Our hotel in Prague has been less than totally efficient. I set up a wake-up call for 7:45 that arrived at 7:10. Okay, better a bit early than late. I checked my laundry and after nearly two hours of drying overnight, it was still pretty damp. The clothes dryer seemed to be more of a clothes heater than a dryer. I set it for another two hours, and headed out on my own to revisit the Castle. Rick Steves’ advice was to get to St. Vitus Cathedral right at the opening time (9am), else be lost in the sea of tour groups that follow shortly thereafter. Boy was he ever right! When I entered, there were perhaps four tour groups. I walked through the impressive church with relatively little obstruction. I am very fond of stained glass windows, and this church had many beautiful examples of stained glass. After seeing the church, I opted to climb the tower staircase (277 steps in one spiral staircase, with probably about 20-25 revolutions in total). The view from the top (after I caught my breath) was quite scenic. The views towards the city were somewhat obscured by haze and sun, but I still ended up taking a lot of nice photos.
From there, I headed back on the tram & metro to the hotel. In short order, I’ve become pretty darned facile in getting around Prague using public transportation. I met Charlie back at the hotel (he had gone to see their television tower that had very unique sculpture), only to find out the laundry was still not entirely dry. I split the remaining laundry between a machine on my floor & the floor below, and hoped for the best. I’m pleased to report that shortly in advance of our departure, we had dry laundry (or at least close enough to dry to not necessitate wrapping it multiple garbage bags).
We checked out and headed for the Holesovice train station, on our way to Dresden. It’s Prague’s secondary train station, but still an easy trip on the metro. There was a huge throng of students waiting for the train. Of course, they were all travelling second class, so the first class car was relatively empty. This arrangement was perfect for me, but not so great for Charlie (who didn’t have a train pass for this route and opted to save $ by going second class on this trip). He ended up having to stand for about 45 minutes (as the throng of students had seemingly reserved a couple of cars worth of seats), then sit with his suitcase nearly in his lap for the balance of the trip. Suffice it to say, he upgraded to first class for the Dresden to Berlin leg of the journey.
The route through the Czech Republic was fairly scenic, including a long stretch along the bank of a picturesque river. We entered into Germany, and shortly thereafter were in Dresden. Dresden is still relatively free of US tourists; virtually everyone we saw were German tourist groups.
We took a scenic tram tour (aka-we got on the right tram going the wrong way). I figured this out within a couple of stops, but as that was getting close to the end of the line, we just stayed on the tram. Once turned around, we were headed for Dresden’s Old Town. Most of the Old Town looks old, but has been reconstructed since the firebombing in 1945. There are a series of very ornate baroque buildings, including a palace and a couple of churches. They have several great museums, but we had decided that we weren’t going to be staying long enough to take them in We decided to climb the stairs of the “Watchman’s Tower” of the Royal Palace. This was yet another suggestion from Rick that turned out to be very enjoyable. This building holds a couple of different museums and was packed as we entered. After buying our ticket, we had trouble finding the correct door to lead us to the tower. As it turns out, because of construction, we were led to an all-but-unmarked door on our way to the tower. We were virtually alone (after climbing about 160 steps) on the top of the tower and had a great view of Dresden. At that point, time was running short and we needed to get back to the train station. That’s too bad, as there were many cafes and restaurants that looked inviting.
We couldn’t immediately find the correct tram, but after a small amount of trial and error, were back at the train station, ready to continue on to Berlin.
Other than being about 20 minutes late, the train to Berlin was quite uneventful. Charlie was clearly happy to be out of steerage and into first class. We arrived at Berlin’s new Haupt Bahnhof, which opened with much fanfare last year. It may be the nicest and most well-equipped train station I’ve seen (complete with all sorts of stores and restaurants, including a 24 hour pharmacy).
After we debated the complexity of taking the subway to our hotel with our bags, we opted to take a taxi. Our timing was good, as it just had begun to rain. We walked to the front of the taxi line & the first taxi was too busy with a cell phone call, so we went toward the next cab. A woman jogged to my right and cut right in front of me (to catch the cab). When I said “Hey”, she just jumped in the cab and smiled smugly. Had I another few seconds to think, I believe her shins would have become well acquainted with my suitcase at high speed. As it stands, she gets the award for most obnoxious behavior (and hopefully karma caused her to get a very dishonest cabbie). The good news is that we got another cab within seconds, who was extremely efficient and honest (he actually overestimated how much it would cost (on the meter), which saved us money). Our hotel is very nice in a very central location; about 3 minutes walk from the nearest subway stop.
It was a very long, but successful day.
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