Czech this out...

After our great time in Berlin, we were off to find the rental car agency across town.  Luckily we had walked over this way the previous day, so it wasn’t super hard to find.  And, we are off to the Czech Republic.  

Driving in Germany is fun.  They love to drive, and the highway system shows it.  It’s great.  Just put your foot down and go.  I was doing about 180 KM/h, and station wagons are just flying past me on their way to God knows where, they’re just going fast.  The German country side is beautiful and we get to the border just to see the roadwork and everything change.  

I know we just left what was once East Germany, but there’s just something about crossing the Iron Curtain that gives you pause. Drive through the Czech country side is something else.  In Germany and Holland, you can kind of make out the words, but in Czech no such luck.  We were driving through small towns on our way to Karlovy Vary, a small spa town on the northern edge of the Czech Republic.  We were sick of being in cities, and wanted a break, and since I had been there about 10 years ago we decided that we would see what this place had to offer.  We got a little turned around in the city trying to find our hotel up on the hill, but we found it and were greeted by Olga.  Welcome to Eastern Europe.  

“You stay here?”

“Yes, we’re here to stay, I booked it online the other night.”

“Yes I see”

“Ok, well thanks, is it ok for us to park where we parked?”

“Yes, Red key opens front door, no worry about lock when leave, other key opens room, must lock when leave.” 

This was simple enough, except the key wasn’t red, it was blue.  But seeing how I am color blind I let it slide, only to confirm with Sarah that I wasn’t crazy the key was in fact blue, not red and I heard her correctly. It’s ok her English was way better than my Czech, or Russian as the case may be, but we’ll get to that.  Olga pointed out where we needed to go on the map and we were off to see the town. 

I think my favorite part was her explaining that we had to walk down a pretty steep hill and there was also a bus option so we wouldn’t have to walk.  “But you not 70, you can walk.”  Thanks for the confidence, Olga.  

Now, I was in Karlovy Vary about 10 years ago, and I remember it being a very picturesque little town with a  river running through the middle, which it still is.

But what I don’t remember is the Cyrillic letters everywhere.  There were Russians everywhere.  It was kind of crazy.  This was the first time we saw a language we didn’t recognize, but not with English under it, but Russian.  Hmm… Ok, well we’ll make it work.  The other thing that I don’t really remember from the first time is everyone walking around with these cups that have straws built into them coming from the bottom of the cup.  Everyone is walking around with what looks like a bong, sipping from it.  What the hell??

Well, we come to a restaurant that had every language you could think of written out front.  I know that’s a cardinal sin when traveling.  You don’t want the places that have the multi-language  menus, but there’s some comfort in knowing what you’re gonna eat.  So we broke it.  And I ended up with Pork Knee, which I don’t think you can get anywhere at home anyway.  Just a big hunk of pork meat with bones hanging out and the skin still on it with a knife stuck in the top. Sarah has the pictures.

Sarah and I just sat there and ate, kind of in shock about where we were.  It’s a beautiful little town, but it’s a world of difference between Berlin and here.  We walked around and ended up in the main geyser hall.  This town is known for its hot springs that come up from the ground.  Some as hot as 72 degrees C.  And here’s where we found out what all the cups were about, everyone is filling them from the spring and drinking the water… weird. 

So we start walking back up the hill, I think Sarah counted 700 some odd steps back up.  And it’s steep, but we’re not 70, so it was fine.  And we called it a night.

The next morning we woke up to get our breakfast.  Again, I love that hotels over here provide you with a breakfast, only this one was some cold boiled sausages, and some cold cuts and cheese with some fruit coffee cake, and some coffee that was black as tar.  It was fine, I mean we’re traveling right, not everything can be what we are used to, but I could tell that Sarah wasn’t too happy. 

We went back into town to get some trinkets and what not.  And we parked at the Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced: Poop).  I think this was quite possibly our favorite part of the town, since we giggled about it for many days after, and still are.  It’s a gorgeous hotel, and was actually the Hotel they used in the recent James Bond, it was the Casino Royale.

It was pouring rain, just another lovely introduction to the Czech Republic.  And we walked around and got our stuff.  But we couldn’t just leave without trying the water.  So Sarah bought a little bong cup, something that she can have for her shot glass collection, and filled it up. And took a sip.  Her face said it all.. but she was going to let me try for myself.  So I did once we go back to the main geyser hall.  Wow.. just go a fill a cup of Ocean water and drink that… UHHHH it’s awful, but apparently has a bunch of healing powers.  Luckily we had some weird sweet biscuit thing that took the taste out of your mouth.  And with that we left Karlovy Vary and ventured on to Prague. 

Prague is a place that I had been before when I was in business school.  That was about 10 years ago and at that point they had just joined the EU and were just opening up their borders. It’s a pretty cool city, it’s got gorgeous gothic architecture and a lot of history. 

We drove into Prague and were trying to find our AirBnB host.  We made it to Wenceslas Square which is one of the main parts of town.  It was raining and we were trying to email the guy so that he knew we were in town.  So we started circling around the square.  I don’t know how, but we saw a guy in a t-shirt standing on the corner, and he waved at us, and I knew it was him.  Weird how that works, but we pulled over onto the sidewalk and unpacked our things into the apartment we rented for the next two days. 

He was super great, we then took our car to another area of town to park it so that it we didn’t have to worry about it getting towed, or broken into or stolen or whatever.   Then he gave us a ride back to the square and we sat and had coffee with him while he explained where we should go and what we should do to get a version of the city that wasn’t super touristy. You would have never guessed he grew up in Prague, his accent would have placed him somewhere between Venice and Santa Monica.  His family was all translators and he grew up doing summers in England.  He asked where we had been, and we mentioned that we had just driven in from Karlovy Vary.  His response was, “So you saw a lot of Russians.”  I guess Russian businesses have taken over the town since I was last there.  We also mentioned Olga, and he says, “Olga, her name was Olga?  Yeah she’s not Czech.”  Also, he mentioned that his wife was due with their first baby the next day?!? And here he was showing some tourists where they should have dinner. 

We head out and get some proper Kebab, like we were looking for in London.  And we went walking through the old town square and over Charles bridge up towards the Castle.  We stopped at one of the places that Ondrej had suggested and we got some famous Czech BeerCheese.  And I’ve had some pungent cheeses, but wow it’s strong.  And we also got some home-made sausages.

  

So, the next day, Saturday, we woke up and went to the farmers market that was suggested by Ondrej and it was awesome.  Just to get some fresh fruit and some fresh bread and stuff.  Then we walked around and went back to catch another one of the guided walking tours.  It was fun and interesting, but I don’t remember Prague being so touristy.  It’s amazing, there are people everywhere and they are from everywhere.  It certainly wasn’t like this when I was there before.   

 

Every store sells some sort of touristy stuff.  And there are even Hooter’s on the corner.  It was kind of crazy, and a little disappointing actually.  It really felt like the Venice Boardwalk was thrown into a set of gothic buildings.  It’s kind of sad, but I guess money ruins everything as they say.  Luckily, we went to a place out of the main area for dinner, again suggested by Ondrej, that was awesome.  The Czech Yatch Club.   

 

The food was great, the beer was fantastic.  And we walked across the street to another place and had some drinks before heading home.  We took the #3 tram down there, so we figured we’d take the #3 tram from the same station going the other way.  Well, wrong, that took us to a dark street at midnight and dropped us off at the end of the line.  So we stood there for 20 minutes pondering what to do.  Thankfully another tram came by so we hopped on that and figured out where we needed to go.

So, the next morning, we got up and went to get coffee and some postcards, and then hit the road.  Simple enough, the car is two train stops away, and we can find it. Oops, it was raining and we took a wrong turn out of the train station, and ended up wandering around Prague for about 2 hours just looking on every road to find our car.  In the mean time I had emailed Ondrej about the address.  He responded with it and as we were walking to the car, he pulls up. 

“Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t stolen. I guess you guys took the first bridge, I was afraid of that.”

“So wait a minute, did you have your baby???”

“Yeah, we had a son yesterday.  All are healthy.” 

“Well, congrats man, thanks for coming to find us, but get out of here and go enjoy your new son!”

And then we were off to the Bone Church.  I will say, that driving the Czech country side has to be some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen.  It’s just green rolling hills with gothic church spires popping up our of the trees. 

We pull up to a small town and get out of the car in front of a tiny little church.  Walk inside to find it decorated with human bones. 

In the town of Kutna Hora there is a church that was built on a cemetery and when they ran out of space, they dug up the bones and some guy decorated the church with them.  It’s got a chandelier with every bone from the body in it, and a family crest built of them as well.  Walking around you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s real because it just looks fake.  And the bones are from the era of the Black Plague.  It’s eerie and fascinating at the same time.

 

 

 

Then we continued on to Telc (pronounced Telch, the crown on the “C” makes it a “CH” in Czech same with an “S”, the crown makes it “SH”) which is a tiny little town that might as well be a movie set, but it’s not.  It’s just an small untouched town in southern Czech from the 1700’s.  We found a hotel, U Cerneho orla or in English: The Hotel of the Black Eagle.  Sounds scary and it might have been haunted at least it had that feel.  But we woke up and got another Czech breakfast wandered around town and saw the castle, etc.  It’s a very peaceful town.  There wasn’t really all the much going on, which is exactly what we were looking for after the time spent in all those cities. One thing that I did learn in Telc, if you are done eating and you want to pay for your meal.  Make sure to ask for your bill, if you ask for your Check they just look at you funny.

And we got to have two twin beds next to each other for a double bed.  Fun…

So that’s the Czech republic.  We’re on our way to Austria as we route back toward Munich for Oktoberfest.  It’s a long drive, but I love driving and nothing beats seeing all the stuff you wouldn’t see on a plane or train. 

Since I haven’t updated in a while, I figured I’d update the map since the last time we did it.  Here’s where we’ve been so far: