Both: Hey everyone!
Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.
Greg: This time we're talking about our train ride to Prague, plus the time that we spent in and around Prague.
Jen: There's probably one word to describe this train ride from Munich to Prague, and that is “disaster”. It started out great. The train left about 9 a.m., and about 30 minutes after we left the station, we paused on the train tracks. And this is pretty common because you have to let other trains pass, but normally that only takes less than five minutes. But this time, we were on that track for about 20 minutes waiting on this train to pass.
So, we get going again, and about five minutes later, we get to the next station, where we proceed to wait again. And we wait, and we wait…and after about an hour, people started to get off the train, to walk around, take a quick smoke break, and we still continue to wait…for another hour.
So after two hours of waiting, we're like, “What the heck is happening?” I was starting to get a little worried because that's what I do. And Greg looked at me and he was like, “Don't worry. It's just a train delay. We'll get going soon. It's not like the train's going to be canceled.”
Greg: Eventually, we did get going. We got to the next station, which took about, you know, five or ten minutes. But we didn't just do a normal train station stop. We stayed stopped. And after about ten minutes, we became very, very nervous. And then we heard an announcement. Couldn't really hear it because the speakers were very low. And it was only in German and it was very quick.
So we poke our head out of the compartment we were in, and there are several non-German groups looking around like we were. I think there was universal confusion at this point. One very nice young man who was German who happened to be walking through the coach said, “Did you understand the announcement?” And I just kind of said, “I could barely hear it.” And he said, “They're saying that the train is now canceled.”
Jen: So I looked at Greg like, “I told you so!” And I proceeded to try to find the one staff member that we had seen on this train the entire time we had been on it. And I managed to find her up at the front of the coach. Um, she was talking to several other people trying to figure out what was going on. And there was a child nearby — I think it might have been her child — who was kind of doing a little translation into English and basically told us that the train is canceled, everybody needs to get off, the nearest station is Freising, and she knew other trains were leaving out of there, but she didn't know if there were any going to Prague. She did tell us, though, that there were some buses right outside the station.
Greg: Yeah, and the way she portrayed that was the company for the train was aware of how many people needed to figure something out and had ordered several buses to come and pick people up and take them to the next station. But when we got outside the station, that is not what it was. It was just a bus stop with well over 100 people all waiting to get on the very next bus that shows up.
So we looked at each other and said, “Do you think Uber is working out in this little German town?”
Jen: And it was. So we scheduled one of those really quickly.
Greg: So when we got to the Freising Station... we noticed that none of the trains were moving there either. And there was a train going to Prague that should have left about five minutes before we got to the station. We purchased tickets for the next train, which was going to leave in about 15 to 20 minutes. But when we got to the platform, we're pretty sure it was the train that should have already left still there. But we got on that train.
And while we were sitting there, we noticed a lot of people doing the same thing. I think it was about three different trains worth of people all started cramming into this one train.
Jen: Yeah, so we sat there for about 45 minutes to an hour, not going anywhere. And at that point, we had pretty much decided just to cut our losses and find an Uber to a hotel somewhere and just figure out how we were gonna get out of Germany the next morning.
So we poked our head out of our little compartment that we were in and saw about 50 people standing in this open area, that's really kind of intended for people in wheelchairs or people carrying on bicycles. And we would have to step over people, step around people.
Greg: Yeah. Right when we get close to the door, this guy who was standing near the door does not move out of the way like everyone else was. And he was probably 6'4", older guy, looked kind of rough, like he had a life of labor, not like he was an office worker, not a hipster German or any of that stuff.
He just speaks to me in German, which is an intimidating kind of language from the sound of it anyway. And I'm just looking up at him. And when he finally stopped, I just gave him this timid, like, “No sprechen sie Deutsch.”
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: And he just said, “OK”, and spoke to me in English. And he said exactly these words…”Do not get off of the train.” He explained what train service is like in Germany. But he said, literally, “If this train has not left by 4:00, that I will get off the train with you and help you figure out how to get where you're going.”
Jen: Yeah, and thank God for that guy, right?!
Greg: Oh, for sure!
Jen: We call him our German train angel.
Greg: Yes! Because…when he said that, we accepted it, we thanked him, we walked back to the compartment, climbing over all these people, and less than a minute after we got back in the compartment, the train doors closed and the train starts rolling. So if we had gotten off of the train, we would have been on the steps going back towards the station and seen the train start rolling away —
Jen: Ugh…
Greg: — with no ability to do anything about it. But thank God for our tall German friend who kept us on the train.
Jen: That's right.
So even though we were still on the train and we were moving, we still felt really uneasy about what was happening because we didn't really understand what was going on. And that turned out to be a very valid concern because about 30 to 45 minutes into this next train journey, an announcement came on. But…I was prepared this time and I had my phone out with Google Translate and thankfully the speakers were better. And it basically said that the train, at the next station, was going to stop and split in two. One section of the train was going to stay at the station and the other half of the train was going to continue to Prague.
Greg: Yeah, so we weren't altogether surprised by the idea of trains breaking up. What we were surprised…is that they were not going through the coach to tell everybody, you're in the section that's staying, you're in the section that's not. So we were very confused. Were we in the right section or not? I poked my head out of our compartment and I noticed there was a young German guy who was not sure if this coach was going to continue on or stay. There was a family, we later found out was from Mexico City, that were in the very next compartment to ours looking for train staff so they could verify. And during this time, Jennifer actually said, “I'm going.” And she started walking through other coaches to see if she could figure it out.
Jen: Yeah, so it was a really quick walk because I was super concerned that we were going to get to that next station and I was gonna be stuck on the part of the train that stayed at the station in a random city in Germany. But it was the creepiest experience because apparently they were telling other people in those coaches to move off of the trains. So I ran into a guy, actually, when I was walking through these coaches that said, “They told me this is not the right section to be in.” But he wasn't even sure if where we were, originally, was the correct section.
Greg: Yeah.
And at this point, we arrive at the station where the disconnect is going to happen. And there's probably about 10 to 12 people who are still trying to understand. No train staff anywhere around. And this poor young German guy gets on the train listening to music with his earbuds, turns and sees all of us staring at him, probably with the same expression of expectation. And this poor kid, and his face, just looks so confused. Like, why is everybody staring at me?
And he took his earbud out and kind of looked at us almost with pity and was, like, “Yes?” And we all just unloaded our fears onto him about which section is staying, which section is going. And he just said, “Yes, I take this train often. You're in the right section.”
Jen: (laughs) So what I learned on this train ride was that German passengers must be very good at reading the confusion and dismay on the look of foreign travelers’ faces.
Greg: Yeah, and once again, more examples of German people, with which we interacted, that break the mold that we tend to in America think of as German people.
Jen: Yeah, they were all very helpful.
Greg: Super great people.
So, we continued on in the proper section towards Prague. And that's kind of where things began to smooth out because the last stop before crossing the Czech border, the German crew gets off the train, a Czech crew takes over. And at that point, it became like a completely different train.
Jen: Yeah, for sure. It was definitely more of what we had come to expect as a typical European train service. There were announcements in three different languages, you know, Czech, English, and German. And there were several staff walking around asking us if we had any questions. They were checking our tickets. They were offering us snacks. Completely different experience.
Eventually, we arrived in Prague and we were very relieved to be there, albeit over five hours late, which put us there after 10 p.m.
Greg: Yeah, and it was kind of a bummer because before we would have gotten there when it was still daylight. So we could appreciate some of the really awesome older architecture that that train station has. Also, you know, it was 10 p.m. and we had to get to the hotel, check into the hotel, take showers and kind of go through the unwinding. But we had a tour set for the next day and pickup would be at the hotel at 7:30 in the morning.
Jen: So we woke up the next morning — on day 135 of our travels — and our tour guide, Michal, was right on time. We really liked him. He was a great tour guide. And we had two other people on the tour, so we were happy that it was a small group. One of the ladies was from Australia. She was about our age, maybe a couple years older. And there was a 20-something-year-old who was living in Brooklyn going to fashion design school.
Greg: The tour was for Bohemian Switzerland National Park. which is on the Czech side of the border, and Saxon Switzerland National Park, which is on the German side of the border. With those names, you would think that they're around Switzerland. They are not. The names are deceptive because hundreds of years ago, some artists from Switzerland were staying in the area. They saw this region and said, oh, it reminds us so much of our home in Switzerland. And so they called it Bohemian Switzerland because that's what the kingdom back then was. It was Bohemia. And on the other side was Saxony and they called it Saxon Switzerland. And the names just kind of stuck.
Jen: Yeah. And now having been to Switzerland, it doesn't look anything like Switzerland.
Greg: Yeah, I really didn't understand it. Um, they're both beautiful.
Jen: Yes.
Greg: But I would not have looked at this region and thought, this is just like Switzerland.
Jen: Yeah. Maybe they were wishful thinking.
Greg: Yeah. In any case, it was a couple of hours of a drive up to the first stop, which is in the Czech side of the border for this national park. It's a hike down to Wild Gorge.
Jen: Yeah, so let me tell you about this trip down to Wild Gorge. In the description, the tour said, “family friendly, anybody can do it”. It even said the words “easy hike”. This was not an easy hike. Maybe for people who have hiked a lot, but definitely not for us. And even Michal, the tour guide, said, “I don't even know why they have that in the description because this really isn't easy.”
So our trip down to Wild Gorge was about a hundred meter descent over a 300 meter walk to get there. About halfway down this steep decline, we realized…we're going to have to climb this back up.
Greg: So one thing we had forgotten is that there is, like, a little river that runs down at the bottom and there's a boat ride that you can take.
Jen: Yeah, that boat ride was very enjoyable. It was a nice little break. It was very misty, but the water was very calm. Very serene, I guess.
Greg: Yeah, it was enjoyable while we're on the boat. Unfortunately, at the end of the boat ride, it started to rain. So Michal pulls out a bunch of ponchos and says, “Here, let's wear these so we don't get wet.” Unfortunately, because of the hike down and then to the boat, we had gotten sweaty. And putting on ponchos that don't breathe when you're sweaty just really makes you even more miserable.
Jen: Yeah. And on the way back up, we had to cross this puddle. And I don't know if you've ever seen the videos of the little kittens that try to make this big jump across a space between couches or whatever. And then they jump and they fall straight down. That was pretty much me trying to go over the puddle. So I wound up with wet feet for the rest of the day.
Greg: Yeah, and the incline really was just wiping us out. At one point, I legitimately told Jennifer, “Please pay attention because I might begin showing signs of heart failure.” I legitimately thought I might have a heart attack. My chest was getting tight. I was struggling to breathe. And I will say, fortunately Michal told us ahead of time, “Do not go quickly. Do not overexert yourself. If you need to take breaks, do so. If you need me to help you, if you need anything, just tell me.”
Jen: Yeah, so we really appreciated that, first of all. And we just told them, “Don't wait on us. We know how to get back up there.”
Thankfully, the Australian lady was going about the same speed we were. She mentioned that she had bad knees, so we kind of stuck together throughout the day. And the fashion girl, she — like any 20-year-old — had boundless energy, and she was just basically running up the hill, it seemed like to us.
Greg: Yeah, and that's really where she started to get underneath my skin because I am struggling. I am convinced that I will die. I am thinking, “What happens if we have to call an ambulance? How will they come and get me from down here? How will they get me up out of here?” Because I'm fat!
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: And she's just going all around like some golden retriever puppy, super happy to be everywhere she is. And it was like adding insult to injury.
Jen: Yes…but eventually (laughs) we did make it back to the van. At one point, we stopped and looked at each other and said, “I wonder how much an Uber would cost to get back to our hotel.” (laughs)
Greg: Yeah. My muscles, everything below the waist, cramping constantly. It was like my legs were just jelly. My knees were giving out almost every other step. I was so concerned about being able to continue.
Jen: Yeah, so from that point on, we made a stop for lunch. Michal brought us to this cute little inn and restaurant that was kind of on the side of the road. Unfortunately, it was pretty forgettable, um, but it was nice to be able to take a break and to experience some local Czech food.
Greg: Yeah. So we drove for, I think it was a little over an hour, to a location called Bastei, which is on the German side of the border. And Bastei is this area with, like, some iconic rock formations and misty mountaintops. And there's, uh, a bridge that they built at one point so that people could get out there and view all of this, ah, scenery and nature. There's old castle ruins that were, like, made of wood because that's how long ago it was made. So it’s, it's definitely kind of a peak spot that people like to tour. And when we get there, we get up to the spot where you, you pay for your entry. Michal turns and looks at me and he basically says, “Can you go on? Because if not, there's a different route and it's just all flat.”
And I kind of felt bad because there's other people on this tour who signed up for something and they might miss out because I'm just so weak. And I just asked, “Like, how many steps are we talking about?” And he just kind of, like, pondered and said, “Uh, about 30.” And I will tell you…that was a bold faced lie!
Jen: (laughs) Yeah, because if you know Greg, he counted every single step because when we got to the top, he was going to prove a point!
Greg: Yeah…it was over 300 steps!
Jen: Yeah. And so when Greg gave Michal a hard time about those, quote/unquote, 30 steps, Michal kind of turned around and said, “Well, I did say it was approximately 30.”
Greg: Yeah! Now, fortunately, this area was nothing like going down the Wild Gorge, which was very natural. There's mud and rocks, and that's how you're getting down. This was architected. It was built specifically as a tourist area. So the steps were very wide, very shallow. It was easy to kind of get through them. And even though my body had kind of given out, if I took it slow, I could make it the way that everybody else got to see all the cool stuff. And, you know, to be honest, it really was worth it, even though I was in pain.
Jen: Fun fact about this location, the final scene of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel was actually filmed right there at the Bastei Bridge.
So we got back in the van and drove probably about an hour to our third and final stop of the day to an area called Tisa Rocks, which is really cool because parts of the movie Chronicles of Narnia were filmed there. And this is a really unique place because it has lots of sandstone formations and surrounded by forest that just made it really magical.
Greg: Yeah. Unfortunately, from the van to the area we were going was a long walk. Fortunately, the incline was not as bad, but my body had given up. So very, very slow - both Jennifer and I. The 20-something-year-old fashion school girl, still so much energy. And to her credit, she never once complained about how slow we were going or how much attention Michal was having to pay to us. Um, the Australian woman was still having a good time because her speed was not much better than ours. But, you know, Michal did have to really keep his eye on us while we were going on this piece, too.
Jen: Yeah, I think he paid a lot of attention to us because he was really concerned he might have to use his CPR certification when we had a heart attack. But we finally made it to the main area and it's all these different rock formations. There's, like, caves and archways. And the young girl was just kind of hopping all over these rocks like a little mountain goat. And it was really cool to see.
Greg: If you have a mind for history, you really get drawn back and see all of this as prehistoric man would have. It's like, oh, that would have been a great shelter. Oh, I bet you could have fires right there. Or perhaps this whole area would make a good spot for hunting. It was a different kind of aspect to what we had seen before on this tour, but still really interesting.
Jen: Yeah, so the pinnacle of this whole thing was this flat rock that kind of juts out. And it reminded us so much of Pride Rock from The Lion King. And even Michal made that comment.
Greg: And even though our bodies were really hurting, we did still find the energy to get up on top of that thing and look out into the nature area below where it overlooked.
But from there, Michal likes to take a different path so that you see other things while you're going back to the van. And at one point, he turned around and looked at me and said, “Do you think you can make this?” So I look at him and see this really sketchy area. It's some very narrow, steep stone steps that were old and broken and there was a metal handrail that was rusted out and decayed. And the steps, besides being very deep, were very short. So I immediately turned around at Jen with this look on my face and said, “Are you going to be okay?!”
Jen: I looked at what we were going to have to go down. And I immediately start crying. I was exhausted. I was hurting, wet, cold, all of that. And Greg just looked at me and went, “HEY, just look at me. We can go a different way if you want to.” And I took a minute and I was trying my best to summon the courage. And I said, “NO, I'm gonna do it.” And I did.
Greg: So Michal went down in front of her and she had one hand holding on to him. With her other hand, she was holding on to me, who was right behind her. And yes, she did cry the whole way down. But I do look at this moment and very often I explain it as…this is what bravery looks like because she was just not in a place to take on this challenge. Exhausted, in pain, still miserable because of stepping in that mud puddle. But she said, no, I'm going to do it. And she did. And that to me, that's bravery.
Jen: Yeah, and I felt so bad for Michal because his face the entire time I bawled down the stairs was like, “What have I gotten myself into?” (laughs)
Greg: Oh, he clearly looked like he felt so guilty.
Jen: But we wound up doing it. And after it was all over, I was really proud of myself! That's not normally what I would do. I probably would have said, “Oh, we can go the easier way.” But I didn't want anybody else to miss out on it, so…
Greg: Yeah. So, long way back to the van, very slow for us, but we got there. And we should point out, you know, it was a couple of hours to get back to the hotel, but all of the times that we were driving between stops, the conversation in the van was very lively. And despite being emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted, we did tend to laugh and have fun with the other two guests and with our tour guide. Looking back, I think it was probably worth it.
Jen: Yeah, I think it was definitely worth it. It took us a little bit to get to that point of saying (laughs) it was worth it, but the Wild Gorge was just really beautiful, and the scenery itself was very idyllic. The Bastei Bridge was awesome as well because the misty mountain peaks just made everything so cool, and the old wooden castle ruins had terrific views. Tisa was super cool because the interesting rock formations were just so unique, and everything we saw was so pretty.
Greg: Yeah, I think it's also easier for us to remember the good and forget all of the struggles and the pain the more time goes by from when we were doing it all.
Jen: Yeah, I agree. (laughs)
Greg: The next morning at the hotel, we woke up and we were both so stiff and so sore that we could hardly move. Getting up to go to the bathroom was such a struggle that we just immediately looked at each other, like, “What are we gonna do?”
Jen: Yeah. But thankfully, our hotel had an in-house spa and we decided to see if they had openings for that morning for massages.
Greg: Yeah, which they squeezed us in. And there were two masseuses, but the one who got me was maybe all of 90 or 100 pounds. And I was absolutely convinced this was going to be a waste of money because there's no way this girl is going to be able to get my muscles to loosen up. But I was dead wrong.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: I mean, the moment where I could feel each of those muscles in my leg just finally, like, let go. Ohhhh, that was heavenly. It was almost like a high.
Jen: So I was sitting out front with a glass of water and Greg's masseuse comes out and looks at me and just goes, “I'm sorry”, with this look on her face. And I was like, “What's wrong?” I was certain he had passed out in the back or something had happened. And she goes, “It just took me a while because his muscles were very tight.”
So Greg comes out of the back and he had this look on his face. And I think high would be a good description of that.
Greg: Yeah, you know, when they talk about, like, dopamine hits, I think I was really feeling that effect. I mean, I gave that poor girl a hug. I was, like, this little thing managed to press down into my muscles like she was a 300-pound gorilla.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: In any case, both masseuses said that we were kind of in bad shape and needed to stay off of our feet for a couple of days.
Jen: Yeah, but we didn't want to be in Prague and not see Prague. Because at this point, we really hadn't seen any of the city.
Greg: Right! And there was one thing about Prague that we really kind of wanted to do, which was called the Royal Route, which is like a historical coronation path. They would walk from what's called the Powder Tower across Old Town, across Charles Bridge. And you end up at Prague Castle. So we said, we're going to catch an Uber to Prague Castle and we're just going to walk it backwards. So the masseuse tells us, stay off your feet.
Jen: Don't climb stairs…
Greg: We proceed to walk six plus miles that day.
Jen: And there were a lot of stairs...
Greg: Yes. So the castle in Prague was really kind of neat to walk around. But, you know, there were kind of really long lines for all of the interior tours. So we just kind of skipped those sections.
Jen: Yeah. So once we were done kind of looking around those areas, we walked on to St. Nicholas Church. And by this point, we were kind of getting a little less impressed with all the churches since we visited one in each major city that we had been in.
Greg: Sometimes more than one...
Jen: Yeah. (laughs) So we decided to grab lunch…and dessert. We got chimney cakes.
Greg: Yeah. So an interesting thing. Chimney cakes are called trdelník. It's this pastry that they wrap around a metal cylinder and then they bake it over an open flame. Then they roll it around in cinnamon and sugar. You'll see them everywhere in Prague's tourist areas.
Jen: Yeah, but they are not actually Czech at all. They're from Hungary and Slovakia. And I really wish, looking back on it now, that we would have done a chimney cake crawl like we did our Brussels chocolate tour. Because everywhere we looked, there were chimney cakes with toppings on them like candy. And then there were ice cream filled ones. And somehow I missed out on that. I still live with that regret.
Greg: Ha! Yeah.
So from there, we crossed Charles Bridge, which reminded us of Jackson Square in New Orleans because there were so many people. There were sketch artists and there were vendors and tourists and a lot of statues all along the bridge. It was a neat little place to walk.
Jen: Yeah, it was really cool. And you can look out over the water and see both sides of the city.
Greg: So from Charles Bridge, we did have a little bit of a disappointment when we tried for our next place was the Klementinum Library, which is a Baroque library. It was sold out and it made us really sad because from all the things we've seen online, it's supposed to be pretty amazing.
Jen: If you've never heard of it, the Klementinum Library is considered one of the most beautiful Baroque libraries in the world. And it was built in the 1720s, housing over 20,000 historical books and features beautiful frescoes on the ceiling, ornate wooden bookcases, and all these antique globes.
Yeah. So I think our tip for Prague would be if you want to see these things, definitely buy your tickets in advance because we didn't realize that they would sell out. But we missed out on a couple of pretty cool things.
Greg: Yeah. Uh, the next place we passed was the Astronomical Clock, which Prague is kind of famous for. But we did not see it do its famous show.
Jen: Yeah, we missed that. We were not there at the right time for sure. But we continued to walk on and we stayed in Old Town. So we were able to pass by Powder Tower, which was really close to our hotel.
Greg: Yep. And that's pretty much what we did in Prague. The next morning, we left by train to go to Vienna.
So, you know, wrapping things up here…Prague really was enjoyable. And as Jennifer mentioned, while we were there, it was understandable why so many young people, like college students, tend to go to Prague when they decide they want to go to Europe. Because it really seemed very affordable compared to, you know, the rest of Europe.
Jen: Right. I think maybe we were just spoiled, too, from coming from London and Paris. But I think it's a great destination to visit.
Greg: Yeah. But Vienna is better.
Jen: Yes. Vienna is so beautiful. And even though it's rated one of the best places in the world to visit, we still felt that it was very underrated.
Greg: Yes! Because there was one phrase I was repeating while we were walking around Vienna. “Whoa, what's that? Hey, what's that?”
Jen: Yeah, Greg was acting like I knew what all of these things were. Um, so Google Maps was definitely our friend on that trip.
Greg: Yeah. So we look forward to telling you guys about Vienna. And thanks for checking in.
Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!
