February 9th, 2024
After the Museum of Fantastic Illusions and the Lego Museum,
you’d think that we would have been done for the day. But to make it a “little kid in a big body” trifecta,
we hopped on the subway to go a few stops to the other side of the Vltava River
to visit a miniature train museum called “Railway
Kingdom”.
A model of Prague:
We purchased our tickets and then had to go down a floor, to
the first floor of the museum. I needed
to go to the bathroom, which was yet another floor down, and happened to be the
main part of the museum so we ended up starting there. There were some race car tracks. The first one required you to turn a steering
wheel (with a knob on it) to propel your car as fast as you can around the
track. There were two tracks that
intertwined with each other with two cars on each. I really wanted to race Naomi but there were
some small kids with their grandparents using three of the four cars. We waited for a bit as I drove one car around
the track, which was a bit of a workout, but then decided to move on and maybe
return to it later.
That did not happen…as the next car racetrack we encountered
was awesome and I didn’t need to go back!
It was a big track and you used a remote control to steer your car
around the circuit. At first, I misread
a sign and thought that only kids were allowed to race the cars. Re-reading the sign and realizing that there
was no age restriction, we walked up the half dozen stairs to the track to see
about getting a turn. There was a young
man sitting near a table with a bunch of cars and controllers in disrepair or
charging. It seemed like we had to wait
our turn. Eventually the guy asked a
10-year-old kid if he wouldn’t mind letting us have a go. Sweet kid, he did. I told him I’d only do a lap or two but then
he left soon after, and I did way more that two laps. Naomi had a try first and then me. It took a bit of time to get familiar to the
controller, which was a standard remote-control car one, as I’ve never used one. It was fun!
We were probably there for 20 minutes and I could have stayed much
longer…but it was time to see what else was here.
Next was the massive model train diorama. Wow, was it ever impressive. It was the biggest and most detailed one that
I’ve ever seen. There was so much to
look at. Some parts portrayed areas in
the Czech Republic. We probably spent
about an hour working our way around the display as the lighting changed from
day to night every 10-15 minutes. There
were so many little scenes to find…like hidden nuggets. I’ll let you check out the photos to see some
of the things I found.
By the time we had finished racing cars and checking out the massive miniature train exhibition, we hardly had any energy or time left to look at some of the other displays, which included a portion of a life-sized tram (which are popular in Prague). We were “trained” out.
After the trains, we sat down for a late lunch in a pizzeria
restaurant and then headed back to the hotel.
That evening we met up with some of Naomi’s work colleagues. She works for SAP, a large international
software company, and they have an office in Prague. It was a fun evening with some dinner and
drinks.
What a day!
