One Day in Plzeň, One Last Night in Prague, and Home
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We departed Munich in the mid-afternoon, and our fast, smooth ride on the German rails abruptly transitioned to slow and bumpy the moment we crossed the border back into the Czech Republic, where the tracks are older. We arrived in Plzeň in the early evening, and – unlike Munich – we successfully navigated the roughly 1 mile walk from the station to our hotel on our own. The Hotel Slovan was both impressive and a bit sad. We only saw a few other guests, and you could tell it was certainly a grand hotel when it was built in the 1890s, but it looked like it did not fare well under communism. It had a bare-bones, 1950s modern-style makeover – probably in the 1950s judging from how worn things looked – which did not sit well with its art nouveau architecture. Its old-fashioned setup – with shared bathrooms and showers on each floor – was fine with me but I imagine it’s not what most tourists are looking for these days.
Finding a dinner suitable for both us and the boys was a bit of a challenge. The streets that night seemed strangely deserted – in an almost Omega Man way – but after wandering for a while we spotted a hole-in-the-wall pizza place with outdoor seating that turned out to be really good.
The next morning we set out for our one day in Plzeň. We ventured by city bus to Dino Park so the boys could have some fun. Kai enjoyed it, but the dinosaurs looked a little too realistic as far as Eidan was concerned, and he kept his distance from all but the smallest ones. Jealous of my bee sting earlier in Prague, Maria got her own bee sting at Dino Park. I think hers hurt more than mine, but it didn’t swell up like mine did.
From there we headed to the Pilsner Urquell factory to see and taste what Plzeň is famous for – Pilsner beer! The food at their restaurant was a big disappointment (although Czech food is not exactly high cuisine, it can be good; unfortunately it can also be really bad…) but there’s no arguing with the quality of the beer. I suppose if the beer is good enough the food doesn’t matter.
We had just enough time after that for a short visit to the historical center of town. With the tallest church spire in the Czech Republic, Plzeň’s most famous historical building is the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, but the building that stood out for me was the Great Synagogue. It’s the second largest synagogue in Europe, and “the mixture of styles is truly bewildering; from the onion domes of a Russian orthodox church, to the Islamic style ceiling, to the distinctly Indian looking Aron kodesh.” We hustled from there back to the station for our train ride back to Prague. This was the one and only time on our trip where we rode a train that was actually older than a typical US train. But unlike most US trains, it at least ran on time.
The place we stayed at previously in Prague was rented out after we left, but the landlord had another place, away from the tourist part of town, where we could spend the night before catching our early morning flight the next day. We ended up having the best (and cheapest) meal of all our time in Prague that night, in a little neighborhood restaurant. Like any other city, you can eat better and cheaper if you follow the locals instead of the tourists.
We left about 5am for the airport, and got there on time. Everything was going smoothly until a Czech Airlines representative told us our connecting United flight from Zurich to Philadelphia had been canceled. And, by the way, United Airlines doesn’t have anyone in the Prague airport to help you, and we’re not going to help you either. So I called United, and the rep on the phone insisted the flight wasn’t canceled and that everything was fine. We crossed our fingers and got on our flight to Zurich, and discovered when we arrived that our connecting flight was in fact not canceled. We just barely made it though, because we had to leave the security area to get our boarding passes issued, since – due to Czech Airlines mistaken belief that the flight was canceled – they refused to issue them in Prague.
The rest of the journey home went well, and the boys were thrilled to be home again after two months away.
I actually have a few more Prague posts brewing – I couldn’t wait to blog about LegoLand and the rest of the trip, so I skipped ahead. Stay tuned – this travelogue isn’t quite done yet!
