Prague Spring

Well, what a weekend to pick to go and visit relatives in the eastern Czech Republic! While we sat in the garden enjoying welcome sunshine, we were totally unaware of what was brewing not many kilometres to the west of us. The worst floods for five hundred years in Passau on the river Danube, central Prague under water and even in Vienna the Danube was bursting its banks! Blissfully ignorant I arrived at Vienna’s West station on Sunday evening to take the overnight sleeper train to Zurich, and was devastated to find it cancelled. Managed to find a reasonably-priced (28 euros) place to stay in town and got up at the crack of dawn to try my luck at the airport. Huge queues, and nothing available till mid-afternoon. Finally got home at ten pm. That’s life. On the bright side while I was waiting for my flight I was able to spend the morning exploring Vienna, which has to be my one of my favourite cities. First I took a train as far as the Danube to check out the water level. In places the great river had overflowed onto the walkways and cycle tracks and in the rest it wasn’t far off, and the water was flowing powerfully below the bridges. Then I took tram number 2 on a mystery tour and ended up outside the Opera, where I hopped off and joined the tourists exploring the historic city centre. No sign of anything untoward here. Business as usual.

In contrast here’s how it looks in state-of-emergency Prague.