GUEST POST: Taking the midnight train to Prague

When Adam and I traveled between Budapest and Prague, we elected to take an overnight train. I had mentioned here that it was, in short, a harrowing experience. After we "reminisced" about the ride several times, Adam graciously agreed to document the adventure. Here is his guest post about our experience. [Cue the Midnight Train to Georgia song, replacing "Georgia" with "Prague."] Please enjoy!

When Emily and I planned this most recent European excursion, we discovered a fearsome logistical challenge. Our great airfare itinerary did not geographically coincide with the three cities we wanted to visit in the region. Simply put, any combination of Budapest, Prague, and Vienna was going to involve at least one extra-long and circuitous train excursion.

There are worse things in life than a long train ride. But we had a limited time window on this trip and 8 hours in transit would clobber a day of touring. It seemed our options were limited, which meant, to quote Blackhawks announcer Pat Foley, "Something’s gotta give!"

And then...through the miracle of internet research plus friends with travel experience, we found the solution to satisfy all concerns. Ladies and gentlemen I give you…the overnight train.

To our delight, we discovered a train that leaves Budapest at 8:30pm and slowly winds its way to Prague, arriving at 6:43 the next morning.

For a nominal fee, we could even purchase a “sleeper car” which would provide privacy and a bed. IN THEORY, it was the perfect plan, a chance to have our cake and eat it too. And as an added bonus, we would save a hotel night.

[Note added by Emily: I had visions of glamorous overnight Eurorail trains like this:]

What could possibly go wrong?

Simply put…THIS:

Actual photo

Representative photo
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Now, reality can be a function of expectations. Honestly, this level of accommodation was about what I expected. As you can see, Emily developed somewhat higher expectations based on her research and perhaps the occasional old movie; both of which make evening train travel seem quite glamorous. In the end, we were both simply tired and uncomfortable… Emily was just proportionately more disappointed by it.

Let’s start with the obvious. There are six beds in this cabin; a room that is notably smaller than the closet in our bedroom. That creates the potential for very cramped conditions which somewhat frighteningly, was THE LEAST of our concerns. The greater fear was that Sasquatch from the Jack Links jerky commercials would show up as our roommate, and that Sasquatch would be messing with us (and our luggage).

Tangentially related, we actually had beef jerky with us. For any older readers, you might remember the famous Eddie Murphy beef jerky on the train scene from Trading Places in 1983. 

And yes, I found it necessary to yell "Beef jerky time!" just after the train departed.

It cost just 20 Euros for Emily and I to buy tickets in the sleeper cabin. I admit I was prepared to drop 40 more for “exclusive rights” to the cabin. To his immense credit, the conductor told me he could sell that but I PROBABLY would not need it. So kudos to him for not ripping us off.

Once we got settled in it was time to check out the bathroom. Proper decorum and good taste precludes me describing this in detail. I will simply say that this facility made me pine for the relative beauty and serenity of an airplane bathroom…and/or some hand soap. 

[Note added by Emily - I found this gratuitous and very comparable bathroom snapshot:]

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Thankfully Emily brought hand sanitizer. I’ve smelled worse places than the train bathroom, I just do not remember where or when.

And to quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I've gotta say about that."

After we settled in, we realized that the 2nd level mattresses could be dropped down to create a couch. This was a great feature which Emily and I happily made use of before bedtime. 

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Sadly and a tad embarrassingly, we could not figure out how to put it back. Oh, but had I been an engineering major in college. After ten minutes where two educated adults futilely battled to bring a mattress back to 90 degrees, we gave up and decided Emily would bunk above me. 

We were warned in no uncertain terms to lock the door of our room. Beyond the obviously disconcerting nature of said warning were further logistical troubles. Again, you had to climb to the top of the bunks (where there was no ladder) to reach a small, overhead lock. (Perhaps coincidentally, it was located right next to the emergency brake, too.) This pretty much eliminated even the slightest notion of a middle-of-the-night bathroom run. Of course, given my description of the bathroom…well, you get it.

Sleep did not come easy. The “bed” was half the width of a college dorm mattress and barely more cushioned than the floor. On top of which, you are sleeping sideways compared to the train motion, the tracks are very loud, the train jumps a lot, and stops are hard. But near midnight…sleep slowly started to wash over both of us.

UNTIL…

The train suddenly came to a complete stop. The engines shut down, and there was a pounding of a night stick on our door with a shout of “POLICE! PASSPORT CONTROL!” 

Dramatization

Given that we were both half asleep (or maybe half awake), some amount of natural confusion reigned. Normally passport checks by the Czech police would be a reasonable request to execute except that:

• We were notably groggy.
• The door was locked (see lock issues described above)
• The lights were off and our cabin was in nearly complete darkness (compounding the door lock issues).
• Neither of us had our passports handy

This lead to some frantic moments, especially when we could only crack the door open, but ultimately we complied. Of course it took more than a few minutes afterwards to settle down and return to a resting state.

I'm pleased to report that we both logged about 3 to 5 hours of constricted sleep though it was frequently interrupted. At one point in the middle of the night, the train stopped at a seemingly deserted station and a series of repeating warning announcements were loudly made in muffled German. I was hoping they were announcing our transfer to a complimentary five-star hotel for the rest of the night. Emily, who took German in high school, found them a bit more daunting.

[Note added by Emily - the scenery outside looked something like this, which was unsettling:]

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We woke up at 6:30am and arrived punctually in Prague. At the risk of sharing far too much information I offer this; when humans like me who are on the plus side of 40 awake, our first morning priority tends to be use of the bathroom. In this case, my priorities shifted to trying very hard to avoid the bathroom, until we could get in the train station and pay for the privilege.

and with that... welcome to Prague!

I’ve been asked many times how I would describe our train adventure and I will simply say this: It was an experience. It’s something we will always be able to say we did… once.

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Thank you to Adam for sharing his thoughts!!!!

Later this week I will pick back up to talk about Vienna, the final stop of our trip. Although, it will be really hard for me to follow Adam's recap, eh??????

Thinking Out Loud Thursday

Good morning! Today I'm taking a break from the travel recaps to link up with Amanda's Thinking Out Loud Thursdays.

Let's talk about three running things and three "other" things.

THREE RUNNING THINGS

1. Not so Great
After being on the fence for months, I will not be signing up for the Great Race 10K in Pittsburgh next weekend. My family is hosting a brunch gathering that will conflict. This made the final decision easy.

Pulling the plug on this race means I will be running exactly zero races in September, and only one in October. Normally these are my two favorite months to race - but I have no regrets. There will be plenty of other opportunities in the future.

2. New kicks come in fours
I finally started wearing my newest pair of running shoes (the Saucony Ride 8). They had been sitting in the box untouched since May. Craziness, right? I am loving that they have required no break-in period at all.

Welcome to my running shoe arsenal

Meanwhile, for the last several months I had been coveting these beautiful Mizuno Wave Rider 19s:

...aaaaaaaand I saw them on sale at Running Warehouse yesterday! Never mind that I've been averaging about 5 miles per week these days, I still scooped up a pair. Happy early Festivus to me!!!

3) No shuffling
I got an email earlier this week that early registration has opened for the 2017 Shamrock Shuffle in honor of being halfway to St. Patrick's Day. Who knew?

I will probably be branded as a Chicago running heathen for saying this, but at this point I plan to pass on Shuffling next year. It's a fun race. However, I want to explore other options.

The next question is figuring out what those other options might be...

THREE OTHER THINGS

1) Rocking it out for a good cause
Yesterday, my office hosted a Guitar Hero and Wii tournament to raise funds for charity. Initially I was hesitant to participate due to lack of experience. I've never played Wii in my life, and I've only played Guitar Hero once (with my niece and nephew, who are resident experts). Here's a Throwback Thursday picture of my only Guitar Hero experience from EIGHT years ago:

Fast forward back to the present. Below is a snapshot of me with my colleague, Ator. We are rocking out to Billy Idol.

What do you think of the "then and now" comparison? =D

2) Me Before You
When I was on the plane ride to Budapest, I watched a movie called Me Before You. In short, it is about a woman taking care of a quadriplegic. I had never heard of it before and WOW, what a story!!! It drove home very touching points about living life to the fullest. There were several emotional scenes which made me cry.

For Game of Thrones fans - Emilia Clarke plays the lead actress in this movie and she is the cutest, most adorable thing, ever. Quite the opposite from Daenerys Targaryen!

Left: Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones
Right: Louisa Clark from Me Before You

3) All day
I always love a clever and humorous commercial. This one, featuring Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, has catapulted onto my list of all-time favorites.

I've already watched it about 25 times and I still burst out laughing every time I see it. AB is a natural!

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Happy Thursday, everyone!!!

Whirlwinding in Prague

Continuing from my Budapest travel recap.

The next stop on the itinerary was Prague. Adam and I took an overnight train out of Budapest which arrived in Prague around 6:45 AM the next morning. (The overnight train is a whole other story. In short, it was a harrowing experience.)

After arrival, we had a bit of a rough start to our Prague visit. The weather was unexpectedly cold. We hadn't slept much. The place at which we were staying wouldn't be available until mid-afternoon, and in the meantime we couldn't shower or change clothes. Needless to say, we weren't feeling 100%. But we stored our luggage at the reception desk and set out to begin exploring.

Rough start aside, I found Prague to be a stunningly beautiful city. The castles, churches, and architecture were spellbinding. I felt like I was in a fairy tale. Let the onslaught of pictures commence:

View of the Prague Castle overlooking the Vltava River 

The Charles Bridge, which was filled with statues, musical performers, artists, and TOURISTS.

Old Town Square view of the Church of Our Lady before Týn and the Jan Hus Memorial 

Typical street view in the Malá Strana neighborhood

Random hotel, just to give a sense for the ornateness of all of the buildings

Old Town Bridge Tower

St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana

Nighttime view on the Charles Bridge

Clearly the world has discovered Prague's beauty because it was crawling with tourists. In some streets, there were so many tour groups jamming the paths that you could barely walk. Adam visited Prague 11 years ago, and he says back then it was much quieter.

That first morning in my sleep-deprived, unshowered state, I didn't have a lot of patience for the throngs of tourists. But later, after I was able to get some sleep and clean up, I was in my element soaking in the city's atmosphere.

Here are the highlights of what we saw and experienced:

Prague Castle
The castle area is a complex that includes various areas of worship, a palace, gardens, stables, museums, etc. Here's the entrance, manned by armed guards:

Adam and I spent an afternoon wandering through a circuit which included St. Vitus Cathedral, Old Royal Palace, St. George's Basilica, Golden Lane, and Daliborka Tower.

St. Vitus Cathedral
The outside of the cathedral:

The view after walking through the front entrance:

One of the religious shrines (very much along the lines of what you'd expect to see at a castle, yes?):

One of the stained-glass windows, with a fresco painting on one side wall:

Old Royal Palace

Ceiling bedecked with coats of arms:

View from one of the palace's overlooks:

St. George's Basilica
The apse:

Golden Lane
This area housed a very cool display of armor and armory:

Adult armor and toddler armor???
Or maybe this mini armor is for Tyrion Lannister?

Daliborka Tower

This was a medieval prison. Here, we got to see a wide display of medieval torture devices from the dungeon (literally). The mere sight of these devices gave me the heebie-jeebies:

Adam got a kick out of this chair:

The design gives a whole new meaning to furniture ergonomics, yes?

I am suddenly very, VERY grateful to live in the present-day era.

OK! Now moving on from the Prague Castle...

John Lennon Wall

The John Lennon Wall is a symbol of freedom and rebellion against the communist regime in the 1980's. It's got some interesting history. 

The wall was tricky to find, but worth the search, in my opinion.

Me trying to emulate the expression on the faces of John Lennon painted above me.

Adam liked the "Save The Humans" motif

Side note: There was a number of, uh, obscenities painted on the wall. For purposes of being politically correct, I did my best to pick a photo spot that didn't include anything unsavory - but it wasn't easy!

Astronomical Clock

An ENORMOUS crowd of folks gathered in Old Town Square to watch this clock change every hour, during which miniature figures came out of the little doors. The viewers were similar to a concert gathering.

Food

Adam and I enjoyed getting some local eats from an outdoor market near where we were staying:

A trdelnik stand. Trdelnik is a Czech pastry comprised of dough wrapped around a stick, grilled, then
topped with sugar. It can also be filled with ice cream or other goodies. I had some with Nutella filling.

Similar to Budapest, the outdoor dining scene was very prevalent in Prague. Everywhere we went, there were restaurants loaded with al fresco seating.

For dinner one night, we stumbled upon a local restaurant called U Zlatých nůžek near the John Lennon Wall. It had fantastic Czech food. 

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Here's what I had:

Pork loin with red wine plum sauce and potato pancakes

The next night, we popped into dinner at a restaurant called Kings Court, which was also excellent. Instead of paper menus, they handed out iPads with the menus on them! Very progressive.

This was the view of my dinner companion, along with the restaurant's house-made lemonade:

Old-New Synagogue
We made a quick stop here after seeing some street signs pointing towards its direction. I later learned that this is Europe's oldest active synagogue:

Everything else

To continue my pattern from my Budapest recap, here is a shot from one of Prague's subway trains (their public transit system is also fantastic):

and here is Prague's version of the decorative manhole covers:

[deep breath]

Quite another onslaught of pictures, eh? Once again, thank you for sticking with me if you made it this far!

In summary - I was completely beguiled by Prague. I had heard amazing reviews about it from so many people, and even with high expectations it still captivated me. What an incredible city!

Next on the vacation itinerary: Three days in Vienna

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I am inaugurally linking up with Lauren, Van, Isabel and Marcella for Wanderful Wednesday; and I will be linking up with Chris and Heather; Lauren; Ashley; Amanda and Brian; and Carolann and Macrae for Weekend Wanderlust.