February 10th, 2024
For our last full day in Prague, Naomi and I decided to go
on a long, sightseeing walk. We had
looked at the weather forecast a few days before, and Saturday looked like the
most promising and thankfully it turned out to be right. We planned to do a big clockwise circle:
crossing the Vltava River on the Legion Bridge, up the
Petrin Hill to then climb up the Petrin Tower, north to the Prague Castle and
then back over to the east side of the river, finishing with the Charles Bridge
as we had only seen it at night so far.
It looked like it we would be walking about 8-9 kilometers.
One of Prague's many trams:
The Petrin
Hill is about 130 meters in elevation gain through a nice park and the
tower is 63.5 meters tall. It was built
in 1891 and resembles the Eiffel Tower. At
first Naomi was reluctant to scale the Petrin Lookout
Tower as there’s no elevator, just 299 stairs! Luckily, I was able to convince her, and we
both enjoyed the view from the top, but Naomi did not enjoy the fact that the
tower swayed a little bit in the strong wind!
The tower has two sets of stairs (one up and one down) that intertwine
in a double-helix. This was a good idea
as they were pretty narrow. However, on
our way down we encountered a couple of groups who had obviously not seen the
signs and were going up the wrong way.
The funicular going up the Petrin Hill didn't seem to be operating.
Afterwards, we walked our way across the greenspace towards the Prague Castle. We had clocked about four kilometres at this point, so we opted to stop for a drink and a snack before heading into the castle. We sat at a table on the sidewalk of the street leading to the castle. Naomi enjoyed some mulled wine (hot wine with some spices) while I had a beer, and we shared some excellent French fries. While enjoying our break, a parade passed by on the street with numerous people dressed up. Even the waitresses didn’t know what was going on but Naomi found out online that is was the Masopust Festival, a traditional Czech carnival feast. It did provide a bit of entertainment.
Refreshed and recharged, we walked to the Prague Castle which was built in the 9th century. It serves not only as a tourist attraction, but the residence and workplace for the president of the Czech Republic. It is the largest ancient castle in the world, occupying 750,000 square feet.
We purchased our tickets which gave us access to a number of buildings. We decided to go in the biggest, most prominent building which was the St. Vitus Cathedral. It is an impressive building with the main tower reaching up almost 103 meters. It’s cavernous inside with a super high ceiling, thanks to its “flying buttresses”…a word that was new to Naomi.
Next, we ventured into the Old Royal Palace,
which wasn’t terribly exciting.
Our last stop in the castle was a narrow pedestrian street
with tiny, colourful houses known as the Golden
Lane. The environment attracted
numerous writers and artists, including Franz Kafka. There was a suit of armour pointing up a set
of stairs. I’ve always had a bit of an
interest in knights and castles! so we walked up the steps. Inside was the biggest collection of suits of
armor that I’ve ever seen down the narrow yet long room. It was impressive. In the other direction from the stairs were a
variety of weapons and a small room showing a mixture of torture devices.
Having had enough of the castle, we decided that it would be
prudent to hit the washroom before continuing the 2-3 kilometres of walking
that we had left in our tour. Most toilets,
or WCs (water closets) as they are typically known as in the Czech Republic, require
payment that ranges from 10 to 20 crowns ($0.60 to $1.20 CAD). Often there are automated gates and you put
your change into a slot to access the bathroom.
Alternatively, there was an attendant who could give you change if you
needed. At this place, there were two
turnstiles but no attendant.
I put my 50-crown coin into the slot as a sign showed a
picture of accepted coins and I just saw 10 and 50 but didn’t look closely at
the picture. I figured that it was going
to give me change but the coin simply popped out below. I tried again, and then a third time. A woman who was leaving the restroom said
that she had trouble with it, and I thought she said that she had just ducked under
it. I really needed to go so I decided “Screw
it” and snuck under the turnstile.
Suddenly there was a loud pounding on the one-way mirror window beside
the other turnstile which I hadn’t even noticed…I was busted. A furious woman in her early 30s came out and
I pleaded my case that it wouldn’t accept my coin. She berated me and showed that the sign said
only 10 crowns, or a 50 Euro cent coin would work. I felt like a scolded 5-year-old boy. She took my 50-crown coin and went back into
her booth to get me some change. Sheepishly
I put my coin into the machine and entered the bathroom as Naomi was probably
giggling under her breath. We both agreed
afterwards that the lady was a bit over the top with her reaction.
We headed out of the castle and down towards the river and
then towards Charles
Bridge. As we neared the structure,
originally built in 1357, we could hear some loud music. From up on the bridge, before reaching the river,
we could see a large group gathered around a stage with a band playing and
others around various food vendors. A
lot of the people were dressed up and we clued in that this is where the Masopust
Festival was finishing.
It was late Sunday afternoon, so the bridge was full of people. We snapped some pics as we crossed and contemplated
whether to go back to the hotel or to a destination that we had planned to visit
the day before. It would have been a
fitting last stop after the miniature train museum, but we had run out of time. Even though it was going to add another kilometre
and a half of walking to our already long trek, we decided to go for it.
A co-worker of Naomi’s who
lives in Prague had emailed her some ideas of places/sights to see and one that
caught my attention was the Vytopna
Railway Restaurant. She mentioned
that it was a restaurant where small trains brought the drinks and food to your
table! How cool is that. We had to check it out…and it did not
disappoint.
Located on the long boulevard
known as Wenceslas
Square, near the National Museum,
it was on the second floor of a six storey building. As we waited a few minutes to be seated, there
was a large flatscreen TV with a schematic of the train tracks and a real-time
tracking of each locomotive with their distinctive Czech names such as Petr or Nikola.
Walking to our table, which was really just a section along the track, we passed by the bar where the trains were bringing back empty glasses, moving around to the other side of the bar, being loaded with drinks and then heading off to their thirsty customers. At the far end of the restaurant, we climbed up some stairs and then back down again, an easy way to get over the track. There were other spots in the restaurant where staff could lift a drawbridge, temporarily disconnecting the track, to avoid having to walk the long way around. Clientele could either duck under the bridges or ask a member of staff to lift it for them.
Naomi ordered a beer sampler
while I opted for a pint of IPA and we also got some weird kind of appetizer
that had some small slices of toasted bread with a meaty kind of thick spread
in a bowl. Naomi’s sampler of four small
glasses arrived first on a train. The train
automatically stopped, quietly hooted its horn, waited about ten seconds for
you to remove your drinks or food, “choo choo-ed” again, and then started on
its way.
All of the trains pull two
cars with either drinks or food on them.
Later, looking at the operating screen on the TV, I could see that a
train was either dedicated to going to the bar, to a table with drinks and back
to the bar, possibly with empties. Or it
was a food train that only went back and forth to the kitchen. I’m sure this made the logistics easier, but they
also had slightly different train cars.
Not everything went
according to plan with the trains. The locomotives
had a small metal spike on the top of them where the order, with the table
number on it, was stuck on by the bartender or kitchen staff. We noticed one train that was supposed to go
to the people near us, on the other side of a drawbridge, but it never changed
to the track closest to them in order to stop and give them their drinks. We watched as it went around a big circuit, passed
by us and then passed by them again and repeated the loop. Eventually a waitress was alerted and she
grabbed the drinks for them. You could
stop a train easily by just pushing down on it, but only the staff did
that. Turns out it was a problem with an
automatic railroad switch near us that wasn’t getting the train onto the
correct track.
It was fun to watch all of
the train action while sipping a beer and eating some food. Sure, it’s a big gimmick, but the place was
almost full so it must be working.
After a short stop at the
hotel in the early evening, we found a restaurant called Bistro Spelje, which was just a few blocks
away. It was perfect as neither of us were
that hungry after the train restaurant.
The idea of this place was that you helped yourself to a myriad or hot cold
tapas and small desserts. You were
charged by the number of skewers (like big wooden toothpicks) that you had at
the end of your meal. Some tapas were
one skewer, others were two. Each skewer
was 33 crowns or $1.90 CAD. It was yummy
and perfect in that you could decide how much you wanted to eat.
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Tomorrow, we have a flight
to London where we will spend a night and have dinner with Naomi’s cousin and
her husband before heading down to see my aunt, cousins, and their families in Weymouth,
in the south of England.
Děkuji Prague! (Thank you)
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