czech me out! prague!
I just left Prague yesterday and i have to say it is by far my favorite city that I have visited on this trip. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm enough to wear a jacket while walking around and not get sweaty. The architecture was so beautiful. The castle and St. Vitus Cathedral are on a hill, so when you're looking up at them from the Old Town side of the Charles Bridge, the view is just spectacular.
I took the train into Prague from Berlin which was a little bit like herding 1000 elephants into a shoebox-sized cage. Every ticket agent assured me that I did not need a reservation with my rail pass, so after the 3rd time, I believed them. The train arrives and all I know is to get on a second class car. So I get on and it's madness! Pure madness I tell you. So I'm trying to find a seat and I see a seat that says "Berlin-Praha" and think, "well, that's where I'm going, so I guess I'll sit here." (You know, cus these seats might split off from the rest of the train and take me to my destination while the other seats go to theirs). So yes, obviously these seats were reserved and as two lines of people with massive amounts of luggage fight each other to continue in their respective directions to find empty seats I resign myself to the fact that I just may have to stand for five hours. But then! I find a considerably shabbier looking car with empty seats. Yay! A home for the sans reservations. So I look to my left and see an extremely creepy, probably homeless man, and to my right and see a friendly looking young girl. I sit next to the girl. She actually recommended this hostel in Florence where I have just arrived. Thanks! So on this train the creepy guy keeps going to the bathroom to smoke and I saw the tallest kid I've ever seen in my entire life. His head almost reached the top of the train! And he was young so he'll probably keep growing. Cool.
As a side note, I have nothing against the homeless. I just don't like sitting next to them on trains. On one train journey in France I approach my seat to find a man with no shoes and one sock halfway off his foot and a previously lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. I look at him, I look at the seat number, I look at my ticket. He gives me one of those looks like "oh hey i'm in your seat, sorry about that. I'll just slide over one seat. It's not like I have a reservation for this reservation-required train or anything, and you look like you would like the company!" So I sit down for two seconds and then said, Eff this, and found another seat.
So I get off the train at Prague and think, what kind of third world country have I arrived in? Turns out they're just renovating the train station, but the downstairs is much more modern. So I take the metro to my hostel, get lost, find my hostel, and then head out for some food and a ghost tour! Well I found food (Subway! I hadn't eaten in eight hours and this did the trick). But then I got lost trying to find the ghost tour so I just gave up. I had the hostel all to myself the first night, which I thought I didn't like, until the next day when I got new roommates. A chinese woman and her mom who tried to steal my bed! She literally took my stuff off the bed and switched the sheets with another bed! When I came in, they were both like "oh. oh, we were told we were the only ones in here." Grrr.
More about Prague! So I took a few walking tours - which I love to do! We saw the astronomical clock which has been voted Europe's most disappointing tourist attraction (true!), the Jewish quarter which has a terrible story attached to it. Hitler loved Prague so much so he preserved the Jewish quarter there so that it could be used as a museum for an extinct race. Yikes. Inside the museum are paintings done by little kids at the Terezin concetration camp outside of Prague. These were hidden in a suitcase and discovered later, after most of these kids had been killed. These drawings are the only evidence that these kids ever existed, as the nazis used to destroy all evidence that the kids they killed ever existed. Really sad stuff.
So my favorite part of Prague was the Charles Bridge. It's just so beautiful! I must've walked across it 50 times, having to dodge tourists and construction to do it. I loved standing on the bridge and looking up at the castle. The views from the castle are also pretty amazing. And FYI, the only way you can get in to the church at the castle is to say you are catholic, or that you want to bow to the Czech kings. Oh, by the way, I had goulash. It was delicious!
I really, really loved Prague! I can't get over it. And I was sad to leave. But now I am in Florence where it's going to be hot! I can't even wait to eat gelato and pizza. And then more gelato and pizza! I don't know where to go next. I have two days left on my rail pass. I'm thinking Venice, then back to Paris, where I will have to fly home :(
I took the train into Prague from Berlin which was a little bit like herding 1000 elephants into a shoebox-sized cage. Every ticket agent assured me that I did not need a reservation with my rail pass, so after the 3rd time, I believed them. The train arrives and all I know is to get on a second class car. So I get on and it's madness! Pure madness I tell you. So I'm trying to find a seat and I see a seat that says "Berlin-Praha" and think, "well, that's where I'm going, so I guess I'll sit here." (You know, cus these seats might split off from the rest of the train and take me to my destination while the other seats go to theirs). So yes, obviously these seats were reserved and as two lines of people with massive amounts of luggage fight each other to continue in their respective directions to find empty seats I resign myself to the fact that I just may have to stand for five hours. But then! I find a considerably shabbier looking car with empty seats. Yay! A home for the sans reservations. So I look to my left and see an extremely creepy, probably homeless man, and to my right and see a friendly looking young girl. I sit next to the girl. She actually recommended this hostel in Florence where I have just arrived. Thanks! So on this train the creepy guy keeps going to the bathroom to smoke and I saw the tallest kid I've ever seen in my entire life. His head almost reached the top of the train! And he was young so he'll probably keep growing. Cool.
As a side note, I have nothing against the homeless. I just don't like sitting next to them on trains. On one train journey in France I approach my seat to find a man with no shoes and one sock halfway off his foot and a previously lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. I look at him, I look at the seat number, I look at my ticket. He gives me one of those looks like "oh hey i'm in your seat, sorry about that. I'll just slide over one seat. It's not like I have a reservation for this reservation-required train or anything, and you look like you would like the company!" So I sit down for two seconds and then said, Eff this, and found another seat.
So I get off the train at Prague and think, what kind of third world country have I arrived in? Turns out they're just renovating the train station, but the downstairs is much more modern. So I take the metro to my hostel, get lost, find my hostel, and then head out for some food and a ghost tour! Well I found food (Subway! I hadn't eaten in eight hours and this did the trick). But then I got lost trying to find the ghost tour so I just gave up. I had the hostel all to myself the first night, which I thought I didn't like, until the next day when I got new roommates. A chinese woman and her mom who tried to steal my bed! She literally took my stuff off the bed and switched the sheets with another bed! When I came in, they were both like "oh. oh, we were told we were the only ones in here." Grrr.
More about Prague! So I took a few walking tours - which I love to do! We saw the astronomical clock which has been voted Europe's most disappointing tourist attraction (true!), the Jewish quarter which has a terrible story attached to it. Hitler loved Prague so much so he preserved the Jewish quarter there so that it could be used as a museum for an extinct race. Yikes. Inside the museum are paintings done by little kids at the Terezin concetration camp outside of Prague. These were hidden in a suitcase and discovered later, after most of these kids had been killed. These drawings are the only evidence that these kids ever existed, as the nazis used to destroy all evidence that the kids they killed ever existed. Really sad stuff.
So my favorite part of Prague was the Charles Bridge. It's just so beautiful! I must've walked across it 50 times, having to dodge tourists and construction to do it. I loved standing on the bridge and looking up at the castle. The views from the castle are also pretty amazing. And FYI, the only way you can get in to the church at the castle is to say you are catholic, or that you want to bow to the Czech kings. Oh, by the way, I had goulash. It was delicious!
I really, really loved Prague! I can't get over it. And I was sad to leave. But now I am in Florence where it's going to be hot! I can't even wait to eat gelato and pizza. And then more gelato and pizza! I don't know where to go next. I have two days left on my rail pass. I'm thinking Venice, then back to Paris, where I will have to fly home :(
posted by Maggie @ 12:50 AM
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