Prague (Praha), Czech Republic
The 4 hour train ride to Prague was very smooth, the high speed train was very modern and sleek. A girl came by asking if we wanted a drink or a sandwich, we said "No thanks" until she insisted... "They're free!", apparently our 1st class train ticket had more advantages than we thought. 1st class on the train is not much more expensive, but very few people buy them, so we usually have entire cabins to ourselves or share a whole car with only a few other people.
We are only ripped off slightly by our cab driver, and arrive at our hotel right in the heart of Prague's old town. We are told that they have no record of our reservation, but after I show them a copy of the e-mails I sent when making the reservation, they more than make up for it. We are given a huge room, and the only one with a balcony... looking out on a historic church.
Ours is the one with the balcony
The view from our room
After dropping off our bags, we head out to the streets of Praha, and directly into the old town square. We marvel at the Town Hall astronomical clock, and head over to the famous Charles Bridge just as it starts getting dark.
The Charles bridge is covered in religious statues, and tourists. From one end to the other musicians of all types are setup, playing their music, and trying to sell their CD's. Everything from Didgeridoo's to Violins, 5 man bands, and organ grinders, all mixed in with artists, photographers, and even more tourists.
After a long dinner due to poor service we head back to the room and crash on our Ikea beds. Across the street a guy has passed out sitting up on a park bench in front of the church, somehow he hasn't even spilled his bottle.
After our free breakfast we head back to the old town square. Way less people in the morning, and we enjoy the tolling of the clock at 9:00. A little skeleton rings a bell, and the 12 apostles spin past 2 windows that open up. Apparently this is pick-pocket central during the peak of the day when all the tourists are staring up at the clock.
We wandered through some of the narrow shop filled streets, and after picking up a russian matryoshka (nesting dolls) of Canuck players, we headed back across the Charles bridge and hiked up the hill to the Prague castle. By this time we were just traveling between places that sold cold water or Ice Teas.
Our first stop was the St. Vitus cathedral, we had a bit of a wait in a lineup to get in, but it was worth it, and free! The Gargoyles on the church serve two purposes... 1) to scare of demons, 2) to act as gutters, streaming the rain water away from the building.
There was a lot of people around, and all the courtyards were busy. Next we went into the old royal palace, it wasn't opulent at all. Big plank wood floors and lots of stone. Even the basilica of St. George was very small in comparison, and many of the painted frescoes were worn away. A tomb is guarded by a skeleton, it stands out in a seemingly plain church.
We work our way down "the golden lane", a medieval street comprised of shops, tiny shops, with small doors and low ceilings. the lane leads to the torture chamber tower of the structure, and although we were tempted to see another torture chamber (The Barbie Museum) we skipped it, and exited the Vysehrad hilltop fortress area through the gardens.
After a brief lunch where Norine and I had to swap our lunches due to language barriers in the menus, we headed into the senate buildings. Very interesting gardens, Owls, peacocks, and a strange black dripping wall full off hidden faces and shapes.
We made our way to the funicular to take us up to Petrin Hill and the Petrin Tower (a weak attempt to recreate the Eiffel tower). It's a lot of steps to climb, but the views from the top and the cooling winds made it worthwhile.
We ride the funicular back down, and head over the river to check out the unique architecture of the Dancing House.
A brief stop at a McDonalds on Wenceslas Square for a large cold drink, before we check out the museum and head down the shopping street. This is the true home of Budweiser beer, many years before the American company would create it, the Czechs did, and still own the name in Europe. If I was able to drink this beer and the original pilsner from the town of Plzen would have been on my table. A funny thing we find over here, order a beer and you get a huge 1 litre frosted glass of beer, order an Iced Tea or a Coke and you get a little .2 litre bottle in a warm glass. We head back to the Town square and our hotel to decide which town we would visit tomorrow.
The tourist info told us where the Bus station was to take us to Cesky Krumlov, so we headed out to buy some tickets. We detoured through the Jewish District, and found it no different than any of the other areas, except for one synagogue with a star of David. Finally we saw a devout Jewish man with the full beard and black outfit, but no ringlets... I guess that makes it the Jewish district.
Our next mistake was to take the TI girls advice on where to get tickets for the bus. After a long trek into a very bad part of town we found the bus station. All the ticket counters, all one of them, were closed, and wouldn't open until the next morning. I confirmed with a guy in a nearby Hostel (I know... that's how it happened in the movie too) that we were at the right place. We were very tired and very pissed, we couldn't figure out which trolley care, bus or subway would get us back to our area of town, so again, we walked.
We had dinner at a restaurant right by our hotel and made plans to check into a package tour or rent a car first thing in the morning. It's a Friday night... We can see fireworks from our balcony, and there is a lot of noise on the streets, so we'll close the balcony doors tonight. But first things first... I have to kill the big spider that has settled in on our high ceiling. A little ingenuity with a lamp stand and a quick shoe... OK now Norine will let me sleep.
Cesky Road Trip
Since I probably kept her up all night snoring, I let Norine sleep in, and made all the arrangements for a rental car. They would be dropping it off at our hotel at 10:00, a nice little Skoda. Off we headed for Cesky Krumlov... zooming on the freeway, and then... traffic, lots of traffic, going really slow, roadwork.
We made a brief stop in a town called Cesky Budejovice, it is famous for it's historic square. We checked out the square, grabbed a cold water and a snack, and got back on the highway towards Cesky Krumlov.
We pulled into Cesky Krumlov, the city itself is closed to traffic, so we find a parking lot, and after some communication breakdown with the ticket guy who speaks no english, we figure out that we put the ticket on our dash, and pay when we leave. You walk down a path and through a huge roman style bridge/wall into the town, and are immediately struck by it's quaintness.
The small medieval town is surrounded by a winding river, and is made up of all small cobbled streets and old historic buildings. There is people canoeing and paddling down the river, there is even a small man-made dam like slide that they shoot down to screams of delight. There is even a Pirate bar on the shore, where you can pull up with your canoe or raft and have a drink served by pirates.
We made the mistake of eating first, a cute little outdoor area right on the river, but the world's slowest service, they believe you should take your time when eating. The bill would never come if you didn't ask for it. The food was good, but by the time we got out of there we wouldn't have time to take the castle tour before it closed. So, we wandered through the castle checking out the grounds and the gardens, and enjoying the views of the town.
We wander through the whole town, it's very narrow streets, it's small town square, it's unique medieval architecture, and even run into an entire youth orchestra from England that was playing in the town.
We check out some of the unique shops. Do you want a wolf or deer skin? no problem. What kind of wine or liqueur would you like? Here's some self-serve containers so you can sample and fill your own bottle.
It's hard, but we have to leave Cesky Krumlov and start back towards Prague. We made the decision to detour to a town called Kutna Hora, it's cathedral is on the UNESCO list, so it seemed worthwhile. It was already 8:00, but what the hell... Somehow we ended up on the back road route, which ended up being very interesting. Small roads winding through even smaller towns. I no longer consider Spuzzum to be a small town. We see parts of the Czech Republic most people don't see, farmland, countryside, we see deer grazing, rabbits hopping, nearly get run over by some huge farming tractors.
We run into a heavy downpour for a while, but make it into Kutna Hora ok, even though it was already dark. We wandered around the town and up to the cathedral. Being after 10:00 the town was all boarded up and was like a ghost town, but for us that was just fine. The cathedral was very impressive all lit up, and the pathway leading to it was much like the Charles bridge with all its statues.
It was getting late and we were starving, just our luck we stumbled onto a pizzeria that was still open, and enjoyed a large 1/2 and 1/2 pizza. A group of teens come in and start complaining about the prices. We get our bill, for our large pizza and several drinks it came to $147 Czech Korunas, about $8... nothing to bitch about.
Our stomachs full, we get back into the car for the short trek back to Prague, well... what should have been a short trek. At first we missed our turn and we're headed the wrong way out of town, but turned around quickly and followed the signs to the Highway back to Prague. According to our map, it goes straight into Prague. It's quite late, and much like the way to Kutna Hora, it was the country route. Tiny towns, countryside, everything is boarded up, we see only a few other cars, and certainly no phones or gas stations. The road signs are very good, every intersection you see a sign that tells you straight to Prague, Left to itty city, and right to bitty city. About halfway to Prague the sign changed... there is red tape criss-crossed over PRAHA, and the roadway has a blockade at the intersection.
Now what? We check our map, and can see that there is another highway running parallel to the highway we were on, so we head north towards that highway. We drive for 20 minutes, an owl swoops down at our car, we see small mice running all over the road, and we are suddenly stopped by another ROAD CLOSED. WTF? So back we go to our first blockade, and rather than go all the way back to Kutna Hora, I decide we will go South to the highway that is shown on the map. It winds up a big mountain, back down the other side, to the left, to the right, through a dense forest, luckily the Skoda is fuel efficient, as there isn't any gas stations... and finally we come out at the huge Autobahn, or whatever you call it in Czech, talk about feelings of relief. we are 43km from Prague, Huge gas stations are open, we top up the tank, and at about 140kph we make it back to Prague in no time.
The fun wasn't over, as Prague is not a car friendly city, lots of one-way streets, and we get close to our hotel, but we can never quite get to the street that takes us there. Finally I decide to backup down the one-way street towards our hotel, there was no traffic at 2am, we could see our hotel, and all that stood in our way was a 20 foot section of a roadway that was one-way too, one-way the wrong way. I decide to just go for it, and in the deserted streets of our neighborhood, a cop steps out onto the street and stops us. "We're completely lost, we're trying to find our hotel", I played up the weepy tourist bit... He tells me "It's right over there, but that is one way! You don't go that way!" and sent us on our way. Whew, around the block and we were at our hotel, and our late night adventure ended.
We had a message from the car rental place, wondering where we were, that would get sorted in the morning. It ended up the rental, gas and mileage would be way cheaper than the tour would be, and we never would have had the memorable experiences we did on a bus tour. In the morning, Enrique from Mexico came and picked up the car, and we headed to the train station for the trip to Slovakia. Another advantage of 1st class tickets, they had a 1st class lounge with a very helpful train info guy, refreshments and comfy chairs to rest before we leave.