Day Three, Kutna Hora & Prague

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We awoke early again this morning, perhaps due to the fact that we go to sleep so early because of exhaustion. It works out because I am able to write a bit in the mornings before we head down for breakfast. We also wanted to get an early start to the day because we had to figure our way around the metro and the train station today - we were headed to Kutna Hora.

Breakfast was, again, lovely, and after we ate we stopped by the front desk and bought a public transport ticket that is good on busses, trams, and metros for three days (280 Kc, about $15). From there, we walked to the nearest metro station (down the street and around the corner). I decided not to wear my tights today (to see if they actually did keep me warmer yesterday or if they just made my pants fall down) and to wear my boots since both Matthew and I assumed we wouldn’t be walking as much as yesterday (ha!). Again, I strapped on the pedometer to track the distance we’d walk.

At the metro station the tickets must be validated before they can be used. Unlike other places I’ve been where using public transport without a ticket is more common because no one checks, Prague has plenty of police officers that are constantly checking the validity of the tickets. We had several men walk up to us and demand to check our tickets. Officers are supposed to show their badges as they demand so that you know it’s legit (since scams still happen), and so we knew what to expect (which is good because we don’t speak Czech - one of these days I am going to have to say Nemluvim cesky). The problem is that we tried to walk past the cops a couple times because they are so bundled up in clothes because of the cold that they look a bit like bums from back home. Anyway, back in the metro station we found the direction that we wanted to take and hopped on (okay, we got on going the wrong way the first time, had to hop off and get a metro going the other way, but for trying to read everything in Czech I thought that was pretty good and it only delayed us by about five minutes).

The Prague metro has three main lines and we had to do a bit of hopping from line to line to get to where we wanted to be - St. Wenceslas Square, the National Museum. There was a metro that would take us directly to the train station but we thought that we should walk since it looked like just a short distance on the map. This was a bit of a mistake, since we were walking in a “bad” part of town and it took a bit of maneuvering to get to the train station and find out how to get inside. (Why do all train stations appear so run down and filthy?) Once inside it took us quite a while to figure out where to buy a ticket. All of the signs were in Czech (except for the few signs that said “international tickets,” which is not what we needed), and there were several levels of the station, all offering different things. We made our way down to a lower level, found what appeared to be a ticket booth, and stood in line to buy a ticket. Matthew asked for a ticket, paid 273 Kc (again, about $15), and received a printed piece of paper - all in Czech with no information about which platform or anything like that. At first we weren’t even sure that this was fare for two people (although the price made it seem like it should be). We hauled out the dictionary and added a few new words to our vocabulary - smer (direction), oslo (persons), vystup (exit), but still did not figure out where we needed to be. We walked up and down, up and down, looking for something that would give us some indication, getting more and more nervous as the time ticked by. At this point, I don’t remember what tipped us off, but we figured out which platform we needed by figuring our train was going to Kolin and then on to Kutna Hora, so we went to the platform for Kolin and Brno.

The train to Kutna Hora was nice - decent seats, warm, good view out the window. I thought about falling asleep (the train’s motion was soothing), but in the end just ended up studying my Rick Steves book on Prague and the Czech Republic the whole way there. I thoroughly combed the information about Kutna Hora and Terezin (tomorrow’s trip) and then spent some time reading about the shopping and dining in Prague.

Kutna Hora was a mining town that was responsible for mining most of the silver for Europe hundreds of years ago. When the silver mines finally dried up, the town basically shut down. It’s now a quiet and quaint Czech village that enjoys some tourism (without being commercialized, like other areas), but its main claim to fame is that the Phillip Morris Headquarters for all of Central Europe is located here. The headquarters is right across the street from the Sedlec Ossuary (Bone Church), which was built to remind people of their mortality, which I thought was funny irony.

Sedlec was my main draw to Kutna Hora originally. I wanted to take pictures of all of the art made out of human bones. It was a bit crowded here because apparently everyone wanted the same thing. (Can you blame them?) I suppose this would have been very creepy if one had taken the time to think that these were actually plague victims from hundreds of years ago, not really artwork, but the atmosphere did not allow such contemplation (the monks who designed this place would’ve rolled over in their graves).

From Sedlec we continued our walk into town. The Kutna Hora train depot is about two miles outside of the main town but relatively close to Sedlec, so we walked there first with the intention of hopping a bus into town the rest of the way. We didn’t see a bus, so we just kept walking. And walking. And walking. Finally we made it to the center of town where the Alchemy museum and tourist information office were supposed to be, only to find that it was closed today. I’d checked several pages and no one said anything about being closed the day after Christmas, so I thought we were okay. Apparently not. In fact, aside from the handful of tourists wandering through the town, it was pretty much dead. Even the Vietnamese market was closed! (Side note: I found out today that the largest immigrant population in the Czech Republic is Vietnamese - they came over in the 70s on some sort of communist exchange program, stayed, learned the language, and then started bringing family over, but I still haven’t seen a Vietnamese restaurant.) In fact, Matthew mentioned that he’s never seen a town so absolutely dead quiet. A little bit creepy, yes, but the town was still beautiful and we were able to walk everywhere without crowds, so I guess the deserted streets had their benefits.

After walking from one end of the town to another we decided to head back. The train from Kutna Hora to Prague leaves about every two hours, so we knew that we had some time to kill (a bit over an hour) before we could return to Prague, but that was okay. We did stop in a little wine and tobacco store and bought two bottles of local Kutna Hora wine (200 Kc each - Matthew said “They’d better be good for that price” but I said that was only $10/bottle and the labels were awesome, so it was worth it - we’ll see what it tastes like later). The merchant tried speaking Czech, then German, and finally we settled on a few English words. (I also found here that the few Czech words I know are pronounced differently here, which was something I read about in one of the guide books.) We took our wine and headed toward the tiny depot in the center of town that acts as a shuttle out to the main train station. This was nice, a welcome relief because I didn’t see any busses running and by this time my feet were getting pretty tired in my high-heeled boots, so I didn’t want to walk the two miles back out to the train station.

The little train shuttle to the main depot loaded with passengers and took a few minutes to reach our destination. Once there we waited a bit longer for the train to Prague to arrive. On the platform I realized that just about everyone we saw in town was here and headed back to Prague. This made the beginning of our journey back rather interesting because it was so packed. From Kutna Hora to Kolin we actually stood in the isle outside of the little boxed rooms where people sit (this train had a different layout than the one on the way down, and it was a bit more like something I’d expect to see in a Poirot or Ms. Marple). At Kolin enough people disembarked that we could grab a seat in a very tightly packed car. It was warm and the train rocked back and forth, so I fell asleep for a short time and then we were in Prague.

Once back in Prague we took the metro, hopped several lines, and made it to an area of town for dinner. I read about Kabul, an Afghani restaurant, in one of the guide books and I wanted to eat there. The book said that the restaurant was only one room with barely enough space for 20 people so it would be best to eat in an off-time. Although it felt very late because it was dark, it was only about 4:30 as we walked down the street to find Kabul, so we figured that was pretty much an odd time for a meal and we should have luck finding a place to sit. It took us a while to find Kabul because it was on a tiny street kind of hidden from view. The restaurant was very tiny but brightly decorated with rugs and pictures and paint - and we were the only people there (although part way through our meal some guy with a British accent came in and reserved a table for five for New Year’s Eve). By this time I was starving since we hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast. (This should make a great diet - little alcohol, only 1.5-2 meals a day, and miles of walking.) We ordered several dishes - chicken kebab, seasoned rice, a spinach mixture with “special spice,” a chickpea mixture with garlic and “special spice,” a basket of Afghani bread, and a beer each. The dishes were small but more than enough for the two of us - in fact, I was so full I couldn’t finish my beer - and so delicious! It was exactly what we needed - yum, yum, yum! And the food was pretty cheap - all of that for only 460 Kc, so we left a 100 Kc tip - meaning that the total we paid for the meal was still under $30.
We took the metro back to the hotel - I was hobbling by the time we were close because my feet were screaming a bit. We walked just over 20,000 steps, or about 10 miles. Although it was still fairly early - not quite 7PM - we were so tired that we decided to lay down and sleep. What started out as a nap turned into sleeping through the night (well, until about 4:30AM).

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Photos

Sedlec
Nothing says "you'd better like God" like some bone art....

Kutna Hora
This was a very pretty, quiet town.