See You in Prague (Berlin to Prague, Czechia)

Transit day, Berlin to Prague. And you know what that means. Most of the photos are from our previous few days. Transit day. Sigh. A day of expectation and trepidation, dear reader. Would the journey to the station be easy? Will the ticket machine offer multiple languages? Will the train be on time? What are Czech trains like compared to German? Will there be sufficient space for our luggage? So many questions yet to be answered.

Packing and check out went smoothly - we are fairly practised at both by now. The walk to the station was less than five minutes. There we met our first hurdle. Stairs. No lift or escalator. Apparently, there were both but not at our end of the station. Up we go. As I near the top, a nice man in his 40s offers to help. Ouch. I decline and reach the summit under my own steam. Slay.

Central Station, Berlin.

Next I front the ticket machine. The same style as the one that bamboozled me a few days earlier by refusing to conduct business in English. I came over all Tony Abbott, Popeye-walked up to the machine and 'shirt-fronted' it. Immediately it acquiesced and produced the page where I could chose the language. Tickets purchased and validated, we jumped on the next train and made the two station trip to Central.

Escalators functioning, we headed down to the main area and check the board. Our train had yet to make the listing. It was a shared train between DB and their Czech counterparts CD. So we perused the permanent board and discovered we were leaving from platform 1. A quick trip to the Rewe supermarket where I met the husband of the rbf woman who served us on day 1. If you hate your job that much, find something else to do. In a country where we were told 'cash is king', I tried to pay cash and he wasn't happy because he would have to provide change. The horror!

Part of the foundation of the Gestapo building.

There was about an hour to spare when we hit the platform. We located a seat for Jayne and I did some laps. It was a big platform. The gypsies tried to pedal some foreign language newspaper to us, unsuccessfully. The announcements came thick and fast about any train heading for Munich. An earlier train had been delayed by an hour due to track work which pushed every other train back. The platform was becoming more and more congested.

Our train arrived reasonably close to time. The door we were supposed to use to get on board was broken. Not a good start, CD trains. The options: the second class carriage next to ours or move to the front of the first class carriage. The latter appeared to be less crowded. However by the time we were on board all the storage space for large suitcases was gone.

Interesting architecture.

We wheeled the bags down the centre aisle to find someone sitting in our seat. A tap on the shoulder and he moved without question. I hoisted the two smaller bags up onto the overhead rack and wheeled the large suitcase towards the other luggage area. There was space! I was sizing up how to place our bag when a family of four came from 2nd class with bags larger than ours and slotted them into the remaining space. Bugger. Back down the aisle.

Jayne looked at me as I sized up the overhead rack. "Surely, you're not going to try and put it up there?" she asked as I heaved the bag up to my chest. Momentum helped me get it into position and then it just slid easily into its resting place. Too easily. I turned to see a German soldier return to his seat. There were three of them sitting opposite. Danke schön, I offered. He smiled and nodded. I totally had it under control and would have stowed it without assistance. No cap.

Parkland near the Brandenburg Gate.

The Czech trains are not as well appointed as DB. Less leg room, no refreshments station within the carriage. Because it is a CD train on German soil, the internet doesn't work until we are on the other side of the border. Annoying.

Then there is seat selection. I booked through CD because you are able to select seats. Had I booked through DB, this would not have been the case. So, there were many people occupying reserved seats until the rightful owners turned up. Our three soldier friends for instance. Eventually the family of four came to very respectfully claim their seats. There goes any assistance I might have hoped for in getting our large bag back to earth.

A close up of Elsa.

The train sailed through the German countryside, over the border into our seventh country on this trip and arrived about 20 minutes late at the central station of Praha (Prague). With the German armed forces long departed, I managed to retrieve the bags from on high and we headed out into the warm sunshine of a bustling city. 

We had been given a recommended route by our hosts to get to our AirBnb but as usual, Declan, our maps guide, refused to come clean on which way we were oriented so that we could find our starting point. When in doubt, we did as we always do and decided to start walking to see how he would respond. Not well. The new city scape seemed to totally confuse him and he kept losing our exact location. Although we had started to walk, he stubbornly maintained we were still outside the station when clearly we were not. 

A sign of hope. Breaking through to the future.

Our first observation of Prague was that their street signage is pretty poor. However, we did manage to find out we were on Washingtonova Street and as we pondered whether we were generally heading towards our destination in the Old Town, a local stopped and pointed us down a cross street towards our target.

Declan finally caught up and we reacquainted ourselves with the joy of traversing cobblestone footpaths and streets. I love cobblestones. Have I mentioned that previously? They are quaint and quirky and do not belong to the cityscape. They should be confined to the Roubaix to Paris cycle event and fairy tales.

There were plenty of tulips in bloom.

What should have been a 25 minute walk ended up being much longer as Declan, no doubt peeved at us seeking alternative map advice, directed us beyond our street into an unknown world packed with tourists, tour groups and school tours. I swear there is not a student in school in Europe. They are all on tour and under my feet. They are like a plague of locusts blacking out the sun. When they cross your path, you have to stand and wait minutes for them to pass.

Anyway, we found the apartment. I could literally kick a ball from the door to the main square of the old town. 

Our external front door.

It is however quiet and peaceful behind our heavy wooden doors. The courtyard garden is a tranquil relaxing place.

The courtyard garden.

Bags sorted, it was time for a relaxing beer. Back into the maelstrom and across the square to a café. Pilsener, the beer of choice, was apparently first brewed in Czechia, according to the menu I read. Interesting. I'm pretty sure a German brewery lays claim to the same fact. Unconcerned. The beer was good and the food passable and we watched the passing parade and recharged our batteries.

Relaxing.

The square was crowded. This was not alleviated by the number of semi-permanent wooden cabin-style stalls. People dodged in and around them as we admired the churches. They were almost on every corner. This had created an issue for us when we were trying to navigate earlier in the day. 

"We need to find the street near the church," says Jayne. "Ok," said I. "There's a church. There's a church. There's a church and there's a church. Pick one." It would have been funny if it hadn't been serious, but that was before beer. Everything was good now.

ROFL. Untested as to the quality of their food.

As usual, once we were settled, everything seemed to be so much closer and easier to find. A wander around our immediate locale revealed some fascinating shops.

Ah, the staples of life.

That was enough for one day.

The title today is from the vault. With a little help from Google. The 1986 release from Graham Nash. Surprised? I was. Anyway, See you in Prague.

Until next time.