Travel Day: Dresden to Prague

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Today, we leave Dresden and travel to Prague. Dieter told us "no alarms", so we set our alarms for an hour later than usual, and got enough later that we're pretty sure we satisfied him. We had the usual breakfast, and then went on a driving tour of various other things he wanted to show us, the most important being the "milk shop".

We drove around, and he told us all kinds of stuff, most of which I don't remember because I mostly wasn't all that awake (Cheryl may have more details on what we saw from the car). But we eventually ended up in the Äußere Neustadt of Dresden, and we stopped and parked so that we could step into Pfunds Molkerei, or the "milk shop". Sadly, they did not allow photos, so I didn't get any, but the wikipedia page has a few. The shop is completely covered in porcelain tiles (or at least they looked like porcelain) and very decorative. They sell cheese, milk, and various other dairy stuff, plus a bunch of Pfunds-branded kitsch. They even had banana-flavored buttermilk, which I wanted to try, but then a tour bus full of tourists parked right out front in the no parking zone and filled the ship up, so we bailed out. It was neat to be able to see it, though.

After the milk shop, we drove around some more, and came back over a bridge and approached the Altstadt from a different direction and got a different overview of everything we had seen the previous week and finally, we ended up back at the house where we chilled for an hour or so and then loaded up the car and headed for the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train, which arrived after not too long of a wait. We said our goodbyes, and Gudrun ordered me to have fun in Prague, and we boarded the train. Our reserved seats were pretty okay; the train wasn't a German ICE, it was a Czech EC, so a little older, but first class was fine. We noticed a couple of window seats facing each other that weren't reserved, though, and decided to move there, because facing seats with a table and power was just too good to pass up. Also, it was much further from the very busy, very loud toddlers.

The train ride this time was about two-and-a-half hours, but Dieter said not to go to sleep until we had passed through Saxony Switzerland, because the views were great. We both just chilled and put on our headphones; I listened the the Cabin Pressure Christmas special ("Get dressed you merry gentlemen, it's Christmas Christmas Day!"), and then to Pictures at an Exhibition, and then things started getting interesting again, and pretty soon we were pulling into the Prague main train station.

We were met by our taxi driver, and after we hit the ATM to get some koruna (Czech crowns), we were off to our pension, the Green Garland. We wound through traffic from the train station and got onto some really narrow cobblestone streets until finally our driver starts to back down a street that was just wide enough for two cars to pass if one went up on the curb a bit. He had to back down because there would have been no way for him to turn around to get out (which we saw other cars and vans do on later occasions).

We paid our driver, and were met by Pavel, one of the dudes at the pension, who grabbed and hauled our bags up the stairs and got us all checked into our room, which was a wonderful almost-suite which even had two chairs so we each got a chair.

So here we were, in Prague. No big deal.

Now, Prague is a different deal from the German cities we were in. For one thing, we both have some German, enough to make ourselves understood, at least. We really don't have any Czech beyond "please" (prosím), "thank you" (děkuji), and "cheers!" (na zdravy). So, I was a little trepidatious. It wasn't so bad, though, because almost everybody speaks English. Five days isn't really enough time to learn a new language, though, so we didn't really try very hard.

We were hungry, and we decided we needed to have Mexican food in Prague, so we found one that was close by, and stopped in. We ordered some chips and salsa, and a liter pitcher of margaritas and Cheryl had tacos al pastor con queso, and I had enchiladas mixtas (chicken enchiladas, one with mole, one with red sauce and one with verde sauce). It was all very tasty, the margaritas were good, and our waiter dude was awesome.

We then walked around and looked at everything that was nearby, got some photographs, got some selfies, and just kind of oriented ourselves to the new city. After a while, we decided to head back to the pension, and on the way we noticed an ice cream shop very close by, so we stopped in and had some ice cream, because, ice cream.

With that all taken care of, we walked the rest of the way back, and after navigating the complicated lock on the front door, and then the complicate lock on our room door, we made it, and it was bedtime.

First hours in Prague: success.

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Photos

I have no idea, but I liked it
From the square with the Jan Hus monument

I also have no idea, but I liked it
From the square with the Jan Hus monument

Comments

[J&J]

Trains
That has to be the best way to get around! Love the intricate details on the buildings! Thanks for sharing!