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Published: August 16th 2012
Movie time
In these neat chairs, we ate our Donairs before the showSaw the Dark Knight Rises Saturday night. The movie had Czech subtitles which are easy to ignore. Tried the "Bacon & Cheese" popcorn. It was pretty good, too.
Sunday morning we went to St Clement Anglican Church. One reader was originally from Toronto. There were a number of English speaking countries represented that day. The Rev. Ricky Yates was an Englishman who could have been the twin of the Calgary Field Naturalists president. (I can’t understand him either). Anyway, they are following the same lectionary that we are at home so the sermon made sense and followed on with the same theme. It was a good service. The church has an amazing organ and it was fun singing new songs. After service, Maryanne and I finally made it to her Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. It was a good meal at a cheap price.
After lunch we took a new direction and wandered around until we came to the train station. Bought our tickets for Kutná Hora and then continued on until we found Wenceslas Square. We have discovered that if you see a McDonald’s sign with an arrow, follow the sign. Micky D’s are at all the tourists spots.
Movie time
We passed this building after the movie Our plan was to take “Tram 91” for a full trip. This is a historic tram which only runs on the weekends. Since we had a little time to kill, we went into C&A and bought some sweaters.
The tram ride was really neat. Just like being at Heritage Park! The tram took the corners really slow but was fairly fast on the straight paths. We started on the tram in the middle of the route so when it go to the end, we had to get off while it turned around and re-boarded with another payment. When we got to the other end, yes, we had to get off again. But this time we were at the train yard and there was a little restaurant there. We received a 10% off coupon and sat under the tree having a cool one. Boarded the tram and this time took it all the way back to the hotel.
Checked out a number of night walks and picked the “underground walk”. This was under the town hall in Old Town. It was quite interesting and we had a good guide (an American school teacher). Got home about 9 pm, played
Tram 91
Maryanne riding the rails cards and went to bed.
Monday we were up early to catch the train to Kutná Hora. Made it easily to the train station with time to buy some breakfast and board the train. We thought we bought 1st class tickets and enjoyed the ride until the conductor came. We had a choice of going into 2nd class or paying the difference ($7.50). We paid the difference but within 10 minutes, the trip ended. We should have moved!! Changed trains with no problem and arrived at Kutná Hora about 10:30 am. Walked to the Bone church and enjoyed that visit. We bought a ticket to get us into 4 sights, next was a church on the main road. Nice church. Missed the bus into town, so we decided to walk. Couldn’t be that far, we thought. It was so far, that we should have waited the 1/2 hour for the next bus.
Arrived at the town square and got directions to the Jesuit College and St. Barbara’s. Jesuit College wasn’t much. Got us into the building and we could see some modern art. We did stop for a cold drink and sit down which was really nice at
Tram 91
Maryanne in front of the Tram at the train yard the cafe in the college. A few steps away was St. Barbara’s. This church is on the UNESCO’s list. It was very impressive!
After we finished at St. Barbara’s, Maryanne bought me a glass of the local wine at a stand beside the church. It wasn’t bad. We decided to have our dinner at a local restaurant. This is definitely where the local’s eat. Food was good and so was the wine. I have two glasses of the “barrel wine” for 30 Kc per glass. (that’s about $1.50). It was excellent wine, Ed would have enjoyed it! We even had two desserts and the whole bill was only $30 including tip. We have actually found the food to be a good bargain here.
Hustled to the “downtown” train station and caught the commuter train to the main station. Arrived about 2 minutes before the main train arrived. Got on board and breathed a sigh of relief. We decided that we go to the cinema again when we got into Prague. It is only an hour train trip so we expected to be back to the hotel by 7:15 pm.
We sat in 2nd class this time. There
Tram 91
Enjoying a cool one were little compartments with enough seats for 8 people. Maryanne and I had one all to ourselves. About 6:50 pm we pull into a station and were surprised that wasn’t looking like Prague but figured another 10 minutes and we’d be there. The conductor came in to check our tickets. No problem this time - we are sitting in 2nd class.
However, she got excited and tried to tell us we didn’t have a valid ticket. I was shocked since I bought a round trip ticket. She tried to tell us that our trip ended at Kutná Hora. We told her that was this morning. Tonight we were returning FROM Kutná Hora to Prague. Well, she jumps up and flies out of our compartment. A couple minutes later she is in our compartment again and is punching stuff into her machine. She was one upset lady. We finally understand what her excitement is about. We got on the train going in the WRONG direction and the last stop on the train line is about 5 minutes away. Not only that, but the last train to Prague is leaving a couple of minutes before we arrive. Maryanne and I both
Underground tour
The guide giving up some history start having a meltdown. That did the trick. She goes off again and gets another conductor. They are going to call and have the train wait for us. The second conductor speaks a couple of words of English and he will deliver us to the train. She gives us a ticket that will let us travel free to Prague. She has us follow her the door and tells us to stay put. As soon as the train stops, the second conductor gets us and delivers us as promised. He also explains to the new conductor about our predicament and asks him to make sure that we get our connection to Prague. Sure enough, a half hour up the track, this fellow comes to get us. He actually gets off the train and delivers us to the train going to Prague. We arrived back to Prague at 10 pm. So much for seeing a movie! But, wow, what an adventure. We were very blessed to have such compassionate train conductors.
We missed the Silver Mining tour at Kutná Hora because it is closed on Mondays. We decided to skip Pilzn (we don’t drink beer, anyway) and go back to Kutná
Underground tour
Underground in the town hall Hora on Wednesday.
Tuesday was another beautiful day. We slept in and go up in time to go for lunch. Returned the Vietnamese restaurant again for another good meal. Our plan was to go to Petrín Hill. We bought a day bus pass and set out using the local transportation. It worked very well and was fun. Made it to the hill and took the Funicular up to the top. At the top we walked from one end to the other. It was hot! Did see two birds - one was a Tit (I got a picture) and the other was a thrush size bird. We think we got a picture of this one too. I had my binos with me, but birds were easy to hear but hard to spot. (Apparently, birding a popular in the Czech Republic). After resting at the Rose Garden we headed down the hill. It was a great walk down. We wanted to see St Michael’s church so needed to walk half way down the hill to find it. It is a delightful wooden church. There are services still held on Sundays. When we made it back to civilization, we grabbed a tram
to the Jewish area. We planned to visit the Jewish Cemetery. You cannot buy a ticket to visit just the cemetery, so the cost is very high if you are not interested in the other exhibits. We took a couple of pictures through the fence and went back to the hotel for a brief pit stop.
We grabbed the tram again for our trip to the Kriznik Fountains. These fountains are choreographed to music. There are 4 shows each night, each with a different theme (one being a ballet). We went to the first show which was at 8 pm. We enjoyed it very much. We had no trouble catching the tram back to the hotel and made it in time to go to the movie we missed on Monday night!
Today was Wednesday and time for our return trip to Kutná Hora. Today I took my big camera with the plan to take some shots of the buildings we visited on Monday. We also planned to do the Mint Tour and the Silver Mining Tour. The first english silver mining tour was full, so we signed up for the 3 pm tour and went on the Mint
Tour first. There were 4 people on the tour - a husband and wife from France (and spoke French) and Maryanne and I. The guide gave the same speech in French and English. He was not supposed to, but it meant that Maryanne and I had extra time to take pictures. The Mint Tour is in the building of the Italian Court. The tour is quite interesting, but more so because you get to go into the royal buildings. He was very nice and made it possible to take lots of pictures, even in the Royal Chapel where all the “no cameras” signs are posted.
We had just over an hour between tours, so we returned to the restaurant where we had dinner Monday night and had a snack. Two apple strudels, two glasses of wine and a glass of cherry juice. All for the price of 157Kc ($8).
The Silver Mining tour was great. We had to leave our purses at the entrance (in a locked cabinet) because the space in the mine is small. There were also “no pictures” signs and we initially left our camera’s behind. However, I asked the guide and he said pictures
in the mine was OK but not the museum. However, he let the group take all the pictures we wanted everywhere.
We needed to put on a hard hat and white coat to go into the mine. The coats were quite damp when we put them on and when we got into the mine it was easy to understand why. The mine is very damp. I was thankful for the hard hat because I hit my head a couple of times. There is one spot which is only 40 cm wide and about 5 ft high!
After the tour we decided to have dinner at a local eatery before catching the train. This time we went to Dacicky BeerHall. It is a popular place which has the atmosphere of a medieval knight’s hall. We had a decent meal for a good price. The waiter also called us a taxi. The taxi took a long time to come and we thought we’d miss the train. However, we arrived at the station in the nick of time. This time, we checked, before boarding the train and missed going the wrong direction, again. It was the second train pulling into the
station that was ours, so we made it back to Prague at 6:50 pm!!!! as planned.
It is our last night in Prague and we wanted to shop at the Marks & Spencer (M&S). We arrived about 7:30 pm and they kicked us out at 9 pm when the store closed. Maryanne found a number of work outfits which look very nice on her. Spent about 13,800 Kc but the clothes are good quality and extremely reasonable. After Italy and Paris, the prices here are unbelievable.
Tomorrow we need to go back to M&S to return one item and will pick up some “Prague” sovineres. We have two tours planned - one is an underground tour, this one focussing on the old town and a second tour about communist Prague. Given the weight of our suitcases, we will take a taxi to the train station tomorrow night. Our train leaves at 8 pm and arrives in Krakow at 7 am.
We should be able to blog in a couple of days!
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