European Adventure Day 7–Getting to Know Prague

An overcast morning arrived in Brno and Susan and I awoke to a quiet and nearly empty hostel.  To get to breakfast involved trekking up 3 floors to the common room, but free food was worth the trip.  The breakfast laid out on the common room table as a grab and go sort of thing was nothing special (cold cuts, cheese, cereal, yogurt, seedy bread, and tea), but it was free.

Fuelled, we checked out and walked back to the train station to await our late arriving train to Prague.  This train was pretty crowded, so we had to sit in face to face seats with strangers.  For most of the trip though, our resident stranger just stared blankly out the window and sipped his cold can of coffee drink.  He seemed the contemplative sort.  At the last stop outside Prague we got another stranger, an older lady, who was eyeing me suspiciously before putting on dark sunglasses (I can only assume to continue keeping an eye on me).  Once again, travelling with the Eurail pass was a breeze allowing us to just hop on and off trains at our whim without having to consult ticket windows.  Around noon, we were pulling into Prague’s main train station, Praha hlavni nadrazni (foreign words are fun!).

Maps were consulted en route, and it appeared we could walk to our next hostel from the station, but it would be a decent trek.  Susan had napped most of the ride, so she was agreeable to pack-hiking as long as we stopped for lunch.  Leaving the station and walking maybe 2 blocks brought us to the top of Wenceslas Square, a half mile shopping boulevard considered Prague’s version of the Champs Elysees.  I thought it was overcrowded and overrun with the likes of McDonalds and other chain stores, but it did provide us a good Italian restaurant to pit stop for lunch.

Pizza with spicy salami and whole peppers

The half hour following lunch, we continued walking the perimeter of old town and passed the National Theatre (Narodni Divadlo) before crossing the bridge just south of the famed Charles Bridge.  Across the bridge, the Adam and Eva Hostel sat only a few blocks down a street from the bridge landing.  We rang the doorbell and…nothing.  20 minutes and more doorbell ringing and attempted pay-phoning later we still had not made contact, so retreated to a French café near the bridge to have a beer and ice cream and regroup.  I thought I had botched everything by giving the wrong check-in time (02:00 which equates to 2am), but after exchanging an email with the host while at the café, it was just a case of a broken doorbell. 

With the AM train, lunch, the walk, and the difficulty entering the hostel, we did not leave to take in the town until 4pm.  The good news is Prague is an excellent walking city and the weather was cool and comfortable other than the spotty sprinkle of rain.  Our goal today was to see Old Town.  Sites included the town square, the Klementinum (narrow old quarters including some churches and a library), the astrological clock with its tacky show on the hour, ascending the clock tower with its stunning panoramic views, and the Powder Gate (the former entrance to Old Town).  A couple things about Prague became immediately evident…it markets itself as a party town and it is noticeably more crowded with tourists than Budapest and Vienna. 

Overlooking the Vltava on our way to Old Town

Jeff in his natural state      &      A creepy marionette shop
 
Susan in Old Town Square    &   The clock during the “show” at 18:00

All the people ready for the show     &     Heading up the tower

Jeff with the Tyn Church

View from the tower

Susan with the castle in the background          &          The castle

As evening cool set in, we stopped at a beer garden and restaurant for dinner, a place that had been recommended by our hostel host as having well priced Czech offerings.  She was correct and we both ordered Czech dishes and were 2 for 3 in terms of successful deliciousness.  Susan’s potato soup was good as was my beef entrée, but Susan’s pork chop was overrun with sauerkraut. 

During dinner, Susan ducked out of the restaurant to buy tickets for the evenings’ entertainment, a Czech original form of theatre using black lighting to create unique visual effects.  The show we chose was advertised as an adventure of Dr. Frankenstein across Europe to encounter many of the legendary “monsters” of literature and other supernatural creatures.  We settled into the small theatre, which was nearly full, and braced ourselves for the show.  Unfortunately we didn’t brace ourselves enough.  The show could only be described as Vaudeville meets The Three Stooges meets Blue Man Group.  After losing brain cells for just over an hour, Susan and I tried to make sense of what we had seen but were unable to come up with anything rational.  Our real interest was what all the other theatre-goers thought of the performance…were we all just in a stupor, or does this pass for high art in Europe?  While it was definitely… unique… it was entertaining and we were happy to have partaken in a Czech specialty.

The interesting theatre experience had us back on the street and walking home just before 10 with the last remnants of daylight disappearing behind Prague Castle.  We walked the Charles Bridge and Susan had a field day with the lighting and all the scenery, taking lots of cool photos.  We returned to the hostel worn out after seeing a ton of the city in only an afternoon.

The Charles Bridge

Some statues along the bridge
The castle
 
The little Eiffel Tower     &     Susan with the castle

Tomorrow we check out sites on our side of the river…