It was the city that spurred the whole Europe trip. After watching Samantha Brown’s visit to Prague, I knew I had to go there!
There were only 2 trains from Austria linking to Prague each day. We packed everything the night before as we will be catching the first train at 6:15am the next day. At 5:40 am, we were running will our bags clunking behind us. It rained the night before and the streets were wet and cold.
Trust me, the trains get off on time. Most of the time, we were caught chasing trains. No misses is accepted. Disciplinary level is high and we do not plan for any backups.
We planned this trip for months. If we missed the schedule meaning we will cut short the following destinations. “No Way!” we exclaimed together.
We arrived in Linz (Austria’s 3rd largest city) for our interchange. Now, things get a bit tricky. We could not find a direct train from Linz to Prague. Information counter said we need to go to take a train to Summerau and interchange again in Česke Bodějovice.
We arrived in Summerau and got down. Wait a minute. Where’s everybody?
Apart from us, only another elderly man was waiting in the station for the next train to Česke Bodějovice. The place looked deserted and bodies of old trains were seen across the old train tracks. Some trains carrying logs passed by. Some pulled containers. Are we at the right place?
Panicky, we asked the train engineer. Ahh! Thank Goodness he speaks English. “Yes! Next train to Česke Bodějovice”
Not knowing what to do and not sure are we still in Austria or Czech (which I later found out Summerau is still in Austria), we sat down and continued watching the arrival of train sections. There was an old-style train head arriving from the west. It was bright red and looked funny. Not long after, a train body came rolling by from the east. We cheered as the engineer attached the head and body together. Voila!
The train engineer popped his head out and waved at us. We waved back. He waved at us again. This time a bit faster.
“Hey, he looks like asking us to go up the train” said Su.
“OMG. That’s the train we are taking?” I was awed.
We rolled our bags and hauled them up the very high train steps. This is an old train and it wasn’t very passenger friendly. The train only had 2 cabins. Each of them were separated and you cant go to other cabins without attempting some Jackie Chan stunts in Shanghai Noon. The train smelled very old with PVC covered seats. Reminded me of the old school bus I used to take.
I guess here lays the logging industry. The train stopped at places that looked merely like a train station. There was a rundown building, a rundown stop which looks more like a small bus stop and then, there was just a chair. All of them were un-named and no one gets in or out of the train anyway.
Finally, we reached Česke Bodějovice. I never realized that Česke Bodějovice is where Budweiser and Pilsener originated. That is until now! Hehe…
10 minutes is all we have to board the train to Praha Hlvani. Finally we arrived in Prague!
We stepped down and look to our left and right for the information counter. But there was none seen. There wasn’t any shops or should I say human around. As the train pulled away, we were left standing at the deserted looking station.
I was surprised! Prague the central attraction in Europe and no one here?
“Helloooooo…Anyone here?”. No answer.
We saw a small counter. Our hopes skydived when we found out not only for this counter, all the counters were empty with no one in it. TH decided we should walk out of the train station. There was a catch. To get out of the train station, one have to go across mazes of train tracks. Oh dear! I didn’t sign up for this.
Off we hopped across train tracks with our luggages. I think we passed at least 7 tracks with no safety platforms in between in case a train comes by. We have to look to the right and left making sure there’s no on-coming trains. It’s like crossing a street. Instead, we were crossing train tracks!
Luckily, we made it through. We entered a hall and was greeted by the first breath of medieval Prague. The hall looked like it has been here for centuries with sculptures on the ceiling and pillars. People were seen drinking coffee while waiting for their train.
Information…where is information…. AHA! Found it!
TH waited for us upstairs as mind you. There was no escalator or lift here. Su and I went downstairs and suddenly we were surrounded with hordes of people. So…here were all the people. The place looked seedy and felt like we are in an underworld (Don't be mad, it's just the way we felt but I guess it's safe). We tried to locate the Information counter but everything is in Czech. Finally we saw a sign “Information counter”. A notice was pasted on its window. “Information Counter moved to upstairs” Upstairs? We just searched the whole of upstairs and the sign upstairs pointed us downstairs for Information. Lost, we decided to go to the train counter to ask. The fler did not even look up and just shrugged. Vaguely pointed his finger to the Information counter we saw earlier and shut his counter window.
When all else failed, we had no choice but to decode the information board in Czech. It was also tricky to track the information board. One of them was lying on the floor. Half visible to the crowd. We finally had some ideas. First, we have to buy a subway ticket to take us away from here. We were searching for counters selling subway tickets. Didn’t seem to have one. The only ones were the yellow machines …. And they only accept Czech Koruna coins aka CZK. The merry-go-round continued as we headed to exchange some CZK + enough coins for our subway.
Back to the yellow machines, we read the signs again and again. How do we use this? Which ticket to buy? We were confused with the subway jargons. Next to us was an elderly English lady who managed to pulled a security guard to help her with the machine. Thank God we were able to copy exactly what the lady was doing as she needed the same subway pass like us. The machine dropped a tiny piece of paper which what looked like our subway pass. Finally outta here!
The train stopped near to Charles Bridge. Now, another “adventure” began as we tried to find our hostels. We were walking and I was scratching. I looked at my sides and saw bright dotted reds on my skin. A closer look and Oh no! It’s cold rash. The rash started to burn and felt very sore as my clothes brushed against it.
Searching for our hostel is a bit tough. Although we were in Prague, most of the people here were tourists. We were directed to all the wrong place and walking in circles. Finally, I had an idea!
Knowing that Charles Bridge will be very prominent across the river, we walked towards the river bank. We saw Charles Bridge from the distance and headed towards it. I felt bad for our bags. The wheel on the bags worked really hard on the bumpy cobblestone streets in Prague. Prague is very crowded with tourists. People were everywhere! I looked at the map and this is it! Karlova street where we will be staying. We peeled our eyes for Hostel Bridge as we walked along Karlova street. We walked further and even walked around Karlova street several times. No Hostel Bridge in sight. I think we even made it to the Old Town Square
Frustrated and exhausted, I decided to walk Karlova St. again. Checking out each building and their signs one by one. Number 10, our hostel street address was showing a Pizza Restaurant. This couldn’t be. So, I asked the restaurant’s waiter.
“Oh! Hostel Bridge is upstairs”. He walked over and hit a buzzer at the side of the building. Only then, I saw “Hostel Bridge” written next to the buzzer with a pen. It’s soooo tiny!
“Hello, Hostel Bridge”. Came the voice on the speaker. “OK, I’ll come down and get you”
OK. No signs and located upstairs of a Pizza Restaurant. Who would have known?!
searching for our hostel.
Hostel, anyone?
The guy from Hostel Bridge greeted us. We walked to the middle of the Pizza Restaurant where we took the stairs. Suddenly, we were greeted with darkness. Su and I actually documented the eerie stairwells which seemed to go on forever.
Check out the video here (right click to open a new tab)
Our room overlook the busy Karlova Street. This shot was taken early in the morning. It gets very busy at night with party people and tourists. Standing at the edge of this street, you can see the tall entrance of Charles Bridge.
It was already 7PM when we settled down. As the day is still bright, we walked to Charles Bridge which was directly in front of our hostel. What a beautiful scene!
More info on Charles Bridge...
We had Goulash for dinner in Karlova! Juicy and tender meat...yum yum!
Not enough pictures but a lot of words eh? OK. Let me rest well tonight as the next entry, we will embark a full-fledged Prague tour! I promise :)
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