Praha

Due to our delayed flight from France, we got into Prague later than we were supposed to. By the time we found our Hostel we had 30 mins to get to the walking tour we had booked. We asked at reception how long it would take to get there and got told about 30 mins. So we made a mad rush, but got the tram in the wrong direction, got a bit lost and went to a Mexican restaurant instead.

I got some traditional Czech cuisine in the form of roasted duck with red cabbage and dumplings. Rachael got a shot of tequila. Actually she got a meal as well, but as alcohol is cheap as in Prague, she was very excited about the drinks.

One thing that has confused me a lot here is the whole tipping procedure. Our bill had a place where you wrote how much you wanted to tip, but we weren’t sure what you are supposed to give so we gave 10%. In Venice they didn’t even ask, we just got charged 15% on top of the total added at the bottom of the bill (which seemed a bit dodgy). I much prefer it in Australia where you don’t have to worry about these things.

At the hostel we had 2 free beers as a welcome gift at the hostel bar, so we went to enjoy those (well I did) and Rachael tried some more shots. The bar guys were getting right into it, dancing like mad and cranking the music. It was a bit out-of-place considering there was only 3 people in the bar besides Rachael and I, and they were all on the computers using Facebook.

On DAY 2 we swapped over to our 5 star Hotel. It was very fancy, and we even had a porter take our luggage upstairs for us, but I have a feeling that a 5 star Hotel in Australia would have been a bit better. We weren’t complaining though, after some of the places we had stayed at in Italy we were living in luxury - although it’s a bit of a waste of money because we didn’t spend much time at the Hotel with so much to see in only 2 days.

Exploring the old town, we were lucky enough to arrive during a food festival with food markets everywhere with all kinds of different foods we hadn’t seen before. Everything was cooked on an open fire in front of you and it had an amazing atmosphere to it, I’m hoping that is what the Christmas markets will be like here in December.

After exploring the city a bit by ourselves, we went on the free walking tour for Prague. Like the previous tours, the tour was excellent and we got to hear lots of interesting stories about the city. We got to visit the Louvre again, or at least the building that was supposed to be the Louvre in the movie “Euro Trip”. Lots of movies are apparently filmed in Prague because everything is so cheap there. There was lots of other cool stories and places to see, and the history of Czech Republic itself was quite interesting as well.

After the tour we had some dinner, this time I got a porkknuckle, but it wasn’t as epic as the one I had in Munich. The dumpling was a bread one as well, so not as cool as the potato one I had at Augustiner. I had a beer which was called a semi-dark beer. Petr told me later that it’s actually a dark beer and a light beer mixed together. Rachael got some Goulash, which was also nice.

Having missed our paid tour the night before, Rachael rang up and we were able to go on a different tour the next night. Worst. Tour. Ever. We met the lady at Charles Bridge for the tour, and it was just us and a Japanese couple. She told us we would quickly meet her friend at the other side of the bridge, which turned out to be her date, who we suspect was a bit drunk. The actual tour itself was quite nice I suppose, we got a train up to the top of the hill and then walked through a nice park down towards Prague castle. It was a nice area and a nice walk. As far as the tour was concerned though, we didn’t learn too much. The information we did gain came about through questions we asked her, but besides answering our questions she wasn’t very forthcoming with information.

On DAY 3 we got to experience a 5 star breakfast, and it was indeed the best breakfast of the trip. It was basically on par with the breakfast I got at Hamilton Island one time, but after the breakfasts we’d had at previous places it was truly unbelievable. I don’t think I’ve ever had banana cake for breakfast before. After breakfast, we walked up the hill to visit Prague Castle.

Prague Castle - it looks epic from down at the city looking up at it. So imagine how cool it actually must be to walk up and go inside - it was …. meh. The church was cool but after being to the Vatican it was rather dull. There was an art gallery which was cool, but after being to the Louvre it was also not that special. The actual castle only had about 3 rooms you could visit and while they were nice, failed to impress us. I think maybe if it had been the first stop on our journey we would have been far more appreciative, but we left a little disappointed at how little there was to see for a ticket that I’m pretty sure cost twice that of the Louvre.

We walked back down to the city to pick up our luggage, and then found our way to the train station, where we waited for our bus to Nürnberg. The bus ride out of Prague was beautiful, the countryside of Czech Republic was just spectacular. I think it was mostly because of all the autumn leaves adorning the trees, but I am sure it looks pretty good during the rest of the year as well.

We listened to some Tim Minchin on the bus as we drove along the Autobahn, then got to the town of Nürnberg. If we didn’t have luggage and it wasn’t dark I would have loved to explored, but instead we spent the time waiting for the next train playing Eye-Spy. From here we got an ICE train to Munich. The ICE trains are crazy fast, 269km/hr it said it was going on the LED display. And yet it was the quietest and smoothest train we have been on. Pretty impressive.

Eventually we arrived in Munich, and made our way to the Jäger Hostel. At the Jäger Hostel you get a free shot of Jäger, but as it was midnight and we were exhausted, we just went straight to sleep as we had to be up early the next day.