PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, 17/18 AUGUST 2022

‘9 to 5’ is usually a phrase I think of about working, but since arriving in Europe, it has been my sleeping hours. By 9pm I am exhausted and ready to crash, and by 5am I am awake, up and ready for action! Thankfully the bouts of tiredness throughout the day as as result of jet-lag have eased and the days are starting to feel like days and the nights, nights.

We had booked tickets for the 9.16am train from Berlin to Prague and arrived at Berlin Central Station in plenty of time to locate our platform and have a cup of tea while people watching. We decided not to have breakfast at the hotel before we left, thinking that breakfast in the train’s dining car might be fun. The hotel apologised for the broken air-conditioning by deleting Tuesday’s breakfast bill, so that was a good way to start the day 🙂

Berlin Central Station is large and modern, with a suitable amount of old world charm including original facades, steps and handrails. Our train pulled up about 5 mins before the due time and along with a large crowd we boarded, found our reserved seats and stored our luggage. A young German woman was sitting in one of the reserved seats and so Dave sat in the spare one across from me. It seems only about 1/2 of the passengers pay the extra few euros for reserved seating so there was a regular game of chair swapping around the carriage as we settled in and the train left the platform.

It also seems that trains are often overbooked. At some points there were dozens of people sitting and standing in the aisles – which must have been pretty uncomfortable considering it was a 4.5 hour journey.

The train followed a river for much of the journey, and it was such a lovely view on a sunny (and hot) day. I tried to type up the Berlin Blog post, but ended up typing it into a word document and then giving up a tad frustrated by slow internet, glaring sun and a dodgy keyboard without the letter Y 😉

Rather than both lose our seats and potentially having to fight to get them back, Dave went to the dining car alone for breakfast with a promise to bring some food back. He reported his eggs and bacon as ‘tasty and cheap’ and returned with a few broken pieces of bread and butter for me… not quite what I was hoping for but I just ate it and settled in for landscape and people watching as we raced across the German countryside. Apparently I was asleep as we crossed into the Czech Republic and as our arrival time of 1.30pm approached we began to see more built up areas, factories and houses.

It was a short (15 mins) if not easy walk to the hotel. Four-wheeled suitcases are not ideal on cobblestone pathways, let me tell you! The hotel is quite close to the middle of old town Prague which has the most amazing architecture and atmosphere.

It’s not often I get hungry. Lets face it, the sensation is probably pretty unfamiliar to many of us when we have food so readily available. Next time you see Dave feel free to ask him his thoughts on me being ‘Hangry’… its certainly not pretty. I’m not sure if it’s my diabetes, my food obsession, my tiredness, or all three, but I was not in a good state when we set off on foot after dumping our bags in our room, to find some lunch. We spotted a cute café right on the main mall in the centre of old town and I quickly ordered goulash soup and a salmon salad and Dave ordered some sweet potato fries. I should have known better then to have a late lunch in a tourist area, so it wasn’t a great experience and I was certainly a little testy by the time the food arrived 40 minutes after we ordered it!

Appetite sated, we wandered the streets of old town Prague. It is so very beautiful and I can see why so many people like to come here. Apart from devouring a Trdelnk – a sugar coated pastry cone filled with custard, cream and strawberries, we just wandered and watched for a couple of hours, enjoying the scenes, sites and smells of this amazing city.

A shower, brief nap and unpack and it was time to head to the Blue Duck Restaurant for our 7pm dinner booking. We ordered an Uber as the Restaurant was on the other side of the river. 10 minutes and A$8 later (in a lovely new Mondeo), we had arrived at the restaurant well-known for its duck and other game meats. It’s not often I order the same meat for entrée and main course, but since it was their speciality, I did. Duck Foie Gras for entrée and Confit Duck Maryland for main course. Both were quite traditional, even served with piped puree potatoes. Both dishes went down well with a glass of Czech Chardonnay and Dave’s choice of Lamb Shanks was reported to be as ‘good as you get in Australia’ 🙂 Another Uber back to the Hotel (how good is it that you can use our Uber account in so many places in the world) and I was asleep within minutes. I started a new book, but only got about 20 pages in when I could hold my eyes open no more!

PART 2 – Day 2

Today was as varied as you could imagine – a ‘Military’ tour with a local guide in the morning and a Foodie walking tour in the afternoon. No prizes for guessing who chose which part of the day!

Having said that, I think I enjoyed the morning and Dave enjoyed the afternoon much more than either of us expected.

For those of you that, like me, don’t know a lot about Czech history, the then Czechoslovakia was an integral part of WW2 having been occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 until the end of the war. We started the day around 30kms north of Prague visiting the house where Reinhard Heydreich (known as the ‘Butcher of Prague’ for his role as Hitler’s Deputy and Governor of Czechoslovakia ) lived before his assassination by English trained Czech parachutists in May 1942. Next stop, the nearby Panenske Brezany Upper Chateau which contained the memorial to National Oppression and Resistance followed by a quick stop at the sight of the dramatic assassination which changed the direction of the war in the region from occupation to vengeance – with thousands of Czech citizens killed in Nazi reprisals over the following months. The tour finished with a visit to the church where the assassins were trapped in a crypt under the church before they suicided to prevent capture.

Our driver, Prem, then dropped us to the base of the Petrin Hill Funicular where we took the short ride up the hill for some lovely city views and a well needed ice-block – it was 33c by 2pm! Dave was particularly happy that his age allowed him free travel 🙂

After a brief rest, it was time to walk to the Bankers Bar, our meeting point for the Prague Foodie Tour. Our lovely guide Caroleena, met nine of us there and immediately introduced the 4 x Aussies (including us), 1 x Kiwi and 4 x Americans to each other and her. First stop was a Communist themed beer hall where we were all offered a beer, wine or soda. Being a non-beer drinker I chose a local chardonnay – it was lovely and dry and delicious. We also received a huge range of ‘beer snacks’ including marinated cheese, a variety of sausages, potato salad, pickled herring, Prague ham with creamed horseradish and my favourite, deep fried gouda cheese!

 We continued on to a small local organic butcher where we tasted their meatloaf in a fresh bun with pickles. Butchers that also have a BBQ grill – what a fabulous idea!

From the butcher we caught the underground metro a couple of suburbs to visit a modern trendy restaurant called KRO Kitchen where we enjoyed slowly cooked beef with horseradish sauce and potatoes, roasted chicken with tikka masala sauce, potato pancakes and grilled vegetables with brown butter. I also had a Johannes cider and Dave a delicious fruit soda.

Are you getting overwhelmed with the list of food we tried – by this stage I thought I was going to explode and even after a 20 minute walk to our next destination I had no idea how I was going to fit anything more in – until I set eyes on the potatoes in ashes with creamy potato foam at Eska, a Michelin rated restaurant that focuses on seasonal and local food – right up my alley 🙂 The potatoes were washed down by a fabulous Gin and Tonic with the tonic made in-house. When the vetrnik (fruit/pastry/cake) and red current sorbet arrived for dessert I could only take a mouthful of each – but they were so delicious!

Our final stop (thank goodness, you say) was to a super cool hipster bar called Liquid Office to have a local favourite, a butter becherovka sour cocktail.

What an amazing way to finish our time in Prague. If ever you visit here I highly recommend this tour… we now have lots of great food memories, restaurant recommendations and a nice bonus – 8 new friends!

Its now 9.15pm and, as seems to be my new routine, I am exhausted, super full and ready for bed. Tomorrow we head to Austria by train – I cant wait to see Vienna!