Standard Tourist Area #1 - Karluv Most
2:30am is as good a time as any to start a travel log. Particularly if you are sitting in a cold (although incredibly half-empty) second (is there a thrid?) class compartment of a Prague-bound train, while some Bohemians (or Germans -- at 2:30 the differences fade) howl down the hall.
I owe the luxury of this cold, uncomfortable seat to a pretty Spanish woman. Just over three hours ago, I was happily relaxing in the usual first class cabin, waiting for the first lurch of a journey of a thousand lurches. I even had my shoes off. Instead of a lurch, however, came a conductor who herded everyone (in the best German tones) out of the car. It seems that this car was staying in Frankfurt.
With half-tied shoes and trailing my sweatshirt, I proceeded to the next car, looking for the magical number 1. Inching past overweight people with overstuffed bags, I clawed my way through the narrow corridor from one car to the next. I passed a number of comfy-looking (but occupied) second class compartments, still hoping.
About a minute later I felt I was back on the 405 at 8:30am. Quickly realizing the futility of the situation, I reversed course, jumped onto the platform, and asked the gaggle of conductors where the first class car was. I figured they said near the front of the train, but they could have been pointing to Paris.
There was in fact a first class car at the front of the train, but it was a sleeper, with a stern guard at the door to keep out the riff-raff.
Riff-raff indeed, I thought, as I started back toward the rear, vainly hoping I had missed the one first class cabin some clever train designer accidentally inserted into this chaos of a train.
I spent the next 20 minutes lifting my backpack to shoulder level to let some drunk Czech make his way to the dead end of the corridor we were trapped in. After I made it through the logjam of the second class sleeper, it only took another five minutes to realize that there was no clever train designer.
Once again I went forward, my progress punctuated by the lurching train and uncooperative doors. I went forward, boldly sticking my nose where it had never been stuck before. Namely, in the second class cabins. Invaraibly, however, they had six to eight people in various stages in unconsciousness and inebriation.
That is how I came to the cabin I am in now. To my surprise, it only had four people in it, and by this stage I was desperate. I certainly did not want to start off this trip by sleeping in the bicycle carrier with four other guys. (There was room for five or six good friends.)
Bravely peeping into the compartment, I made some German-sounding noises, and of course was rewarded with some German-sounding noises in return. The owner of the noises spoke no English, and his answer did not sound like "Yes, of course, please take MY seat here by the window; would you like a pillow, too?"
Faced with these complications, I was about to go and act like a bicycle. There was some commotion inside the cabin, a flash of red, and English speach. I hesitated. Could there be a spot after all?
She explained: the cabin was reserved by some people who were to get on by the border. So she figured we could sit here until they kicked us out. The plan seemed to work, and we even used the reservation cover to deprive some poor wretches to park their butts.
Part of the reason she volunteered this information must have been the three loud-speaking German gentlemen with whom she was sharing the cabin. One left immediately upon my arrival, vacating a window seat. He was not kind enough to leave a pillow, however. The other two departed shortly thereafter. For the next hour or two we talked, drank beer (her idea), and were joined by two men, one of whom managed just one word during the entire trip: "Praha?" The second was not that verbose.
Beer-induced sleep descended on the cabin around 1am. I slept, slumping across two entire seats (what luxury!) for about an hour or so, awakening on the outskirts of Nuremberg to a drunk Bohemian chorus.
She is Spanish, works in Dusseldorf and Madrid for a bank, is on her way to meet friends and family in Prague for the weekend, and perhaps even has a name. Only time will tell.
Our bliss was shattered at 4:30am when we were "densified" by four oh-so-traditional-looking Czechs who got on at the last station in Germany. They didn't speak any English, and they meant business. They were bringing back enough stuff to last them their respective lifetimes.
The three women sat in the cabin, while the man stood outsde the door and joked with a couple of drunk Germans. Needless to say the atmosphere was not conducive for sleeping. They kept talking and laughing and carrying on as if we didn't exist. Finally, around dawn, they grew quiet and nodded off. Made me wonder if they were catching the next train to Transylvania. Come to think of it, I recall the guy saying something about being Rumanian.
Eurail is still not valid in this country and they charge an exhorbitant exchange rate for the tickets bought on the train. I paid 30 DM to get from the German border to Prague. The return ticket to the same point cost me 120 CKS, or about 8 DM. And that was first class! I hope they have a first class cabin on the return trip, or I'll be really pissed off.
The trip ended rather anticlimactically when we exchanged business cards. It appears I have a chaffeur/tour guide in Madrid. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get there!
I rattled around the train station long enough to get picked up by a middle-aged Czech woman, who offered me her bed. She also did the same for two hippies from Frankfurt, and the four of us proceeded via the subway (not more than five minutes, she said) to a prototypical gray socialist apartment building neighborhood. After an inordinate number of right turns, she picked a building (seemgly at random) and showed us inside.
The rooms were not bad. Actually, the whole apartment was in good shape and nicely furnished, all things considered. Of course at 15DM/night in this country, the rooms had better be nice!
At around 10 am, I set off to the old town of Prague per the landlady's (German) directions. I got out of the subway station, and assumed my standard investigative mode. That is, I started wandering aimlessly, taking turns whenever something caught my eye, but usually never getting there due to recursion.
I this manner, I rambled through some pretty ugly neighborhoods, punctuated by occasional architectual gems. I stumbled onto the Stamp Museum I had read about, went inside, but was not patient enough to go through their entire collection.
Standard Tourist Area #1 - Karluv Most |
As the afternoon wore on, I warmed up and actually managed to run into the standard tourist areas. I meandered through these with the best of Germany and Italy, zigzagging my way toward the Mational Museum. The avenue leading to it (Vaclavske' Namesti) in my opinion surpasses the Champs-Elysées as it approaches the Arc de Triomphe. It has the same wide sidewalks, fancy stores, neon, pedestrians, and McDonalds, but the buildings are more consistent and there is no construction work. And there is hardly any car traffic. In fact, there are very few traffic lights in this part of town, but the cars seem to have no problem negociating the strange intersections.
Architectually, Prague is a princess. The buildings in the old town present uniform yet varied facades that are complemented by the twisting cobbled streets. Alleys and narrow, arched passageways abound. The impression is that you can wander these streets for days, never crossing the same intersection twice.
The old city hall in Staromestike square is very impressive. Yet due to no fault of its own other than its age, it is a heavy, dark and oppressive structure. Never mind the view from the top; the view from the bottom is a heavy one. In contrast, the buildings bracketing the square form a bright, airy border around the crag of a tower in the middle. They soar without being tall; they hold your attention with the baroque details, the painted walls, the frescoes.
 The view toward Visyhrad |
This meandering terminated some time around 5pm when I boosted the local economy by dumping 269 CKS at a nice-but-not-worth-it restaurant. The highlight of the meal was the desert: coaster-shaped pancakes covered with chocolate and some kind of berry sauce, with powedered sugar sprinkled just so. The low-light was the 10 CKS they added (to a fixed menu) for (as best as I can tell) the bread. And in the best German tradition, they were unable to provide a glass of plain water. But then what do you expect for $10?!
One crummy city block in Prague would be considered a city treasure in most places. Europe would have been a truly wonderful land were it not for the havoc of the two wars.
Czech food appears to be a mop-up operation. For this purpose, every dish is accompanied by several extra-absorbent flour biscuits. The sauces are good, but the've obviously never heard of vegetables. This is true of restaurants only; the locals seem to be buying vegetables at every corner market.
Given the locals' inclination to speak German, the proximity to Germany and the exchange rate, I am surrounded by German-speaking people. I think I've spoken more German here than in Germany.
As I sit at this table (eating lunch), group after group comes to drink, smoke and speak German. The only exception was a pair of Czech women (who of course spoke German). CFR might as well become a part of Germany. Perhaps the locals weren't so upset in 1939. Maybe fifty years from now, everyone will be speaking Russian.
To dine in the nice restaurants in Staro Mesto, you must have reservations. I suppose that means either dollars or Deutch Marks. I didn't try to find out; I wandered further down the darking streets, through the red-light corner (district was too grandiose a name), until I came upon a menu. Three menus, actually: the first in German, the second in Czech, and the third in English. The prices seemed reasonable, so I went in. Here's something else I discovered: restaurants don't like single diners. They take up too much real estate. I was told to grab a seat and wait, for oh, about five - 30 minutes. Knowing that resistance is useless, I did as I was told.
Before I could order a beer, however, the Maitre d' came back and told me to follow him. He sat me with three Britishers: a middle-aged couple visiting from the outskirts of London, and a young woman (I think the guy's daughter) who was teaching English in Brno. We had a lovely chat, and were even going to go to a jazz club, but the place was sold out. I managed to exchange phone numbers, though. This means that I'm going to have to find a way to Brno before I hit Madrid!
Sunday I went to the National Museum, which was less than exciting. But then I had a nice, cheap lunch in the cafeteria of the museum (a salad, a beef patty, two pieces of bread, some mustard and a beer for 40 CKS -- that's less than $2). Outside, I had a double icecream cone for a whopping 8CKS, and went walking south to the Visyhrad (High Town) area.
During my southward meandering, I came across the Police Museum. This city has the strangest museums... this one was dedicated to the police and border guards. It had displays ranging from small firearms to solved (?) murder cases (complete with skull and matching axe) to various police uniforms, to photographs of car accidents. Probably the most significant display was the map of Czechoslovakia with the western border emphasized with barbed wire.
Next to the museum was a beautiful little church with nice stain glass windows, a decorated ceiling, lots of detail throughout and a bitch of a door lock to figure out from the inside. Parishoners check in, but they don't check out.
The Visyhrad National Monument is a nice park overlooking the river and the city with a beautiful baroque church (the heathens can only look through the grill at the stained glass beyond). The park has many tiered walkways and a cemetary where Karel Capek is buried among others.
Having time to kill, I went wandering after leaving the park. After several city blocks of little distinctions and several streets of little traffic, I spotted a "Pivarna" sign, triggering my beer alarm. Besides, it was 4 o'clock, and it was time to eat.
In the best German tradition, everyone in the room was smoking, including the two kids barely old enough to order the lemodate they were drinking. And of course everyone was drinking beer (except the afore-mentioned kids). This beer drinking was for a good reason: the beer is excellent and at 11 CKS max, you cannot go wrong.
I ordered what turned out to be a piece of chicken (flattened, breaded, and grilled), some french fries, and vegetables. Less than $3. This was the most food for the least money I've had in the last three days. In the last 27 years. This is what it's like when you get away from the tourist areas.
Sitting here thinkning about the last few trips I took, and about the book by Bill Bryson I read a few weeks ago, I started thinking up jokes about the people I had observed.
Q: How do you know you're in Prague?
A: Everyone around you speaks German.Q: How can you tell the tourists from the locals?
A: The locals are the ones wearing "Raiders" clothesQ: How do you know you're getting closer to a church?
A: The Italians outnumber the Germans.Q: How can you tell the Italians from the hookers?
A1: You cannot.
A2: The Italians are the ones with the ugly backpacks.
A3: Italians travel in groups of 20. etc.
Sunday night I went to a jazz club. It was truly an interntational experience. The table consisted of three ex-East German girls, a French guy, a Czech guy with his (Czech) cousin from Switzerland, and me. Before the band started, we played Uno: the first game was without the cousins; they came in time for the second round. The conversation flowed like this: the French guy talked only to the girls because 1) he was French, and 2) he only spoke French and German; the girls talked to everyone in either English or German; the Swiss Czech spoke German with the girl he was sitting next to, English with me, and Czech with his cousin, who spoke English with me and Czech with his cousin.
The jazz was good. (Apparently this was one of the best Czech bands.) The beer was cheap. The company was fun. The Czech wanted to know about americans, american politics, etc. He had this manner of leaning over, looking like he was about to impart a national secret only to ask if you wanted some potato chips. The Germans talked about music and sang with the frenchman.
Now it is Monday afternoon. I have hours to kill. The weather is back to its ugly state. Friday was overcast and cold; Saturday and Sunday were cool but sunny. Now it's back to the cloudy work-week grind. There was even a raindrop or two.
I just finished a rather expensive meal (152 KCS). I am not sure I can reproduce the arithmetic that yielded the total, but it's clearly not worth arguing about. Perhaps they charge per piece of meat. At any rate, the food was good, and I need to get rid of the funny-money.
So far today I have been in two museums: A Jewish Museum and the strangely titled Museum of Graphic Arts. The former contained many tapestries, torah covers, and the like from the 16-20th centuries, at which point the Prague jewish community ceased to exist. All that remains are a couple of restored synagogues, a museum, and a very, very crowded cemetary.
The second museum housed two exhibits. On the lower floor was a strange collection of semi-abstract chairs. This was rather unexpected, given the awesome stained glass windows above the staircase that demand your attention as you enter the hall. The second floor housed a very nice collection of 18th-19th century furniture and glassware. Well worth the $0.20 admission!
The train ride back was uneventful. I shared the first class cabin (yes!) with at most one other person. One guy went from Prague to Pilzen, another from Pilzen to Nuremburg, and the third from Nuremburg to Frankfurt. The first and third guys didn't say much, but the second one had to do alot of talking. That's usually the case when you're from Mongolia and you lose your visa! The border guard relented for some reason, and just told him not to do to it again.
April, 1993.