The train ride was nice, smooth and relatively uneventful. It was an interesting contrast leaving Austria and entering the Czech Republic - as we saw a lot of derelict houses that looked like they'd been damaged in the last world war and still hadn't been repaired or destroyed.
Our train arrived at Praha-Holsoevice - not the main station, so our plan was to get into central Prague, get a map, and figure out where our hotel was in relation to everything. Of course we had no local currency, so a visit to an ATM gave me some cash. Czech Crowns are worth 1/16th of an Aussie dollar, so I withdrew a thousand crowns (about AUD$75) from the ATM and then had to go to the local shop to buy a couple of drinks to split it up (it gave me a single 1000Kc note!) as we needed coins to pay for a metro ticket to the city.
We got a map also, but ended up asking for some help as to which station to get off - turns out that I.P. Pavlova station was the closest to the hotel, so we got off there and it was right next to the hotel which was convenient (except that there was no lift to get our luggage up, so we had to lug them up the steps.
Once settled in our hotel, we were able to dump our things, relax a bit and then - as it was already early evening by this point we wandered around looking for somewhere to eat. We found a lovely pub around the corner called Legenda Pub, with great food, cheap beer and nice atmosphere. I ordered a local Czech beer - Staropramen - which was lovely and ended up having a couple of half-litre glasses. They were dirt cheap too - a half-litre of beer was 27Kc - or about AU$1.70. And it was cheaper to get a half-litre of beer than it was to get a small 250ml bottle of orange juice here (the OJ was 28Kc)!!
After a nice relaxed meal, we headed back to the hotel to plan the next day and get some sleep.
We decided that since we only had the one day in Prague, we'd take a couple of tours and that way get to see a bit more of it all.
We booked a Konopiste Castle Tour which started first, and then a Grand City Tour for the afternoon.
First stop, Konopiste castle - home of the Crown Prince Archduke Francis Ferdinand who was assassinated in Sarajevo together with his wife. This event was what sparked off World War I!
The Castle was about 45km drive south of Prague - and is a surprisingly modern castle with one of the worlds first hydraulic lifts. It was built in the 13th century and based on the french castles of the time - but was unusual in that it had 7 defensive towers (most similar castles only had one!) - so it was very secure at the time, though most of the towers are in ruins now.
Archduke Ferdinand loved collecting and hunting, and collected an incredible number of trophies. Apparently he killed something close to 3 million animals during his lifetime, of which he had trophies on his wall for something like 450,000 of them - these included deer, goats, boars, and bears - and his walls were adorned with the things - including furs for his floors. He even had several elephant tails hanging up and a couple of rubbish bin made from a elephant feet! Animal conservationists will not enjoy this place.
In addition to his trophy collection, he also had a substantial weapons and armoury collection - including a number of rooms full of suits of armor, pistols, rifles, swords and daggers.
He had installed special viewing cabinets for all of these, and had even installed electricity throughout the castle for lighting and he'd built 12 modern bathrooms, central heating. Quite impressive for its time and the archduke was a pretty forward thinking man.
Archduke Ferdinand was a member of the Habsburg family, and was next in line to be the Holy Roman Emperor of Austria - however he fell in love with the lovely Countess Sophia - who was much beneath him in the social hierarchy of the time. In order for them to get married, he had to sign an agreement that his children would not inherit the the throne or have any social standing because of him.
After the castle tour we headed back to the city and were dropped off at Wencelas Square - the middle of the Neuvo Mesto - or New City. We wandered around for a while before heading back to the hotel to grab our rain jackets (as it was raining a bit) and then got picked up for the next tour of the city. This one took us through the old town (Stare Mesto), including National Theatre, Lesser Town Square, Jewish Quarter, Charles Bridge, and then we headed up the hills to see St Vitus Cathedral and Prague Castle.
Prague Castle had the same architect as did Schonbrunn Palace. Again, quite a modern castle, as most of it was destroyed in the war and rebuilt since.
Prague has quite a few castles really - there are apparently over 200 castles belonging to the nobility here.
We ended the tour in the evening and wandered through the streets of Stare Mesto together and had dinner in a sidewalk cafe overlooking the main square. Note for anyone considering the same in future - check the beer prices - we discovered that the beer prices in the same restaurant alone changed considerably based on where you were sitting. This place charged 24Kc for a half-litre beer in the beer garden, 28Kc for the same beer in the restaurant itself, and if you were sitting out the front with a view then they charged you a whopping 67Kc!
Still a cheap beer by Aussie standards, but you might want to do any serious drinking in the garden out back!
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Prague, and wish we'd organised to stay a bit longer - things were pretty cheap here compared to everywhere else and we had fun. Prague is a lively place, with Wencelas Square all busy and modern, with the occasional old building with beautiful facades peeking out, though there are still many buildings abandoned and run down also if you wander down a side street.
This country is still recovering from it's communist reign, so things are developing rapidly.
I had a good laugh at the local english here a bit - just over the road from our hotel was a Pizza place called 'Pizza Go Home' which gave me a good chuckle.
The next day we had to say goodbye to Prague and we caught the train from Praha-Holesovice to Berlin.
One helpful tip when travelling Europe - reserve seats ahead of time - it will cost you - perhaps 8-10 euros, but it means you get seats of your own - there were heaps of people on this train wandering past looking for unreserved seats. Because we reserved our seats we prettymuch had the whole cabin of 6 seats to ourselves for most of the trip.
The only person who joined us was a young guy called Daniel who got on in Dresden and was heading to Berlin to start a new job the next day. He had a map of Berlin and advised us to get off at Berlin-Sudkreuz and then catch an S-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz - then a short walk to the hotel from there.
We did follow his advice, but what looked like a short walk on the map turned out to be a 1km or so while hauling our luggage along on a mix of cobblestone and paved streets before we got to the hotel - good exercise at least!
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