Imanuel and Brenda's Travel Blog

We didn’t get very far from Berlin before we had to stop for the night. Once again, we found fairly modern facility, although you could hardly tell from the thick fog that enveloped the Autobahn. Now I know why German automobiles came equipped with fog lights back when they were not common in other makes. Even with the fog people seemed to be driving as fast as ever. I cannot impress upon you the importance of staying in the right lane when driving here. Move to the left only when passing and, even then, make sure that your rearview mirror is clear of traffic. If there is any traffic at all, wait for it to pass; otherwise, before you know it a sports sedan will be in your tail following inches from your bumper and may cut you off if forced to move to the far left.

This seems to be the rule in the Czech Republic too. The only difference is that the car blowing by is bound to be a late-model Skoda (the Czech national brand now owned by Volkswagen as evidenced by their pavilion at Autostadt). When passing it is also important to gain enough momentum so you can finish passing and be back in the right lane as soon as possible. These vans don’t have big engines unlike trucks in the US and they may take a while to get up to speed after being stuck behind truck at 80 kph waiting for traffic on the left to clear.

The next morning we didn’t leave as early as expected but were in the road by 9:00 am. On paper, the entire trip was supposed to take a little less than 5 hours and we had already traveled at least an hour the night before; however, this estimate soon proved to be optimistic at best. We left the Autobahn and started climbing mountains on winding two-lane roads. Truck traffic was extremely heavy and the going was very slow. There were many construction sites along the way, some of which forced us to stop altogether for minutes at a time. It was during one of these stops that the trucker behind us felt the urge to urinate, so he just unzipped his pants and started doing it right in our rearview mirror. This is probably the third or fourth time that we have seen somebody urinating in public. The worst once was right in the middle of Postdamer Platz in Berlin when a man felt the need to irrigate some construction barricades. And these people are not bums but normal looking people. I had heard about the “pissiors” or public peeing booths such as the ones we saw in Berlin and the ones that are common in Paris where you can see people’s feet through the bottom of the partition as they do their business in the middle of the street, but this is ridiculous. Perhaps they need a few more pissiors here and there.

The delays didn’t bother us so much since the scenery was fantastic. We rode through many picturesque little towns full of yellow stucco houses with red roofs and red brick bell towers reaching towards the sky near the center. There were beautiful vistas of green fields and rugged mountains all around. Soon we were at the Czech border. We passed by the endless line of trucks being processed to the right and arrived at the checkpoint. Many of the cars were being waved by with just a cursory glance at the occupants’ papers; however, there were a couple of cars that had been ordered to pull to the side while they were processed. Even though the Czech Republic is technically part of the European Union, it is still not fully integrated and one does have to go through customs unlike when crossing national borders between other EU countries. I gave the officer my passport and he said something back in German. (Everyone assumes we speak German because we have German plates on our van.) I told him “English, please” and he replied: “Registration, please.” I managed to find the book that the attendant at the camper place said contained the registration and prayed everything was in order. It seems stolen car traffic between Germany and the Czech Republic is a major problem and I assumed that was mainly what they were looking for. A van like this would probably fetch a good price on the black market in the Czech Republic and two Americans in a van with German plates could raise some red flags in the eyes of the customs officials. He asked for my driver’s license and I asked him if he wanted my international driving permit too. I went through a lot of trouble to get that thing, so I may as well show it to somebody. He told me to pull off the road and went inside the both.

We waited for a few minutes and soon a lady in green military fatigues and tall boots came out, handed the papers back to me and said something like: “Here you go… Two weeks… Goodbye.” And just like that, we had crossed the border. I didn’t know we needed visas but apparently we got one for two weeks and had our passport stamped to boot.

The first order of business was to find a place to exchange money and buy a vignette. In the Czech Republic the currency is called the crown (Kn) and we only had euros and dollars with us. This wasn’t much of a problem since there are money changing places everywhere and credit cards are widely accepted (though not universally). Additionally, you need a vignette to traverse the highways and can face a steep fine if you don’t have one. Our European camping book said that the price of the vignette was only four euros but we would later learn that the price had doubled. We stopped at the first currency exchange place after crossing the border. The exchange rate didn’t seen to be particularly good but I still exchanged $20 just is case. I asked about the vignette and the lady, who didn’t speak English, indicated that I should tell her what kind of vehicle it was for. I said it was a van and pointed to a van in the brochure she handed me. She said it was 28 euros and I thought she was trying to rip me off since this was the first place after the border and probably a tourist trap. I decided to go on and buy the vignette later but I think that maybe she was thinking that my vehicle was over 3.5 tones and required a special permit.

Later, I stopped at a gas station and asked the young lady behind the counter about the vignette. She said it was 8 euros and I looked at her skeptically and asked if that was really the price since my guidebook said it should be half that. She rolled her eyes and contorted her body and said that that was the price everywhere and that all cars needed to buy it. A tall young man with a bold head came in behind me, put some money on the counter and said, “Amazing how the prices go up, eh?” I bought the thing anyway and, when I went outside, I saw the young man fiddling with his car. I walked up to him and asked him if that was really the price. He said that the price had recently gone up and that he himself had just bought one. He asked where we were from and, when I said we had come from America, he exclaimed: “No f---ing way! That’s where I come from.” He had an accent and I said that we were originally from Puerto Rico but that we now live in Virginia. He said that he was from the Czech Republic but that he lived in Florida. Small world… I guess. When I went to stick the vignette on the windshield, I noticed that this was the third time this van had been to the Czech Republic this year, a testament to how popular a tourist destination this country has become.

The Czech Republic looks very different from Germany. As soon as one crosses the border, the differences are evident. Things are older and more run down and everything seems to be less orderly. The roads have indentations from overloaded trucks that catch your wheels and make driving treacherous. Rest stops are few and far between at least on the E55, though they are more common on the Southern route back to Germany through the D5. The rest stops on this side are little more than a parking lot for trucks. On one such rest stop we saw a young woman standing by the side of the road and, judging by the way she was dressed; we had to assume that she was a prostitute taking advantage of the truck traffic to boost her business. In fact, there were many strip joints along the route that seemed to cater primarily to truckers.

We rode right through lunch since we couldn’t find a suitable place to stop and fix something nor a restaurant that we would want to go into. We seemed to be making better progress when we hit the four lane highways; however, the trip still took the better part of the day. Near the city, traffic was quite heavy and confused. There were several backups and the aggressiveness of Czech drivers reminded me of my homeland of Puerto Rico so I switched to survival mode and soon was honking the horn and driving as defensively as I could. It was a good thing that I had the voice prompts from the GPS because there were many tricky turns where a mistake could have gotten us hopelessly lost.

The campsite was an island not only on the literal sense but also was an isle of calm from the pandemonium of the highway. There are no words to describe how beautiful this place is. The campsite is nestled on the North end of a slender island on the Vltava River. There is only one bridge connecting the island to the East bank (the less touristy more industrial part of town) of the river and the island is over 1 Km in length. The campsite takes up almost the entire width of the narrow island and the part where one parks faces the West bank of the river (the old city) under the shadow of a large castle. When we arrived the weather was perfect, sunny and warm, and there were several sailboats out enjoying the day. From the van one could get an amazing view of the old city on the other side of the river as well as the castle and it’s wall. It was simply idyllic!




I parked the van near the entrance and walked over to the registration. The attendant, who was outside, took the island metaphor one step further by being as casual as I though possible outside of Jamaica. He said we could park anywhere we pleased and hook up to any electrical outlet and that we could take care of the registration later. Then he disappeared after saying something about the ferry. His name was Peter and he seemed like a character out of a World War II movie. Stoutly built and dressed in overalls and a stripped shirt, he was as colorful as the scenery. A few minutes later he came back and I registered. Everything was very informal and he said I could stay as long as I wanted. I told him I would only stay two nights and he proceeded to proudly tell me about the castle and the city and declared, “Who knows? Maybe you stay four nights and say, ‘yea okay’. We leave now…”

After the Berlin bus debacle, I decided to get good directions to the transportation system. Luckily, Peter was prepared and sold me a map of the city showing lines of the buses, trams and the subway; however, one thing I’ve learned by now is that usually when the campground attendant gives you directions to the city it is a vast oversimplification. There is always a hitch, such as a bus that stops running after a certain time or a change in stations on the way back or some little thing that he explained briefly and you missed that is going to get you lost. In this case I thought that the dotted lines on the map indicated the trams when they actually indicated subway lines. I also thought that Peter had said that pretty much any tram would take us to the center but in fact the tram and bus system were quite complicated and the best way to get to the old town was to take the B subway line and get off at the Mustek Station, which is the center of everything.

The other hitch was getting across the river. I knew that there was a ferry that would take us across for a small charge. Peter confirmed that the ferry left every hour on the hour until 7 pm. After 7, he said that we only needed to go one or two stops further (he wasn’t sure which) and walk a little further across the bridge. Armed with the knowledge (so we thought) to avoid getting lost; we enjoyed a late lunch and prepared to go into town to catch our bearings and maybe find a supermarket or an Internet café. I was surprised to find out that in addition to the campground attendant, Peter was the ferryboat captain. In fact, the ferry was nothing more than a noisy little barge and the crossing took less than one minute. On the other side, we quickly found the station after following the only other passenger on the ferry, who was a local, and crossing the road at the light that ticked like a time bomb and then began ticking really fast when it was time to cross (like it was ready to blow).

We were unsure of where one bought tickets for the tram and we asked at a store inside the train station but we thought that the lady said that we could buy them from the driver when she was actually saying that we could buy them from her, as we later realized. In fact, in order to buy tickets to the tram or the bus, you have to go to the underground station and buy it from a machine, which seems to make perfect sense in the Czech Republic. Also, the machines take only coins, so if you don’t have change you have to go to of the shops around the station and buy them. The tickets must be validated and are good for 75 min after validation on weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm or 90 min from validation on weekends, unless you buy a day pass, which is valid 24 hours after validation. The passes come in different zones but only the three-zone passes seemed to be valid throughout the entire old city… Confused? So were we.

We got into the very first tram we came upon and the driver was locked inside a plastic and Plexiglas cage so we could not buy the tickets and, before we could figure out how to ask him what to do, we were off. We sat down knowing that we could be fined for riding without a validated ticket (and they do check here) and began to try to follow the stations looking at the wrong line on the map. Once it became obvious that we were lost (again), we began asking people. Many Czechs speak English, specially the younger ones, and many people were willing to help out; however, since we were reading the map incorrectly, the directions they gave us seemed to make no sense. We determined that they didn’t understand where we wanted to go but got off at an underground station to look for the information desk. At the station we were finally able to buy tickets; however, looking at the diagrams of the subway lines didn’t help at all. Someone finally told us to get on the A train to a certain station and change to the B train and go to another station and that there would be an information office there. We decided to give it a try since we could only get more lost by now.

The subway was quite crowded and hectic, which only added to our frustration. When we were taking the stairs to the platform, a man dressed in all black approached us and said something we could not understand. He showed us a red badge that looked like the novelty Soviet era badges that they sell here as souvenirs. We tried to blow him off saying that we were not interested, but he insisted saying “Ticket Check” in English. Luckily, we had just bought our tickets. We would get checked once more while we were in the city, highlighting the importance of having a valid ticket specially if you’re the tourist. Getting off the A subway, we met Nichole, a cheery American of Czech parents who was spending some time in Prague with her grandmother. She was very friendly and suggested we follow her. She had been there about a month and still hadn’t figured out the whole thing but knew enough to get us to the city center and point us towards the information office. Stepping off the crowded subway, even she had to take a moment to catch her bearings and determine which exit she needed to take. Nichole was doing a new walking tour that day and was taking a different route than she normally did. The underground stations are a maze and it is hard to know exactly where you are going to come out even if you know you are in the right station.

Once outside, there was an imposing red tower, the Powder Tower, under which ran one of the city gates and a building with a beautifully elaborate portico. The streets were teaming with people, most of whom were as lost as we were. In fact, the city is being overrun with tourist. The word has gotten out that this is the last place where the “real” fairy tale Europe can be found and everyone has flocked here at once turning it even more commercialized and touristy than the places that have already been “spoiled”. We began down the street in search of the Mustek station, dazed and confused, and not sure if we liked Prague or not. The architecture was incredible and there were restored old buildings as far as the eye could see; however, it was also crowded, smelly and the street level was lined with souvenir shops, Internet cafes, restaurants and every other tourist trap imaginable. The whole thing was just a little too overwhelming and left us somewhat disillusioned. Prague was supposed to be this magical land: the most beautiful city on earth, transit-able easily on foot. Thus far it was proving to be none of the above.




We arrived at the impressive Vaclavske Namesti, a long square leading up to a large domed building that houses the National Museum. Once again, the place was awe inspiring but completely packed with both tourists and vendors hawking every possible kind of ware. We located the information office, which wasn’t really a government-sponsored tourist information office like those in Germany but really an agency that books rooms and sells tours and tickets. In any case, the guy was really nice and didn’t really try to sell me anything. He showed me that I was reading the map incorrectly and that the B subway line would take us straight to the station we started from. He also pointed out how to get to the bridge that we would have to take if we missed the last ferry since it wasn’t on the map. He even recommended a very good (and cheap) restaurant.

Czech food normally consists of some type of meat, usually stewed or in a sauce, and dumplings. It is extremely filling and very cheap, although we did notice that prices could go up as much as 100% or more along the main routes that tourist take. Venture just one block off the main street and your food will be just as good and a lot cheaper. Beer is literally cheaper than water here. It is said that Czech beer is some of the best in the world. I am not a big beer drinker but, given the fame of Czech beer and the excellent value it represented, I made a point of ordering it. It was quite good but I still had trouble finishing it. A “normal” beer around here is 0.5 liter. That’s half a carton of milk full of beer! Add to that to the substantial Czech meal and you will certainly be full by the time you get up from the table. That didn’t stop some visitors from overindulging in Czech beer, however. (Maybe they skipped dinner instead.) This was particularly true of a group we dubbed “the orange crew”. They ran around in orange clothes and silly hats being loud and stopping at every bar in sight. I don’t know what they were all about but they were clearly not in Prague for the scenery. On our last night in Prague we were serenaded by a group of drunks sitting on the table behind us. They sang out of tune English rock anthems and drinking songs until the waiter finally kicked them out. There was a short one that could hardly stay on his feet. He extended his hand to the waiter as a peace offering but the waiter didn’t take it so the little guy started down the street with the help of his friends.

The meal somewhat salvaged the disastrous evening and, by the time we got up from the table, I knew exactly where I needed to go. We stopped at a grocery store in the underground station and purchased one large bread, milk, juice, eggs and several other things and spent what amounted to something like $5. As I said, food is particularly cheap here. We managed to catch the last ferry, which spared us from having to find and cross the bridge. (As we would later learn, this was a substantial walk.) We had to wait for the daughter of some of Peter’s friends who was running late in dropping the car off before going to back to the island. The ferry schedule evidently was fairly flexible and subject to the whims of the captain, which reminded us about the old joke of Puerto Rican time always being half an hour later than the appointed time. Perhaps they have the same joke here.