17. Prague

The Journey

The direct journey from Berlin Hbf to Praha Hlavni Nadrazi took 4 hours and 34 minutes, with CD, the Czech national railway.

Berlin Hpf is the most impressive train station that I have ever seen. There are five different levels for trains including U-Bahn and S-Bahn and international ones. It is quite difficult to find your bearings at first and it would have helped had I downloaded the station map in English beforehand. 

The confusing thing was that my train departure was from Berlin Tiep and not Berlin Hbf. It turns out that the Tiep section referred to two tracks in a side annex, slightly separate from the main station.  A delicious range of German deli foods was available in a Rewe supermarket in that area of the station, so I stocked up on lunch items for the journey.

There was a major departure delay due to "a serious medical emergency on the track", this coupled with with a construction delay of 20 minutes meant that the train got into Prague over two hours late. The only compensation offered was a bottle of still water! The phone signal was not good in rural Germany but the WiFi on board was fast. USB cables could be charged under the seat.

The trip was very smooth on the Czech CD train, where as far as I noticed, we reached a top speed of 135 km/h.

The scenery all the way from Dresden to Prague was spectacular, particularly as the day was sunny and the leaves were starting to turn golden. 

 

The Accommodation

 

View from Pavel's apartment           

I was very lucky to be able to stay for HomeExchange GuestPoints in Pavel's centrally-located 400 sq ft penthouse apartment with a 30 sq ft terrace. It had great views over two large parks, the Prague rooftops, and St. Vitus Cathedral. The neighbourhood is called Smíchov and Albert Einstein lived one block away from the apartment from 1911-1912. The area is undergoing major redevelopment with numerous new apartment blocks, while a new central transport hub for intercity trains is also being built. 

What a welcome I received from Pavel! He was there to meet me at the tramstop, having given me step-by-step instructions on how to get there from Hlavni Nadrazi the main station. 

He explained everything in so much detail that there was no need for any housebook of instructions.  I had mentioned to him that I had left my adaptor plug behind me and wondered if I could borrow a phone charger from him. He actually went out and bought me one and gave it to me as a welcome gift to Prague. He refused to take any money for it. 

Not only that but the fridge was stocked with sparkling water,  beers, yoghurt, orange juice and more. This was home exchange as it should be! 

Pavel recommended a local gastropub for dinner, it was in the basement of the townhall, less than 100m from his apartment. It served only traditional Czech food and was full to the brim of locals, not a tourist in sight. I ordered a chicken schnitzel in crispy potato, served with two types of sauerkraut and a side of mashed potato with bacon and fried onion. Now that is what I call comfort food! 

I also ordered a half-litre of Staroprammen. The food cost the equivalent of €9 and the beer was about €2.50. I was very glad that I didn't order a starter!

I spent the next morning just wandering around the Stare Misto / Old Town just trying to see what, if anything I would remember from our home exchange here 27 years ago. 

My memories of Prague in 1997 are that there was a lot of the colour grey around on the buildings while my memories of Budapest were black soot-coloured buildings. I checked with Pavel to see if my recollection was correct, he started laughing and said yes, but added that where the buildings in Prague have largely been cleaned up, the ones in Budapest have not.

It is true that Prague has changed immeasurably in that it is now a clean, modern, vibrant city, that is buzzing with tourists and has a very active shopping vibe about it. It boasts brand new sleek trams, but thankfully there are still a few of the old cream and red ones in service. 

It now most definitely looks like the capital city of a rich, western European country. It certainly looks like the locals have money to spend and are spending it. The costs of food, drink and travel however, are still a fraction of what these cost in Ireland.

The beer drinking culture is omnipresent, even more so than in Berlin - and I thought that was striking. Where people carried bottles of beer on the streets in Germany, here they carry cans. It is as if they regard beer in the same way that we in Ireland now carry bottled water, or people in UK cities carry high-sugar drinks such as Red Bull. You also see them walking through the streets with open cans, early in the morning and also on the trams. The surprising thing is that drinking beer in the street is actually banned, but it seems that the authorities just ignore it.

The crowds are still gathering to see the astronomical clock from 1410 chime on the hour, however instead of maybe two dozen people 27 years ago, there were now possibly 400, on a weekday in October!

I would hate to see the crowds in August!

For lunch, I  wandered away from the tourist traps and stumbled upon Tom's Burgers, they had a small garden with no-one sitting in it, so I sat there glad of the shade on what was another extremely hot day for October. 

I ordered chicken tacos with sour cream and pico de gallo, served with twice-fried chips and a spicy Mexican taco sauce. Top class food, including a large local beer for €14.37.

Then it was time for my 3-hour afternoon walking tour called Prague Essentials. Like previous tour guides, Scott from the US was a history graduate - he also studied drama. He told us he felt that he was doing the perfect job. His enthusiasm was infectious and his knowledge of Prague was comprehensive. 

As in previous posts, I won't include all the photos I took on the tour, but rather will just upload some of the more interesting ones. The one below for example, shows the Marian Column - the most controversial monument in Prague  with a statue of the Virgin Mary sitting on top. It was erected during Covid, while no-one took much notice of it. It attracted lots of opposition later however, in a country that is officially the world's most athiest nation.

Here is the Jewish Cemetery where more than 90,000 bodies have been buried, a magnet for tourists.

There are several of these wall plaques erected all over the city, they show a black hand  and they mark the spot where a Czech resistance soldier died during World War II. 

Another interesting thing that Scott pointed out was that each building has two numbers, a red one and a blue one. This can get quite confusing to say the least! Both numbers are legitimate, both are used, and Google Maps recognises both. This, for example is the building where my apartment was and both numbers feature on the official address in Google - Rijna 159/6.

So what are they? The explanation is that in Prague traditionally they used a house numbering system, where as houses were built, they were given the next number in sequence, this is known as the building reference number. So 29 and 87 could exist side by side. A similar system exists in Japan we were informed.  In 1868, the first census was planned and it required a more logical and logistical solution, so the blue numbering was introduced and is the street number.

No tour of Prague would be complete without referring to Prague's most famous son, so there is obviously a Kafka exhibition to visit, and a quirky Kafka memorial. 

This really was a brilliant tour and its success was largely down to the personality of the tour guide Scott.

After this tour, and a welcome break for some coffee, I stayed on in the city centre for a final wander around as all the shops were open late. This is Paris Street  the most exclusive and expensive street in the city, one for just looking and not lingering!

For dinner, I spotted a Palestinian restaurant on my way home from wandering around the late night shopping district of New Town. As I had never tasted Palestinian food before, now was the opportunity. I ordered a Hummus, Chicken Shawarma Meal, served with  pickles, fresh salad vegetables and Arabic bread. Great value at €11.49.

Overall I loved the feel of the city, my favourite one so far without question. I regretted only booking two nights accommodation, and was sorry to be leaving it too soon, with a load of things on my list that I didn't get to visit such as the Museum of Communism (though Scott did say that he felt it was overpriced). There's nothing else for it, I'll just have to come back, and not wait another 27 years !