Night Trains and Prague

To begin I've been rereading my previous posts and noticed that I have commited a tremendous amount of spelling errors and mistakes. So I blame it on foreign keyboards and lack of sleep.

When I first heard of the concept of night trains I thought it was the perfect solution to a) saving money since I wouldn't have to pay for a hostel one night and b) it would be less of a hassle than flying. Well I was right about the cheaper. I dont know if  part b was actually true. So we start by taking the amazingly named ICE trains which is the German version of high speed intercity trains and the trip went well. We made it to Dusseldorf from Essen in around 24 mins. We arrive at the Dusseldorf HBF and it is as busy as any modern airport with people of all ethnicites and nationalities walking about trying to get to their destination. This is however where the problems started. Frankly put: our train was not listed anywhere. We went up to the information desk and the lady completely shut us down and got surly. She could not believe that we had the gall to ask if the train was still coming.

We ended up realizing after much scrutiny that our train was actually made up of 3 different trains. One part was heading to Prague, the one we needed, one was heading to Moscow, and one was heading to Copenhagen. After making sure we got onto the right section of the train we quickly came to the realization that there was a lack of seats and only private booths and couchettes. We ended up ducking into a private booth that was empty and feared when the conductor came by to chec our tickets . We didnt get kicked out but people who actually had assigned seats came by and the booth ended up being completely packed. To cut a long story short, it was by far the craziest 11 hour trip of any kind I have ever taken. We still have one more night train ride from Budapest to Munich left on our intinerary which is 11 hours. We however upgraded those seats to couchettes so maybe we'll be travelling in comfort.

So Prague. Our time here has been hands down the most relaxing portion of the trip in my opinion. Its been nice and sunny, which a light breeze and we have just wondered the city soaking in the sights and the suprisingly cheerful nature of the city. I was expecting a grey overcast city that was dark and gothic and burdened by Communism  but what we got was a city that was bright , full of life and where the beer is cheaper than water. Ive read somewhere that this is one of the only major cities that avoided devastation during wwII and it shows as its old nature has been maintained. It is also very green and suprisingly romantic.I would completely recommend making a stop here  a central-eastern european trip is on the horizon. It is rather small and the 3 full days we spent here was more than enough but even today our third day here we have managed to find new things to do. Of note was our pedal boat trip down the river which gave us a unique view of the city.

Tomorrow we travel to Budapest where we will hopefully go to the turkish baths.

Adeu,
Alan