Prague II:
And way leads on to way… which sometimes means getting a little lost. Since we don’t have data turned on for the phones (it turned out to be horribly expensive, over $300 in the first week of travel), a good map was a necessity (although John hates it when I pull out the map – “it makes us look like tourists” My general reply is “I’d rather be a tourist that knows where they are than a lost one”). John has, on rare occasion, pulled out the map and asked a local which way to go to the destination in question. This helps even when they don’t speak English (outside of the tourist area, you don’t find many English speakers in Prague).
The amazing thing in Prague, along with intricate sidewalks,
are the beautiful buildings – block after block – “Oh, look, beautiful building”. For anyone remotely interested in architecture, Prague is a “must see”.
In the wandering, we found the old main rail station, and John even found a third, small one. We happened across a wine festival on our first night, where we saw people carrying bottles of a frothy drink – unfiltered ‘natural’ wine . We bought a 1L bottle of the rose, a pink, opaque, frothy wine poured from the cask into a plastic bottle. It tasted like yeasty fruit juice. The alcohol content was likely around 5%. We didn’t have a fridge we could use in the room, but the window opened and we kept drinks cool on the sill. When I went to open the bottle the next day, there was sediment on the bottom, and the bottle felt tight. Luckily, I have experience opening plastic bottles of tonic water, and managed to gradually let it vent so the liquid did not explode all over the hotel room. The second day had more of a kick, but by the third day, with the bottle expanding even more, we decided not to risk it.
The regional wine I enjoyed the most is called Mueller Thurgau – it’s a deep golden color, more often seen in chardonnay, but the taste is much lighter. It’s a Bohemian wine – from regions closer to Prague. The local wines are also reasonable – about 70Kc/ glass ($3.50). The Czech beers were also extremely good, and commonly found for $2 for a tankard of ½ liter (basically a pint).
Eating was sometimes an adventure, since menus were not always available in English.
Luckily, there does not seem to be a Czech word for “vegetarian”, so if it said that, I was safe. Prague offered a large assortment of foods, and very good carrot cake with tangy, thick cream cheese icing (we HAVE been walking 20,000+ steps per day). The Czech Republic also standardized a common allergen list, so a menu would say “allergene 3,6” it would contain nuts and seafood (there are 14 recognized food allergens on the list, including something called a ‘lupin’ – which is not related to wolves, but actually in the legume family and similar to peanuts).
When it comes to COVID precautions, they’re really good about mask wearing on public transit. In Germany, they are adamant on the trains (as much as on planes in the US), but Czechia is a little more relaxed, with about half the people in our compartment on the way to Vienna wearing masks. Unlike Germany, you don’t have to show your vaccine cards in restaurants or in Museums, and there are no contact tracing forms to fill out.
One of our disappointments on the trip has been the dearth of live music, especially in Prague. The last visit, music seemed omnipresent, every bar and café showcased high quality musicians. This time, we found some talented but sleepy music guitar players in a few bars downtown, a few DJs, but overall, very quiet. For entertainment, TV has had limited English stations -generally CNN, Bloomburg and BBC – so all news, we’ve been relying on Amazon and Netflix (though they limit some content in the European market). We did find a market that sold bagged popcorn!
Next up – Austria!