Off to Prague

2 May 2022.

Monday began with warm sun and a clear blue sky. We said our goodbyes to Glen and the kids (they were off to work and school respectively). After loading the car Christina drove us to the Parsberg train station where we caught the 10:07 train for Regensburg.

I had failed to attach the ticket to our Eurail pass while we still had Wifi access but no one checked for tickets during the 30-minute ride. We dodged that bullet.

Anyway, once inside the Regensburg station we tapped into their wifi, attached our Prague tickets to our passes and we were set. A little after noon our train arrived. We discovered the train had the old style seating of six seats to a compartment and we ended up sharing our compartment with a young
man from Australia. The train left on time and before long we were humming along through the Bavarian countryside. 

We found ourselves in a prolonged and engaging conversation with our compartment companion. He was 27 and worked installing home elevators back in Queensland, Australia. He was at the tail end of a work trip in Munich and wanted to spend a few days in Prague before returning to Munich where he would meet his girlfriend and the two of them would spend some quality time together in Germany/Austria/Italy. 

Our conversation covered a broad range of subjects and it was clear he was a keen learner (bringing up the magazine Foreign Affairs at one point!). But he was self-effacing, eager to learn more from others and a very interesting young man overall. 

Although the trip took over four hours the time flew by. After we crossed into the Czech Republic, our tickets were checked twice at different intervals. All three of us thought it a bit strange. One slight hiccup: there was supposed to be wifi available but none of us were able to connect. No big deal because we were there to see the Czech Republic.

I was actually drinking a Pilsener Urquell from Plzen as we passed through the town!

going incognito

passing through the Czech countryside.

When train arrived in Prague the weather was lovely: sunny and warm. Unfortunately for us we spent the better part of over an hour trying to figure out how to get out of the train station and to our apartment. The central problem was we didn't have wifi and the one store that sold SIM cards sold those only usable in the Czech Republic. So it seemed we wouldn't be able to get an Uber. On top of that there was no taxi stand anywhere (our host had warned us not to take taxis since their trip pricing leaned toward the creative).

Eventually we did discover that the train station had free wifi (duh!) which allowed us to get an Uber. After a short hike to find the pickup point and a 20 minute wait our driver appeared. He whisked us through town and dropped us off at the wrong location. Well, actually it was close but he had to turn around and eventually found the correct address.

I called our host and he showed up a few minutes later. You can see more details on the apartment right here.

We were home, at least for the next four days. After getting a tour of the apartment our host handed the keys and off he went. We settled in and walked a couple of doors down to Pilsnerka Narodni for supper. Susie had a Caesar salad and I had to try the goulash - very different from what I had in Salzburg but delicious nonetheless.

Tomorrow we're off to explore Prague!