Prague, Czech Republic

Travelogue EE 1: Munich & Prague

MUNICH & PRAGUE

05 – 08 August 2010

Our adventure began with using the Gautrain for the first time. Beating the rush hour in Sandton was the first victory, the short queues and helpful kiosk assistants were the second and the literal 12 minute train journey the coup de gras! Well worth the R100 each!

Victory was hollow however, having arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport pre-5pm for a 20h40 flight and waiting around for the check-in gate numbers to be posted, which just never happened. When we eventually got to check in, we were horrified to find that we had seats pre-booked by our travel agent (the lovely people at eBucks who had almost lost my ticket completely because they spelled my name wrong in the original booking) THIRTY PLUS rows apart. Awesome. We managed to change them, but the only seat left side-by-side were in the middle of the middle of the 4 seat rows.

Turned out OK though as somehow Lufthansa seems to have INCREASED the size of their seats and the amount of legroom… although this loss of income clearly must be subsidised by their savings on the entertainment front – the only ‘new’ movie was Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Junior one), the majority ‘classics’ and the never-tempting Avatar in a category all to itself. Lufthansa must be monitoring my Twitter account as they managed to thwart the ‘chicken AND beef’ strategy by only having lamb left by the time they got to us. Hhhmpf.

Fortunately we had very quiet and reserved neighbours (and half a sleeping tab each) so managed 6 hours of uninterrupted blissful slumber, waking just in time for the ‘quiche’ breakfast. Amazing what those airline chefs can do with (or rather, to) an egg!

We had an 8 hour stop-over in Munich until the flight to Prague, so we darted into town to the Marienplatz for a very early beer, sausage and pretzel breakfast. The Germans are clearly very experienced with their sausaging; marvellous idea to serve them (in this case weisswurst white veal sausages) in a turine of boiling water to keep them juicy and hot. Slicing and dicing them, dipping into sweet mustard and complementing with sections of salty bready pretzels makes for a wunderbar snacky-cake!

Pity the weather was lousy, very drizzly and mizzy, so we didn’t do much walking around… but we did find the Hofbrauhaus! Big Daddies all round! Christian got bust doing the photo ninja to an Oriental group. They took it in good spirits however and asked if we would actually pose in a picture with them. Mom and teenage son piled onto our beer bench and – arms around shoulders and toothy grins later – Dad took the pics. Christian then offered to take a pic of them, which they seemed quite excited about, clambering over each other to let him out, then letting mom in to sit next to me for the next ‘family holiday pic’.

Further family fun was provided due east of our table where a pre-teen was sitting with dad (?) and uncle (?) enjoying his Hot Wheels colouring-in book between swigs on a pint. To be fair though, he was only drinking pints and not 1 litre steins like the rest of us! Ironically, the oldies next to us were giving US the beady eye while we were trying to surreptitiously get a photo of the young ‘un.

Attempted without success to find a pizza bar to get a good pic of “Germans in the Pizza Bar” for the album (See F***ing Fulfords reference) and then it was back to the airport without incident (or excitement) (but maybe a short nap) and we were off to Prague!

Taxi guy waiting when we got there, we were planted at the apartment, with Christian’s cousin Lucy and her hubby Mick all ready and waiting to meet-and-greet with cold beers and Cava sparkling wine (and Mick’s genius refrigerated glasses). Anyone planning to stay at Krakovska 3 when visiting Prague should know that Apartment 19 (Mick & Lucy’s) was the one used for the photos for all the web references. The rest of the building looks nothing like it. They got the looks, but we got the TV and washing machine. Granted only sport and Czech channels and it was our first day so we had no washing, but still…

Straight off into the Prague night, deftly avoiding being too close to one-man-bandness and super-chuffed to be where we were, we slugged back some beers and played catch-up and nice-to-meet-yous.

Prague is excellent, but don’t eat at Mike’s Cafe. We did. Trying to sample Czech cuisine, we’d bypassed firm favourites like the Colonel and Mickey D’s and the one-on-every-corner pizza/pasta spots to find somewhere authentic. Drinks served and ready to order from their Czech Speciality section, we were told they were out of Goulash and Czech Chicken (which was 3 of our 4 orders). Hmmmm.

Christian and I ordered the pork steak, which was served looking and tasting a lot like beef steak, but the waiter, having consulted his notepad (rather than the meal itself) was indignant and aggressively insistent that it was pork. No chance. Mick had the ‘tabaco’ chicken, which was described in the menu as ‘chicken (with garlic, spicy)’. When Mick asked the waiter what the chicken was all about he said it was “chicken, with garlic. spicy”. Very helpful. Especially from someone who’d moments earlier told us that they were out of chicken.

Nonetheless, good time had by all… and we headed for home to rest up for the Big Weekend ahead. Sniffles had set in, likely from the plane germs and walking around in the rain, so Mother Cain’s Care Package was welcome solace, with a comforting Lem Sip putting us out like lights. Very street.

SATURDAY

Saturday was sadly also intermittently rainy, but didn’t dampen spirits! Our hotel was amazingly well situated, right at the top of Wenceslas Square by the museum, making for easy landmarking and being a natural starting point to adventure through the centre, past the Astronomical Clock, over King Charles Bridge and into the Old Town (and up the hill trek to the castle etc). Found a most excellent pub to wile away the afternoon in – medieval tavern style – dark and dingy and all by candlelight. A quick beer became several (as we do).

Disillusioned from previous night’s meal debacle, we decided to play it safe and opt Indian. We shared a lamb madras and a butter chicken, with garlic Naan bread (and the inevitable ubiquitous Praha beer) – a rare gem on Stepanska Street and really recommendable (and the Cain / Lawton / Newcombe lines are no beginners to curry, I’m told).

A lick and a promise later, we were out for the night, ditching the planned tour pub crawl because it was too far to mission in the rain and sliding down the stairs to the Majora Zemana pub literally next door to the hotel. Interesting spot. hundreds of open books nailed to the roof to create a lowered layered ceiling, weird wallpaper of pages from what looked like genetic experiments and rare diseases, life-size mannequins in military uniforms, weird Communist looking portraits painted directly onto the walls, arms and ammunition suspended from the rafters and a map showing what Europe would have looked like in 1941. Tried to take some pics, but the waitron rushed over, index finger extended and wagging and told us ‘No photo! No photo! Police bar’. Uh-huh.

The rest of the pub crawl relied more on us and our witty banter and cracking humour to keep ourselves entertained – 2 Irish bars, a rock ‘n roll themed bar and the knock-knock Club (24-hour with slot machines, crusty locals, dodgy Czech music-heavy jukebox and Blade 2 on the TV).

A good night had by all 🙂

SUNDAY

On Sunday we did the last of the city that we hadn’t seen in ‘abundant sunshine’ (Mick’s weather forecaster’s prediction) and succumbed to pizza slices for breakfast – although in our defence we had entered the sandwich shop we got them from in order to buy, you guessed it, sandwiches. They ‘were out’. Same like the Czech dishes the night before, but different.

We had a really good river stroll which showed us most of the city from a whole new perspective – and it was the perfect weather for it – and then wandered through the old town again and headed back up towards our hotel from an unchartered angle.

Found a delightfully local looking spot to have lunch – finally tracking down the goulash we’d been after. Good 3 course meal option. Easy for us, not so much for Lucy. Being a vegetarian, she wasn’t doing the goulash, but inquired about the breaded cauliflower, only to be told they ‘were out’. False alarm this time though and they came back resolved that they indeed had it and she was on the 3-course bandwagon. Only to find that the lentil soup we’d been served for starters had bacon in it! Clearly, I’m not the only person who thinks bacon is garnish and should be an honorary vegetable!

Fed and watered (well, beered), we meandered back to the hotel, got our stuff, said our goodbyes and headed for the train station. Christian is really good at the time-keeping thing (me not so much) so we were (over-)cautiously early, with a good 45 minutes on our side. And then the train was delayed. What a waste of what could have been more Praha-haha time.

No mind though, very comfortable train and fleeting journey, taught Christian Spite & Malice (the very best card game ever) and before we knew it we were in Hotel Kyjev in Bratislava.

But more about that at another time…