Blog De Prague

All,

Well, we had a pretty precarious journey from Gimmelwald to Prague on Sunday night. We were supposed to catch an overnight train from Zurich to Prague which had been listed in my handy Eurail timetable book as leaving at 10:40. We caught the tram down the mountain from Gimmelwald, and while we were waiting at the Interlaken Ost train station, decided to stroll in and get our reservations for the night train departing Zurich, which we knew we needed. Much to our chagrin, the reservations were not available past 5 pm or so on the day the train was departing, so we had to just risk showing up in Zurich, and just hope that we would be able to get on the train. The other issue we had gnawing at us was that at midnight, our Eurail Passes were to expire. So, we were not sure if we would be able to get through the journey to Prague with just paying a reservation or having to pay a full fare for an overnight train which would be atleast $150 bucks or so.

We arrived in Zurich around 8, and sought out the Information Center, they informed us that the reservations were full, but we could talk to the Concierge on the train about 15 minutes before it was to depart. Real assuring, right? Anyway, we meandered around Zurich, observed the "ballpark" prices for BK in the train station, and watched a symphony perform in the train station (bizarre). We jumped on our train when it was ready to depart, and didn't look back. All the worry turned out for naught, as no one even looked at us twice, and didn't even look at the rail pass with any detail, so we were able to make it to Prague without shelling out a dime, which technically isn't ever supposed to happen, because Czech Republic is not on the Eurail Global Pass.

We arrived in Prague around 12:30 or so, swiftly navigated the Metro, and checked into Miss Sophies (www.miss-sophies.com), which is truly one of the coolest hostels I have run across in my travels. Much like the Lisbon Lounge, but not as social, so I will give the Lisbon Lounge the slight edge. After that, Chris took a nap as I did some internet research (eh hemm facebook), and then headed to the pub next door for a couple famous Czech beers. After a couple, I woke Chris up, and we headed out to the train station to buy our train tickets to Frankfurt for the next night, and then headed out to dinner down in Old Town. We went to a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a gentleman on the train earlier that day, and we enjoyed a bohemian feast of potato dumplings, sausage and sauerkraut along with some amazing Kozel beers. We ended up going to a few different bars as the night kind of became a farewell to the trip, since the next night we would be on a train to Frankfurt to catch our flight home the next day.

We made it a fairly late night bouncing around a few student bars and then finally a bar/dance club that had some great music and cool dancing hologram thing that Uzzell was a big fan of. The next morning, we checked out of Miss Sophies' and then set out to see the touristy sites. We walked up to Prague Castle, and then down across the St. Charles bridge, and then happened into the Old Town Square at the perfect time for the Prague Astronomical Clock and it's hourly display. We also breezed through the Josefov area, and observed the cemetery there. Obviously, Prague is besieged with tourists, and that includes us, but we enjoyed observing the "take a picture every 5 steps crowd" throughout the afternoon. After that, it was time to head to the train station after a couple slices of pizza and head home. It would have been nice to spend a little more time in Prague, we were a bit rushed, and especially with the NHL kicking their season off this weekend with two games, that would have been amazing to witness. So, the next blog will be from St. Louis, assuming we make it!

Scott

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