Prague - Day 1
We arrived late at night to Prague (from Dresden). I can proudly say that we’re getting much more efficient at loading and unloading buses, finding places to exchange money, at navigating the new transit systems and most importantly at not stressing out when the ATM machine declines the card. The latter occurred upon our arrival to Prague and our attempt to purchase transit tickets. But all was semi-quickly resolved and we were on our way.
The things that we read about Prague in our little Lonely plant guide: Beware of pickpocketers, they work like clockwork all around the city. Oh and if you’re ever approached by a police officer, most likely he is fake and it’s a scam.With those happy warnings, we set off to find our hostel. We were weary but all ended up well. The hostel was right in the middle of the city, but was very secure and clean.Other thing we quickly learned about Prague: It has become a tourist trap over the last few years and the prices have been adjusted accordingly. So aside from it crawling with tourists, the food is extremely expensive. On that first night, we were hungry after our long bus ride and went to a café around the corner. I admit that it was our fault that we didn’t check the prices beforehand, but even if someone said that we’re going to pay 4 euros for a cup of tea we wouldn’t have believed it. Yes, it was a regular tea, out of a teabag, served with half a cup of hot water and nobody even danced around while serving the tea! (Цены на сосисечки в Московском аэропорту отдыхают)After the first time, it was resolved that we eat at home and this worked out wonderfully.So the next morning, we started out to see Prague. Earlier, I mentioned that Prague is crawling with tourists; well that’s practically an understatement. In the center, you pretty much had to push yourself through the crowds. And every two steps there was somebody who tried to sell you something. Being already tired from walking for 9 hours the previous day, my patience to deal with the crowds was low. But we managed to have a decent day. We took a tour of the castle, which is the biggest one in Europe and it was well worth it. One note from Levka: Julie learned a new word – “defenestration”: a process of throwing one from a window. We saw the very window from which the Catholics were throwing the Protestants into the moat (or the other way around Protestants did that to Catholics, I can’t remember for sure.) The word comes from the French “fenetre”, the “window”. Side note on tours: Our spell of not making it to museums is finally broken! After not getting into the Wawel castle and Schindler’s factory Museum in Krakow, Reichstag, the Dresden gallery (and a few other places), I was happy that we were able to book an English speaking tour the same day.So the tour was good and the walk was OK and the bridge was pretty. But all the excitement that I had expected from Prague was just not there on that day.It all turned around the next day….