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Europe » Czech Republic » Prague » Old Town
September 16th 2011
Published: September 16th 2011
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St Pancras International station has been beautifully restored and feels a fitting place to start our trip. The Eurostar train is very swish and looks like a Japanese bullet train. We are immediately whizzed into tunnels and miss both London and the Thames. A flash of the Medway and a few Kentish farmers, then finally, the Channel tunnel. Emerging, it still looks like Kent but it is France and then Belgium and soon we slide, on time, into Brussels.

Here we board the equally swish German ICE train to Koln. It looks even more like a Japanese bullet train. We can't tell when we change countries but soon we are pulling in to Koln station. This is our dinner stop and time for us to stretch our legs. We found the cathedral on the square outside the station, imposingly floodlit against the darkening sky.

The sleeper to Prague looks like a proper train, with a big square German engine and complex rules. Some of the train is going to Warsaw, some of it to Copenhagen and the final 4 coaches to Prague. We are in the only sleeping car going to Prague. Compartment No. 4 is snug – about 5 feet across and 8 feet long, but we have a basin, two bunk beds and at least 5 light switches. As we sort ourselves out for the night, the Rhine is gently slipping past the window. When we lift the blind in the morning, we have reached the Elbe. In between we sleep pretty well, although shunting at 4 am, to make sure the right carriages end up going to the right places, does wake us!

Down a narrow street in Prague's old town, we found our guest house, all wonky wood and sloping plaster walls. Our room is in the attic and we look down on passers-by and “Old Town by night” tour groups. Prague is all that we expected – lots of architecture, lots of history, lots of walking, lots of tour groups. On the hillside, a huge metronome sculpture now swings where Stalin's statue once stood; in a shopping arcade a king rides an upside down horse; a graffiti wall pays homage to John Lennon; on a bridge's railings padlocks signify enduring love – not all as we expected then!

Tomorrow two trains will take us to the Tatra mountains in Poland. Nobody has checked our passports since St Pancras. Wonder if they will tomorrow?


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