The last of our overnight trips from Berlin was a country and destination fairly close to Berlin. So close that there are no flights there from Berlin - but still enough of a distance that you need to factor in a reasonable amount of time for travel. This destination - Prague, capital of the Czech Republic (or Czechia as it likes to now be called). It was left to last for two main reasons - because it was close it made sense to do harder-to-visit destinations when the opportunity arose, and also because it would be a cheaper destination to visit and fit in better when we're trying to save money for our big End-Of travels.
We'd long worked out the details - we'd catch a bus that one of Sasha's colleagues recommended that had onboard service and was cheaper than catching a train, but took the same amount of time. We'd do it as a 3 day weekend because Sasha had been to Prague before and it needed about that amount of time to do all of what we wanted to do. When it came time to do the trip, a casual look at the Czech Railways (Cesky Drahy) website found fares that were less than half of what Deutsche Bahn were trying to charge and less than the cost of the bus - so now we'd train there. We booked our accommodation, I got the extra day's leave - my last one - we were all set!
Day 0 - The Prague Express
Upon arrival in Prague, we had a small walk to our hostel where we checked in. It was at this point we saw a sign saying about towel rental and we remembered we'd completely forgotten to bring our travelling towels - most hostels seem to supply them anyway, so we asked to rent some. Turns out they were provided free when asked for! We went to our room and discovered a complimentary bottle of wine and two glasses in there - quite unexpected for a hostel, let alone the cheapest-but-most-decent one we could find!
Day 1 - Scoping the City
Our first event of the day was doing a Free Walking Tour around Prague, to get familiar with the city, get our bearings and just learn what the place was about. I know we walked around for quite a while, but I cannot tell you any specifics about what we saw - that's what writing a post 6 months after the fact will do, especially when so much has happened since.
Day 2 - Bones, Battlements, Apples and Absinthe
Day 3 - More Exploring and the Journey Home
In the event, a lot of the things we wanted to do in Prague we'd managed to do in less time than we'd thought they'd take - in hindsight we probably could have fitted in Plzen and everything else, but we weren't to know that and when it did become apparent Sasha suggested we could still try for it. But I didn't feel much like it anymore, and there were other things we hadn't planned on doing which had cropped up as things of interest. The Apple Museum had been one of those, and the other was to visit a Jewish Synagogue which has a lot of things to do with the time of the Holocaust.
But that was a "Future Dan & Sasha Problem". For the moment, we were comfortable and seated as we travelled towards the German border bound for Leipzig. It was also time for dinner - we picnicked on the train, with cheese, crackers and a meat along with the wine we'd been given in our hostel room. We hadn't had any opportunity to drink the wine yet, so it came along with us - but its fair to say it didn't quite make it to the German border!
As we approached Leipzig's outskirts, I re-checked our connecting train - no change, no spare seats left to reserve and still expected to be over-full from the stop after Leipzig. Double-checking that it was the last ICE train to Berlin, another train flashed up - it seems another ICE train bound for Berlin was delayed over an hour, and would depart Leipzig 3 minutes before our train would. I could tell by the train number (thanks to my recent Munich experience) that this delayed train would be an ICE1, which would be twice as long as our intended train and also it would be direct to Berlin with no stops - so no chance of it becoming overcrowded. DB ticket rules generally permit changes of specified trains only if you were in certain fare brackets (the more expensive ones), or in the case of a delay causing you to miss your intended train, neither of which was us. But we didn't have DB tickets - we had Czech Railway ones. Figuring the rules might be different, we thought it entirely worth seeing if we could get on the delayed ICE1. The ICE1 pulled into the platform 2 minutes after our arrival, and off hopped a very angry and disinterested conductor who a few people went up to to ask questions, with him providing rather abrupt and dismissive answers. Clearly he was not having a good day with his delayed train, and I didn't think our chances were much good. Still - had to try, so I did. Not really knowing how much English he might understand, I showed him our ticket, tried explaining our train would be very full and asked to board his train in as easy-to-understand English as I could manage. He stopped, looked over our ticket very carefully, then got his puncher out, punched the ticket with it, very loudly said "Goodbye" as he thrust the ticket back at us and marched off. Very brusque! Sasha turned to me and said " What does that mean?". He'd punched the ticket - which meant he'd accepted it as it left the little number of his train service on our ticket, and that was key. "That means we get on board his train" I said, as I then motioned to hop in the nearest door. The train had plenty of free seats, we found ourselves a group of 4 and settled in for the ride back to Berlin. A much more pleasant ride than having to stand squished! Arrival into Berlin was a few minutes ahead of when our intended train would have arrived, and from there we caught public transport home. Arrival at home was just after midnight - quite a tiring trip, but luckily we could go straight to sleep!
Summing Up
Prague was interesting in that it felt like a blend of say Krakow in Poland, and Budapest in Hungary. Elements of both, melded to create a new. It felt reasonably different than Bratislava though, in Slovakia - which is interesting considering they were both once part of Czechoslovakia, but Czechoslovakia was a modern construct post-WW1 and can't overcome hundreds of years of history before that. The Czechs certainly do beer quite well in general, and the prices are pretty decent - mind you beer is pretty cheap in Germany too so perhaps it didn't quite seem as cheap as it should have to us. On the whole, Prague is a very pretty city - and I would say a winter city too, I find it hard to imagine what it would be like when its the heat of summer and the trees are lush with green. It doesn't seem like it would fit.
Would I have liked to have done more of the Czech Republic? yes, a little bit more would have been nice. But it wasn't essential, and I'm glad I had more than one trip to the country also. Would I go back? Yes; Would it feature highly on my list of places to go back, no. And I mean that for both Prague and Czechia. Poland, somewhat surprisingly and Hungary would be higher on my priority list to go back and visit above Czechia. But since are all so close, its not hard to see how Czechia could feature in a future trip.
The last overnight trip prior to leaving Berlin - which in some ways made it a bit bittersweet, however there was still so much to do before leaving Berlin that I never much had time to dwell on such things either during our visit or even after we left Berlin. Our breakfast trial showed our cereal and containers idea worked well, and was practical - which then formed a key part of our End-Of Travel experience. One thing I'll never forget though - our hostel room came with a complimentary bottle of wine in the room. Hostel room. Not hotel room. These guys know hospitality!
Until next time Czechia, whenever that might be!