Weekend III: Of beautiful bridges and castles

This weekend it was Prague and Vienna. After a hard day of planning, we finally came up with a plan to visit Salzburg, Vienna and Prague. Due to the ease of travel, we decided to go straight to Vienna and from there, we would take a bus to Prague at night, return after a day and next morning to Salzburg. As is pretty usual in my travels, this tour wasn't without its hiccups. The plan was pretty packed and so there were possibilities for problems, only that this time it wasn't because of me.

I took a night train to Munich after reaching Mannheim first (a one hour break here), where I had to wait 2 hrs for the next train (aargh!! ... it was so boring). And then Amol and Chiraag got late, which meant we were gonna be an hr late at Vienna. We finally reached where Heiligenstadt, where Rohit Singh and Archana Raje were to meet us, only to find that he had called us in the middle of nowhere, not a single landmark was close to it. As if that was not enough, they were more than an hour late, only to add to the frustration. In the meanwhile, we bought food for the rest of the trip at a supermarket and trust me thats a major cash saver especially for vegetarians for whom choices here are limited.

Planning the unplanned trip

So at 14:40, we started our tour of Vienna. We visited a few historic buildings there. At this point, I must mention, Vienna is indeed a very beautiful and very well organized city. It is pretty walkable and the metro system is pretty well maintained and connected. We visited quite a few places, but the first day was pretty disappointing. We were under the impression that a certain individual, RoSi (name changed :P), was planning our trip and had all decided. But alas, we were wrong and the trip was not at all planned. We ended up visiting half the places we could have been to. The only part of the day that was truly worth was the cathedral in Vienna, which is huge and one of the most brilliant cathedrals I've seen.

Cathedral

Pink and RoSi! :D

In the evening at around 20:20 was our bus to Prague, where we were to spend the next day. The bus was a luxury. It had a TV every few seats, with audio in a few languages including English apart from other radio channels. We were offered hot drinks (the hot chocolate was awesome!). In the night there was a 4 hour break at Brno, where we roamed around a little ... saw a nice cathedral from the outside, and had some food.

The Bus
RoSi Nights!

Next stop ... Prague. We got down and did the morning essential tasks [:P] and we were off to enjoy Prague. First impressions: Prague looked to be something close to getting down in Old Delhi, roadside markets and nothing spectacular. But from when did first impressions turn out the be the right ones. We asked a couple of police officers some directions and within 15 minutes the way I was seeing the city had changed. Prague has an archaic feel to it. Seems as if you've gone back a couple of centuries.

Started looking for breakfast first. But as usual, veg food is tough to find. We gave McDs a try and they said they'll make the non veg burgers without non veg for the same price, however what they didn't tell us was that they'd just remove the non veg and add nothing in return [:P]. And then we remembered the food we bought in Vienna and it came to our rescue.

Main stops in Prague were the Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge and Prague castle. The "Astronomical Clock" was first on our itinerary. It has an astrolabe on it, which was an old astronomical device, essentially a sky calendar. A huge number of people waited there for the clock to complete an hour. Why? Thats what got us curious. But all the hopes were drowned when we actually saw what happened. The musical clock at Salarjung museum was better than this. We decided to go up the tower and take a good look at the city. From the top, the city looks beautiful. But, unlike Vienna and other cities that I have seen in Europe, Prague is pretty congested and unordered.

Astro Clock

The next stop was the Charles bridge. We reached there by 1:00 pm in the afternoon. Every bit of the bridge has the same feel to it like the rest of Prague, and hence blends very well with it, and also gives a beautiful view in the night, thanks to the well done lighting.

Charles Bridge

View from Charles Bridge

From the Charles bridge, after a small lunch break at McDs, we went up to our next stop, the Prague castle. The castle was huge and beautifully decorated. A well maintained courtyard on the outside, with a beautiful cathedral on the inside.

Another thing I almost forgot to mention. In the morning, when we were looking to change currency (Euros are not accepted here), Archana kept pushing everyone to go into the castle, which was 350 Crowns, about 14 Euros and was off most people's budget for travels. So, even though everyone did get a little more Crowns just in case, and said we'll see what to do at the castle, nobody except Archana had even half a heard to get a 14 Euro ticket. Though, as it turned out, I ended up spending enough money on food and other items.

However, as it turned out, the ticket was required to go inside the main castle building and nobody went inside. We just visited the cathedral and as you might have guessed it was free [:-)]. Once we got out of the cathedral, we just took a small detour to visit the synagogue, that was a small walk up the hill. From there, we split. Rohit, Chiraag and others wanted to go up to the mini Eiffel Tower, which seemed pretty uninteresting to me. So me, Manas and Nisarg started descending, and on the way picked up a few souvenirs. I bought a beautiful painting for about 4 Euros.

The Courtyard
The Cathedral

Now the fun starts, fun that wasted most of the remaining evening. RoSi and Chiraag had constantly been reminding us of some free concert in "Opera House", which they had pointed out more than just a couple of times on the map. We were supposed to meet there at about 7 pm. We got a little late and after Chiraag called, we reached there at around 7:45 pm, where these people had apparently already reached. So me, Nisarg, Manas and Archana (whom we met at the Charles Bridge after she had visited Kafka museum) waited there a little while only to find out that the building is not the much sought after Opera House, but National Theater and had plays that cost quite a few bucks. So we found out where operas are actually played, and reached Municipal house (close to the bus stop), where we did find the Opera only to know it cost 800 - 1000 Crowns a ticket.

Then we decided to rest out and meet them at the bus stop at about 11 pm. Me and Nisarg were interested in seeing the Dancing House, and decided to meet Manas and Archana at Charles bridge. This tour turned out to be quite fruitful and we got a beautiful night view of the Prague castle and Charles bridge.

Prague Castle

Charles Bridge

At Charles bridge, everybody had already been waiting and we got to know what actually happened. Actually, when we arrived at National Theatre, they decided that they could use their time better by having drinks (smart weren't they? :P), and these people tried Absinthe and Vodka. And they had no cell range either there.

Done with Prague, we reached Vienna next morning, everybody exhausted with the lack of sleep. We reached IST, Austria, where Rohit and others are interning. We took a small nap there. I made us some pasta for breakfast and then we were off to have a glance at Vienna before we left.

Parliament at Vienna

And then we were on our return journey, which was really long for me and took more than 12 hrs for me, thanks to the waits at 2 station summing to more than 4 hours. I finally reached my room at 6 am on Monday morning.

So that was how we spent weekend 3. A long tiring and pretty satisfying trip over all.

P.S.: Sorry for the late entry on the blog. Had been a little caught up.