Last day in Prague: Going solo again

My last day in Prague was a day of mixed feelings. I was super excited to be heading to Belgium. Just when it seemed like my trip couldn’t get any more fun, I still had two days at Le Tour de France awaiting me. On the other hand, today was my last day with my parents. They fly home tomorrow.

On days I have to travel somewhere, regardless of what time my flight/train/bus is, I can't really relax. I'm always looking at the time. Keeping that in mind, today we decided just to explore the Castle. Prague Castle is the biggest ancient castle in the world and is a suitably imposing sight. Sitting on top of a hill overlooking the city, it's the most distinctive landmark in the skyline. And the most creepy.

 

The grounds of the castle are free to enter. You can buy a pass into some of the buildings. With only a few hours to spend there, we bought a short pass giving us access to the Basilica of St. Vitus, St George's Basilica, Old Royal Palace and Golden Lane. While the Basilica has a very medieval look, the surrounding buildings are painted candy pink, yellow and green. They look like doll houses.

St.Vitus Basilica has the most incredible stain glass windows. There were a few wedding photographs being taken inside, although only for promotion. The bride was wearing converse shoes under her dress.





I'm always amazed at the size of some of the buildings. Just how much space did people need back then? I guess the same can be asked of modern houses now. They just keep getting bigger and bigger.

At 3pm Mum and I watched the changing of the guards. What a job. The "hone how was your day" conversation in the evening must get a bit repetitive.



That afternoon I farewelled my parents at the train station and caught the City Night Line again, this time to Cologne in Germany. I had an early morning change onto the ICE train to Liege in Belgium.

From the street: A walking tour in Prague

I’m a budget traveller at heart. The cheaper I travel, the longer I can travel. So the word “free” gets me excited. A popular little trend in Europe is free walking tours. They are held in most major cities; I’ve done two in Barcelona and one in Edinburgh. There were none offered in Italy – too much money to be made I guess.

The largest company to offer these tours is New Europe – it organises them in 14 cities. Curious as to why this company would offer free tours when so many people are willing to fork out big time for such things? Well there is a catch. The tours are free, however the guides rely on tips for income. The best tours I’ve done have been this type – you get (usually) young, energetic, knowledgeable guides, who are entirely aware that if they don’t do a good job, they don’t make rent.

Our guide today was Karel, a native Czech. It makes sense but it isn’t always the case. While most guides have studied history or something similar, Karel has a degree in psychology and drama therapy. The latter made for an interesting show. Our tour was three hours, with a 25-minute break. We spent most of the time in the Old Town before moving into the Jewish Quarter. I’m not even going to touch on what we learnt, but it covered a lot of history. But Karel, ever so entertaining, didn’t make us feel like we were back in school.

I have to add a note here about how amusing I find foreign English sometimes. Karel explained how as well as a birthday, Czech’s also celebrate their name day. “You go to pub two times,’’ he said. Karel also described the end of the Velvet Revolution (when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were formed) as the Velvet Divorce. He was clever.





We finished the tour overlooking the Prague Castle and then walked back to the Communism Museum, which we had passed on the tour. The entrance to the Museum is flanked by a McDonald’s and a casino. Seeing that alone is worth a visit to the museum. After visiting China and Vietnam I’m well aware of Communism and its effects on a population, but it’s still hard to take in. However, unlike China and Vietnam, the Czech Republic fought for its freedom.

 

Later, in search of dinner, we walked crossed the river and enjoyed another hearty Czech meal, this time on the other side of the river. We came across a statue Karel had told us about. Two guys peeing into a map of the Czech Republic. I'm sure art critics have a field day with this.

 We walked back home over the Charles Bridge.

 

Prague: Weird buildings, good food and sex machines

Prague, like a few of my destinations on this trip, has intrigued me for a while. Yet, I really didn’t know anything about it. When our train arrived on Tuesday morning, I had no idea what to expect. Would the former communist country fit the stereotype I have of Russia? Is it more like its closer neighbours in Eastern Europe? Has a more cosmopolitan influence crept over? Or would everybody be eating McDonalds and drinking Starbucks?

Prague is the end of the line for one of the City Night Line routes. The overnight train runs between several countries. Our train from Zurich travelled through Germany, stopping at Berlin, before entering the Czech Republic. My first great relief, when we pulled into the main station after travelling overnight on the City Night Line from Zurich, was it was cheap. After barely 24-hours in Switzerland, I was conscious of my bank balance.

We didn’t get organised in time to make a walking tour I’m interested in, so we decided to leave that for the next day and instead explore the city. When we reach the river, the little peddle boats cruising about in the fading sun looks fun, so we jump on. It costs us 250CHZ – or about $12.50 AUD – for an hour. From the water we can take in the weird city that Prague is.



The buildings are colourful and the architecture rather medieval. It’s a gothic San Francisco. The lamp posts are eerie, there are spires on nearly every building and the statues are just as creepy. I’ve never seen another city like it. But it fits with the appeal of this mysterious place.

We walk into the Old Town, although to me, the whole place looks pretty old. I can’t get over the number of tourists. Everywhere. Perhaps they’ve followed us from Venice?

We’d skipped lunch after a late breakfast so were famished. But we are in the right country to be satisfied. We take a seat at the first restaurant we find. Mum and I start with a hearty potato soup – no blender used here. Chunks of potato. I wipe the bowl clean using the free bread that seems to be a standard across Europe. For mains I chose the roasted leg of lamb with a red wine sauce. It’s service with tradition Czech bread dumplings. Dad’s meal included the potato dumplings, another Czech staple. The meals here are filling. Lots of meat and starch. But for a long time most of the population didn’t know where there next meal was coming from, so they made each one count.

When looking up a map of the city, an intriguing museum came to my attention. On our way to the Old Town Square we walked past it. At only 200 CHZ each we decided to check it out and stepped into the Sex Machines Museum. Interested? I was.

The opening exhibits resembled machines used to spin wool, with a big wheel (like one used to steer a boat) spinning round. However attached to each spoke on the wheel was a little, leather whip, and on the other one, feathers. In case you can’t quite work this out, they are designed for women to stand over. The feather one had a little press peddle to make it turn.

It only got more inventive, weird and funny from there. My favourite? The anti-masturbation machine. Strap the end on to your teenage son’s penis and if, at some point in the night, he gets excited, an alarm will ring at the other end of the machine, which is placed in the parents’ bedroom. Genius.

The machines were as creative and inventive as they were perverted and disturbing. Perhaps a late-night edition of New Inventors is in order….

24 hours in Zurich

Switzerland is home to a lot of wonderful things: Lindt chocolate, Toblerone, great watches, Roger Federer, and, as I found out, the $6 cup of tea from Starbucks. I hadn’t expected Zurich to be cheap, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how expensive it is.



Our time in Zurich is simply a stopover after finishing the Bernina Express on our way to Prague. We’re on the night train to Prague so we had a day to fill and little motivation to do anything that cost money, for good reasons.

We arrived on Sunday night and after asking the girl at reception for a recommendation for a cheap place for dinner, she warned us “there’s nothing cheap in Zurich”. Damn straight. The restaurant we ended up at advertised “two pieces of toast with a fried egg, ham and cheese” for 18 Swiss Francs – that’s more than $20 Australian. Prices at the supermarket the next morning weren’t too extreme but a visit to some chain stores revealed a lot. I ducked into the Body Shop and found one make up item to be double the price it is in Australia (after conversion). We spent a few hours hiding from the rain in the shops before visiting Starbucks for a coffee. 30CHF later (about $33AUD) we’d enjoyed three drinks and a muffin. I regularly got a cup of tea from Starbucks in Canada that cost about $2.50. Here it was 5.20CHF, which is roughly $6AUD. For a teabag and some hot water??? The Swiss may enjoy a good economy compared to the rest of Europe, but that’s not welcome news to budget travellers like me. Remind me to go to Greece next.

In looking up some things to do in the city, the Zurich Toy Museum came up. Since the Lindt Factory is closed on Mondays, toys seemed like the next best thing. We walked to the museum building, then up about eight flights of stairs to the actual museum. It’s a pokey little place. The toys on display are from a time well before batteries were included. There were doll houses with teeny tiny furnishings – even fake wool for knitting. Toy planes, soldiers, bears and dolls. Upstairs was a special exhibit on transport toys. There were 11 little Smurf toys hidden in the display as a treasure hunt for kids. I found all of them.

Through the Swiss Alps: The Bernina Express

Of all the things that come to mind when I think of Switzerland (watches, knives and banks), there was one I never expected to see anytime soon: the Swiss Alps. I have a thing for mountains. I also have a thing for trains. So travelling through the Alps by train seemed the perfect trip.

The Bernina Express connects the northern Italian town of Tirano with Chur (pronounced Kor) in Switzerland. It's a four-hour trip that seems to only go one way - up! Oh, it also goes round and round. While it's going up.

One of the highlights of the trip comes minutes after leaving Tirano. I, being on the train, couldn't take a photo of it, so here's one from Rhaetian Railway's flickr site:



Yep, the train does a loop-de-loop. From there it starts climbing. The track weaves up the first major mountain and the village below just gets smaller and smaller. Eventually we stop overlooking the valley and delve into the mountains. Despite the heat, this is the Alps, so there is still a smacking of snow on the peaks.





The railway was built between 1896 to 1904, and was the first major rail route from Italy into Switzerland. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's still a busy freight route, but with views like this you can see why it's one of the top scenic rail trips in the world.



We reach a top of 2253 metres during the 144km trip. We travel across 196 bridges and 55 tunnels. The mountains occasionally give way to farm land - we see a handful of cows and sheep. There are also a few dedicated cyclists making their way up the road and we see a few hikers too.



The train has big panoramic windows in all the carriages. This isn't the case for all of the trains. Although several travel the route each day, most only go to St Moritz. The one we are on (the 14.04 from Tirano) goes all the way to Chur and every carriage has the panoramic windows.

We arrive into Chur about 6.30pm, head into the station and quickly buy a ticket for the 6.39pm train to Zurich, jumping on with minutes to spare.

We booked our ticket with Rhaetian Railway. You can book a seat reservation several months out, but are not made available until close to the date. For our June 24 trip we made our seat reservation on March 8. We bought our tickets the day before at the station in . Note: For train travel in Europe you will often need BOTH a seat reservation and a ticket, to reserve a seat. For the best advice on rail travel I've ever seen check out The Man in Seat Sixty One. This guy is gold!

Thanks to my mum for taking most of these photos. I was too busy staring out the window in a Toblerone-induced coma.