Archives for November 11th, 2004

Tourists on a naked rampage in the Ljubljanica River, Ljubljana. (full size)

Prague-based blogger Scotty Mac recently posted a story about the Czech capital’s plan to crack down on "drunken Britons," whose rowdy benders are turning the city of spires into the city of stag parties. According to this story, roughly 700,000 mostly British "beer and sex" tourists materialized in the city last year, where they accounted for 20% of all weekend crime. Why Prague? Well, as one Englishman told Prague TV:

"We’ve come for a weekend to get drunk. It’s not really a culture
visit. We chose Prague because it was at the end of an EasyJet route."

Over at Baltic Blog, Scott points out that Estonia has also become an EasyJet stop, and that as a result, the "restaurants in Old Town have started banning groups of Brits from their
establishments. The cleanup bills aren’t worth the business."

This April, EasyJet started offering daily service from London to Ljubljana, with fares starting at 15 euros. However, the route is expected to take no more than 90,000 passengers a year (in both directions) and is therefore nowhere near the intensity of the British invasion of Prague. This isn’t to say, though, that the British presence hasn’t been felt yet.

EasyJet’s official guide to Slovenia has this to say about the capital:

"During the day, you should not miss a chance to stroll
through the Old Town, along the Ljubljanica river or enjoy the lively
open market."

The picture above shows some EasyJet turisti taking that advice. Here they are again, and once more. (I’m indebted to marko7 at Sloreactor for the pictures.)

If the Czechs really do end up turning away British tourists with stricter measures, Ljubljana may actually have a good chance of becoming the new Prague. I’m not sure they’d want to, though.