Prague

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Our train trip to Prague involved an interesting experience. As we crossed the border from Germany two uniformed officers boarded the train and we got one stamp in our passports from Germany and one from the Czech Republic. This is the first time we had been through a border control on a train. The whole process only took about 15 minutes whilst the whole train was checked.

Arriving in Prague, we found that the railway station was nowhere up to the standard of the German hauptbahnhofs. We were also greeted for the first time by people trying to sell us accommodation as we stepped off the train.

Once we transferred into the metro we found very new looking trains that were packed with people. In fact this was to be a familiar theme for Prague, with everywhere we went being packed with tourists. It was the most crowded place we had been to so far.

During our time in Prague, we checked out the castle on the hill which is their number one tourist attraction, however the line to get into the cathedral inside it was so long that we decided to give it a miss. There were heaps of people in tourist groups throughout the castle grounds that kept getting in our way when we tried to take photos. The leader always walked past holding up an umberella or something to identify themselves. Outside the entrance to the castle we watched the changing of the guard complete with marching band! This was also a very crowded spectacle.

After leaving the castle we checked out the famous Charles Bridge and took the furnicular railway to the top of Petrin Hill where we climbed the replica Eiffel Tower building and had a great view of the city.

Like nearly every other city we have been too so far, Prague also has trams, however the tram stops were very basic indeed consisting of only a small raised area in the middle of the road without even a rail to lean against.

Apart from being crowded and having new looking trains, the Prague metro system was very frequent and consisted of three lines that go either side of the city centre (so you could call it 6 radial lines) which rather than intersecting at one central station, intersect with each other at 3 separate points (i.e. there are 3 junctions where 2 lines intersect forming a triangle in the middle). This made connections very easy and minimsed congestion at one point.

Another interesting thing about Prague was that there was a very high police presence compared to other cities we had been to. Some of the police also seemed to be armed with some rather high powered looking weaponry.

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