We were able to get lots of sleep – almost twelve hours! I think we knew we’d need to charge our batteries going into exploration mode in a new city. We were both tired, but not like exhaustion tired – more like you feel after a satisfying period of exercise.
My doctor-mandated waiting period was up this morning, so I took off the bandage and had Kuniko check things out. She said it looked like it was healing well, and there was no redness or bleeding, so I went into the shower and washed my hair for the first time in five days. Wow – that felt good. I was careful around the wounded area, but over the next few days I was able to wash my hair normally and retire my goofy head bandage.
Once again we ran out the clock on the checkout time of our hotel room, packing up the suitcase which was now significantly heavier thanks to all the souvenirs that we bought yesterday. Kuniko declared that it was still under 23 kg, which is the magic number for international flights. We rolled the big suitcase out the door and we were on our way back to the Vienna train station.
Today was more lively – no more national holidays and there was foot traffic all over town. We caught the subway and then changed to a regular train to get to the main Vienna train station. We had a little time before our train left, so we put our suitcase in a locker and then walked outside the station to check out the Belvedere Palace. I had heard that it was an impressive place to see while waiting for trains, and indeed it was. There were several art exhibits by Ai Weiwei integrated into the palace grounds which made for some interesting pictures. It was totally worth the short walk from the station.
We headed back to the station and stopped at a little bakery to have some juice, a veggie sandwich, and thanks to my non-existent German skills we ended up buying a pretzel that we didn’t plan on buying. As it turned out the pretzel was damn good – later we ate it and it was stuffed with butter and chives. I would never have picked a pretzel stuffed with butter and chives but fate intervened and I doubt I’ll be able to eat a regular pretzel again.
After buying a couple of snacks for the train ride (just in case it was longer than we expected) we went up onto the platform and awaited our ride out of town. There was quite a variety of trains that were already there. One unusual train had regular passenger traincars interspersed with traincars that held actual automobiles. I guess it is possible to transport your car by train, which seemed like a logistical nightmare but probably is not a big deal if they have specialized loading facilities.
We were in first class for this leg of our journey, and our assigned seats were two very comfortable ones facing each other next to the window. We each had an empty seat next to us, and those stayed empty for the first half of the trip. Plenty of room to stretch out and watch the scenery float by. After a little while the train made an emergency stop (oh no!) and since we were sitting in the car right next to the restaurant car we could hear what sounded like every plate and glass in their storage room fall and shatter on the floor. I was glad I wasn’t cleaning that mess up! Luckily it was a very short stop, and we got back underway rather quickly.
After about an hour of riding the train, a big family came through carrying a lot of luggage. One of the family members walked by carrying an electric room fan, and she was speaking in American English so I cracked a quick joke. It turns out they were American, but they also spoke another language and they were with their mother who seemed to be Eastern European. They had first class tickets but they had put all their luggage on the other end of the train, so they had to figure out how to get it all back. They seemed really stressed about everything. I picked up from their English conversation that they were sightseeing around Europe and visiting their roots in the old country. They were really impressed with train travel, and so I guessed it was their first time to Europe. Their mom was nice, and she wiped down everybody’s table (including ours!) for cleanliness. Kuniko and I kept to ourselves mainly, and spoke in Japanese for privacy, and they did the same in whatever language they were speaking.
In the end our train arrived in Prague about 10 minutes later than expected, which wasn’t so bad. We got out and changed our money inside the station, and then considered how we were going to get to our hotel. In the end we decided to go ahead and walk it. It looked like about a 20 minute walk by our map, so we again subjected our suitcase wheels to some punishment.
Right after we left we discovered what Prague locals probably take for granted – the entire city is paved in cobblestones. Even the sidewalks are small tiled stones. Our suitcase wheels were roaring as we walked through town, and sometimes a big cobblestone would jam a wheel causing a short stop while I had to shake the suitcase loose. I think we picked the wrong city to drag a suitcase through.
As we approached our hotel we passed through streets that were narrower and narrower, and they were pretty full of tourists. Kuniko had booked a hotel right next to one of the big tourist draws – the Charles Bridge. The good news was that we’d be able to sightsee much easier, but the bad news was that there were hordes of tourists jamming the narrow streets. Pulling a suitcase through the crowds and over cobblestones was a little stressful.
At last we found our hotel, and upon entering the lobby there was a giant muscular porter who took our suitcase for us. He lifted it effortlessly and I was never so happy to say goodbye to a suitcase. Whew! The check-in went smoothly, with our hostess “Petra” handling the front desk. Her hands were pretty shaky (alcoholic? Disease?) and she told us that our booking service had specified twin beds and that was all that they had available for us. She asked us if that was OK, and I asked her what would happen if we said no. The porter grinned, Petra grinned, and I guess I got my answer. Twin beds will be fine, thanks.
The porter took us to our room (and carried the suitcase, thanks!) and showed us the entry and low-tech security system. There was a separate door for guests that should be locked at all times, then there was a steel gate (that we had to lock and unlock as we came and went) and then another door (that said “do not lock”, but was always locked when we tried to open it) and then finally our room door. So that is four doors between us and our room, and we had three keys (one key opened the last two doors). It was like a gameshow puzzle to get to our room, and if either of us needed a toilet urgently it would be a high stakes game, indeed.
We unpacked a little and got the Wi-Fi going, but they had a really weird system here too. You had to log onto a page full of advertisements each time you wanted to use the internet (and it would log you off automatically after five minutes or so). They were getting lots of money from having their guests hit the advertising pages every five minutes – a little money on the side for somebody.
There were other little quirks with the hotel that we came to know (and love?) over the next few days. The inner hallway was shared with one of the bakeries nearby, so every time we walked to and from our room we were able to smell the rich aroma of cinnamon and sugar. We caught two of the bakers coming to work one morning hauling dough in stainless steel trays – one apparently thought it was too heavy so she was kicking the steel tray full of dough uncovered across the cement towards the bakery. We decided not to buy anything at that place.
Since it was the afternoon we thought we’d go outside and look around a little. The crowds of tourists were still there, and we figured we should wait and see the big sights the next day when we could get up early and miss the hordes. The first thing we decided to do was go get a cold beer at a pub. We walked around the backstreets avoiding most of the crowds and found a little bar with outdoor seating. We ordered up and drank our first beers in the Czech Republic. Mainly this trip we’d been drinking wine, so it was a nice change. We stuck with beer for the most part in Prague, with a few notable exceptions that I’ll get to later.
After some extensive research we found a place to have a somewhat traditional Czech dinner. We settled on Potrefena Husa near our hotel. They had Saproramen beer which was excellent. I ordered the pork knuckle, Kuniko had the roast duck leg, and we got down to business. The knuckle was really, really good. So much meat and cracklin’ skin on the outside – yum. Kuniko’s duck was also excellent – all the meat was roasted to perfection. Even with Kuniko’s help we could barely finish the pork knuckle.
Since we had filled up on dinner we chose to walk around a little and try to burn a couple of the calories. During our walk we stopped in to shop at a tiny convenience store near our hotel. The cashier was an Asian guy that may have been on drugs. He asked us to hand him one of the candy bars and then he promptly opened it up and ate it. Very friendly, though, and I think he was just bored. We also walked through the old town square, a place that we would become very familiar with later on. Around the square we scouted some restaurants that we could possibly visit in the future, and also bought a big container of juice for the hotel room to keep ourselves hydrated. On our way back to the hotel we saw that they converted the lower half of our hotel lobby into a nightclub, and there were actually people lining up to get in. Our hotel was full of surprises.
That was it for our first (half) day in Prague. Our plan for the next day was to get up early before the crowds and have a look for ourselves the next day without so much interference.
