Old Town Prague. The day was bright but cool. Summer came slow and late to Eastern Europe. The square, with its famous astronomical clock and ornate medieval buildings, was completely packed with other tourists. There was a market selling souvenirs and food. The air smelt of warm cinnamon sugar from the many stalls offering trdelník: a sweet pastry tube cooked on long poles over hot embers and filled with chocolate or whipped cream. None of them remembered this confection at all from the previous visit. Some of the stalls sold a dish they did remember: a traditional potato, bacon and cabbage dish called halušky. They bought a bowl to share and perched on a bench to watch the crowds. Rose took one spoonful and pulled a face. ‘Ugh, it tastes like burnt wallpaper glue.’

Fran tried a few mouthfuls. ‘I don’t mind it. Smoked bacon is quite strong if you’re not used to it.’

‘I don’t remember the food as being that great,’ said Maggie.

‘It was under Soviet rule back then,’ said Fran. ‘I’m sure it has improved. Anyway, this is tourist food, not the best example.’

‘I can’t believe how many people are here,’ said Rose. ‘It is a weekend, I suppose. But still.’

On cue, a mob of British lads ran amok in the crowd waving bottles of beer and singing football chants.

‘It’s cheap flights. You can fly here from the UK for twenty quid,’ explained Fran.

Nearby, a dozen or so Italians gathered around a busker with a piano accordion and swayed together as they sang along to ‘O Sole Mio’ at full volume.

‘This part is like any tourist trap. Locals would never set foot here,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s just a shock after it being so quiet when we were here last.’

As they wandered down Karlova Street towards the river, Maggie remembered Prague as a fairytale city populated by unhappy, disheartened citizens, who had stared at them in the streets and ignored them in shops. Shops that had almost nothing to buy; clothes twenty years out of date and food that wasn’t far behind. Crossing the border into what was then Czechoslovakia, they’d had to exchange funds into koruna but found nothing to spend it on. Now it was the opposite extreme – the streets lined with souvenir and designer clothes shops.

The famous Charles Bridge, guarded by Gothic statues of saints, spanned the Vltava River connecting Old Town with Lesser Town. Today, there were so many tourists on the bridge, it looked as though there was an exodus taking place. The crowd moved as one body across the pedestrian bridge to the other side, only to turn around and walk back.

They decided it was madness to enter that fray and wandered back to the flat along the quieter back streets to avoid the crush. Rose reminded them about the time they were robbed at the camping ground outside Prague. It had been raining and they had all slept in the van. To make more room, they had packed the tent, camp stretcher and all their food underneath the van.

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