Wrote this offline whilst on the sleeper from Prague to Krakow

I’ve never been on a sleeper train before. It is very romantic actually, I just got done playing Trivial Pursuit with one of my cabin-mates. Although that was a pretty naff thing to be doing, the stereotypes of sleeper-life are true. Realistically I’m just glad to be here at all.

Charlie and I tried to go out on the town in Prague last night but we didn’t get started until 11 (long day covering tourist attractions). We discovered that despite far more liberal drinking laws the Czechs close their bars (pivnices) at pretty much the same time as the English. The result is the same mass exodus which splits into one group going home and the other continuing to a club. Having only had one beer by midnight, we were in the former group. We went back to the hostel and grabbed a couple of beers there though and chatted to an American guy who was travelling before moving to London. We gave him all the inside knowledge on London’s idiosyncracies. We’d been walking around Prague all day however, so when we crashed we crashed hard.

This morning we got woken by the cleaning ladies who patiently asked us if we were meant to be checking out today. We were and we’d missed the big buffet breakfast, we needed to find a city to be in that night, a way to get there and a place to stay on arrival.

After spending about two hours holding up the internet machines in a crowded hostel reception it began to dawn on us that this might not be the get-up-and-log-on task that we’d hoped. I panicked a bit. We wanted to get to Krakow and we had either the day train which left in an hour and had no online booking or the sleeper. I’d just read in the Lonely Planet that the Prague-Krakow sleeper was stricken by crime, there were even stories about people having gas pumped into their cabins and then being unconcious while their stuff is taken. This kind of put me off, and I was trying to find a hostel for the night in Krakow quickly so we could run to the day train. There were none. OK, why not go to Bratislava instead. Again, no hostels. No rooms at our hostel in Prague either. I had to let somebody else use the machine for a bit while I got my head together and came up with a new plan. We decided to get the sleeper.

We walked from the hostel to Prague’s second train station, Praha Holesevice, which was just up the road. We were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get the tickets. The book said there would be no English-speaking and a complicated range of tickets and fares. Instead the guy spoke fine English and sorted it out quickly and easily. It even only cost £45 for both tickets.

After all that we decided to quit messing around with all the random wandering and decide on an itinerary and book it. It’s nice to wander, but it takes time or money to make it happen smoothly and we didn’t really have either. We spent a couple of hours finding places to stay and booking them, reading about transport and sorting that out too. We’d booked a flight out of Budapest for Sunday morning and we just filled in the blanks basically. By not deciding we would have wasted too much time trying to choose what to do from each city, by setting it down we can relax into it and enjoy it all the more.

So now we had everything we needed for at least three days, and more besides, we decided to wander into town and check out the Vysehrad at Ladislav the Alive-and-kicking’s request. It was a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon. The Vysehrad is a big fort with hardcore 30m defensive walls, a church on top and a graveyard containing Prague’s brightest and best skeletons. Afterwards we found a really nice place to eat and drink beer. I didn’t really massively support the Czech cuisine mode, but this place had steak and that was exactly what I needed. I’d been living on half-meals and snacks and good red meat was definitely appreciated.

We only had about 500 kurony left, so we kept an eye on the bill. In fact we got a starter, two mains and five beers within the budget. Then I fucked up. Just as we were about to leave I ordered water, as I often do. Normally I specify tap water, but I didn’t have the Czech and the waiter didn’t have the English for that. He gave me a bottle and, at more than twice the price of a beer, that put us over the amount of money we had. The guy didn’t take cards and he wouldn’t let us off the 12 kurony that we were short either. I set out to find a cash machine and wandered for half an hour until I found one. It refused to give me any cash however and by now I really needed the loo. I ran back to the restaurant and, sweating, we managed to persuade the guys to let us off the money. It was eight o'clock and our train was at quarter past nine and we really wanted to be early. The stupid thing was I even had a bottle of water in my bag.

We set off at top pace for the train station. We kind of missed the tram, but weren’t too worried, it was about three miles, but we had time for the walk. When we arrived at the station concourse though, we didn’t recognise what we saw at all. We searched desperately for the entrance where we had earlier deposited our bags in left luggage. At five to nine, studying the map, I realised that we had previously mistaken another station, used for local trains, for the main station. We panicked. Our luggage seemed quite a long way away, we were knackered from walking and we had twenty minutes. We ran, we ran until we reached the other station, which thankfully only took five minutes, and to great relief reclaimed our luggage. Then we ran back carrying our luggage and rejoiced when we made it to the platform with five minutes to spare.

The sleeper has been fine since then. As I write we’re just leaving Ostrava-Svinov still in the Czech Republic. We’ve had no passport checks yet and thankfully no gas attacks!

So that was Prague. It was nice enough but I don’t think it quite lived up to it’s reputation. It was certainly very cheap, but I found eating difficult. It was a shame we didn’t get to have a proper big night out, but it seemed pretty much like drinking in England, only cheaper and with a few non-English people around. The city by day was pretty lovely. I enjoyed sitting, reading and dozing in the castle grounds for a few hours. There were lots of beautiful sights as well. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t quite click with it. Maybe it was because we didn’t really relax into it. We walked around loads and loads and tried to fit lots in. I think maybe it would be nice to go back with either a resident or Ladislav the ex-resident. Relaxing into it that way would remove the barriers to finding the really nice place underneath.

It also sounds like Prague has changed quite a bit in the last few years. It’s very touristy and in the evenings is dominated by stags and hens drinking their way around the old town. I admit I failed to really engage with the culture in the day however, and maybe that would have been more fulfulling. Still, I had a really nice time and I’ve got some cool photos and memories out of it.

On to Krakow…

I’m actually in Krakow now, and it’s fat, but I’m going to go and enjoy it now and blog it all later :-)