19/07/09, 00:19:39 EDT

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Foreign tourists in Prague often ask impossible questions

praguemonitor.com

Czech tourist info centres often have to deal with impossible questions whose origins can be traced down to poor geographical knowledge, politics, love or hangover, CTK has found out in a poll.

"Which underground line will take me to Vienna?" an American tourist asked in the centre of Prague.

Petra Kellerova, head of the info centre in Prague's Celetna street, said such questions were no rarity.

A tourist who learnt that a trip to Dresden (in Germany) took four-to-five hours was fazed to find out that Dresden was not a part of Prague.

The info centre of the government agency CzechTourism received a question from a Spanish tourist who wanted to know how long it would take to travel from Prague to Budapest by boat.

Love probably pushed a young Korean man to ask CzechTourism for the phone number of a male conductor on a night train from Vienna to Prague.

"The conductor in the sleeping car was beautiful. Could you get me his number, please?" urged the tourist. The agency complied, but the would-be affair had no happy ending. "Can you find out why he never writes back?" the tourist implored after some time.

Info centres also deal with foreign tourists who are discouraged from visiting Prague by politics and feel the urge to let somebody know.

"Since your President Vaclav Klaus has declared people are not responsible for global warming, we have decided to go to Malta rather than to the Czech Republic," an Irish couple has written.

Last year, some 3.7 million foreign tourists visited Prague. About 20 percent of Prague's economically active inhabitants earn tourists' money.

Although tourist centres do their best to answer the most intriguing questions, there are people they simply cannot help, including youths who have spent the night in a pub and now they cannot recall which hotel they are staying at, or those who have left their backpack in a taxi and then describe the vehicle as a car with a light attached to the roof.

Tourist centres typically dislike general questions, the poll has shown. "What should I do in Prague? Where can I go? Where is the hotel with the historic well? Is it safe to take a train? What's the weather forecast for next August?"

A tourist centre operator recalls a tourist asking when the nonstop post office near Wenceslas Square closes.

"Since it's a nonstop post office, it does not close," said the operator. "Well, and when does it open then?" the tourist wanted to know.

But most people ask ordinary questions. Tourists are interested in cultural events, sights, restaurants, or sports facilities, and they are always welcome in tourist centres, said the operator.

 Printable Version  | published Jun 04, 2007