As I write this, I am remembering what happened 6 years ago. I’m proud to say that I may not be the bravest person by any means, but am glad that I’m in the midst of my 4th trip to Europe since 9/11/01 (and that doesn’t count my shortened trip to Australia in 2004). My parents, the intrepid travelers who were on a flight to Barcelona less than a week after 9/11/01, would hopefully be proud.
Today started with Charlie off doing laundry, while I slept in & relaxed (gazing out the window at the beautiful view of the castle from our apartment). We had missed the breakfast hours at the hotel across the way (who provides breakfast for our hotel), but went over on the chance they might still be serving. While the manager told us we were late, they did feed us. When the server brought us a set of rolls & jam, I figured we were in for the typical continental breakfast. I was wrong, as the bread was followed by a cold cut & cheese plate, a plate of sliced watermelon & finally a meat & vegetable omelet/frittata. Wow! Both Charlie could only describe this breakfast as a feast.
We checked out of our hotel & headed towards the castle. The castle “moat” is actually a bear pit. They have real bears, even now! The views from the castle were quite beautiful & we took a lot of pictures. We actually ran into one of the women we met at the Gellart Baths in Budapest (only to hear that we were very lucky we were in Bratislava the day before the big soccer match). We toured the gardens & decided to skip the actual castle tour. Charlie took a rest while I ascended the 162 steps (according to Rick Steves) of the castle tower. I found even more scenic views & took an obscene number of photos.
We headed back towards our hotel, stopping in the main square for lunch. Charlie had ordered some sort of pork dish, which ultimately was served as something appearing to be a pig’s knee (which seems to be popular). It made me glad that I ordered mixed grill on skewers (far simpler to eat).
We collected our luggage and set out for the bus station. It’s a 10 minute, mostly uphill walk. The walk is challenging with rolling luggage & cobblestones, and made more challenging by the return of the intense rain. Of course, the rain let up as soon as we got into the bus. From Cesky Krumlov, the bus is a quicker & easier way to get to Prague. It’s also very reasonably priced, with a 3 hour bus trip costing $7. We drove through a number of towns, including Cesky Budjovice (the home of the “real” Budweiser beer…Charlie had some yesterday & thought it was outstanding). One town was a study in contrasts, with grey communist-era-looking apartments on one side & brightly painted older apartments on the other side. This route certainly isn’t densely populated, with lots of open fields & agriculture.
We thought we were heading to Prague’s main bus terminal. However, that wasn’t the case. In fact, at first, we weren’t really sure where we were. We fairly quickly figured out our situation & went to get metro tickets. Both of us were going to get a 24 hour ticket, but we didn’t have enough change. Each of us bought some snacks & it turned out we were 1 Czech Crown short of the 160 Czech Crowns we needed. Note to self: Make sure to load up on coins here. I ended up getting a single-ride ticket & we were on our way to the hotel. Once there, they informed us that they were oversold & moved us to a different location. It was somewhat ritzier & closer to downtown, but required one of us to sleep on a roll-away bed (not me!). So we went along, as there didn’t seem to be any good options (at least for our first night).
We went for a walk about 9:45pm, heading towards the river. We saw the famous “Dancing House” & lots of great views of Prague Castle lit up at night. We walked all the way to Charles Bridge, and then headed away from the river through the Old Town towards Wenceslas Square. There were a very large number of people out (at 11pm on Tuesday night). As we walked further, we ran into more & more shady characters. I know that Prague is pretty notorious for pickpockets & scam artists, but I was surprised at the number of seemingly shady people. It was kind of disappointing, as Charlie & I agreed that we had trouble thinking of a place we had been where we felt less safe. Our total walk took a little over 2 hours & we saw a fair amount of the city; perhaps more than we really wanted to see.
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