Day 6: Prague

Another day spent on a train, with a bit of sightseeing thrown in for good measure.

This morning I was up at 7 so I could catch my third train, this one heading to Prague. Before I get on to the details of my train journey though, I have a little anecdote for you from checking out of the hostel in Berlin. Last night, somewhere between my room and the reception area, my key card mysteriously vanished out of my pocket. I thought I might have left it in my room so I got a spare one to go up and check, no luck though. Then this morning when I got up i noticed my spare card had vanished too! I left it on the floor beside my bed before i went to sleep, and when i woke up this morning it was gone. The guy at reception was really nice about it and gave me my 5 euro deposit back, even though I had somehow lost TWO of their cards. I still can't figure out what happened to them. Anyway, that's slightly off topic. Back to the train journey. The train from Berlin to Prague was straight through and took just over 4 hours. The last two hours was a scenic route as the train travelled alongside the path of a river. The river and the countryside and all the different coloured houses were made for a really pretty view. It has probably been one of my favourite train journeys so far.

When I got to Prague I managed to navigate the streets to my hostel (which is right opposite a police station). What should have been a 5 minute walk was made slightly longer by the fact that all the pavements in th city are made up of little tiles/stones (not good for a wheeled suitcase). The hostel is really nice, very traveller orientated. Im staying in a 16 person dorm, which currently has two interrailing girls from Finland and two girls and a boy from Germany who are on a roadtrip.

After a quick turnaround I was back out to explore the city, and to get some food. On the advice of the receptionist I found a nice bar/restaurant close by that served local food. For todays meal I had pork with red and white cabbage, bacon dumplings and bread (which is a lot more sour and doughy than the bread we are used to). The meal was really good, and very filling (I swear after this trip im going to have put on so much weight, thank god for all the walking I'm doing). After lunch I walked up to the river, past the Jewish Cemetery to Charles Bridge (which I will be crossing tomorrow). I walked along the river for a bit (which was really picturesque) to the Fred and Ginger Dancing Building (this really out of place modern strange architechtural building - I can't even describe it). I then took a loop of the city, heading back in the direction of the train station, past the national museum and Wencesles square (this really long, more rectangular shaped square opposite the museum). On my way past the station I popped in to check train times for fridays journey to Bratislava (9:42, my latest train yet!). By now i had been walking for quite a while, and had seen quite a lot of the city, so I decided to head back to the hostel to have a shower and an early night.

So there you have my first day in Prague, a city which has definitely lived up to my expectations (almost 4 years worth of them). And im pretty sure by the end of tomorrow I'll be saying that Prague is now my favourite city! Anyway, its time for bed once again. More blogging tomorrow.

Watch this space.

Lois x