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Day 2: Sunday, May 23, 2004
We woke up early (around
The process for transporting the bike on the train was
interesting. We had bought a bike ticket the night before for 20ck and
gave it to the conductor when he loaded the bike. He then affixed a claim
check to the ticket and returned it to us, putting the other part of the
claim check on the bike. When we picked up the bike in Prague we had to
show him the claim check before we could get our bike back. A good way
to ensure your bike doesn't get claimed by someone else at an intermediate
stop. However, whenever we travel with the bike by train I'm always paranoid
and keep a close eye on the baggage car at each stop. After about 1.5
hours we arrived in Prague at 9:40 to light rain.
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| Trying to
wait out the rain upon arrival at the Prague train station. No flash = blurry photo! |
We waited a bit in the dark and dreary Prague
Hlavni nadrazi (main station) hoping the rain would pass, but to no
avail. Suiting up in our rain coats and pants, we headed off down
We found the pension, but since it was too early to check
in we left our bags in the luggage room and had to lock the tandem out
in the rain in the (gated) courtyard. I wasn't too happy about this, and
told the desk clerk that in our booking e-mail I was told we could leave
the bike in the luggage area. Unfortunately, I didn't bring that particular
e-mail with me, so had no way to prove it (when I got home I checked my
e-mail, and saw that they did, in fact, confirm that I could leave the
bike in the luggage room while we stayed there). At least the courtyard
was gated and locked. Later that night, after a new desk clerk came on,
we brought the tandem into our room and left it there the rest of our
stay with no problems. This was the only time in all our bike trips to
Europe that we had to leave the tandem outside.
Pension Unitas is pretty basic, but clean and well-located.
If you are looking for big hotel amenities, look elsewhere. If you are
happy with a good location, a clean room and bed, and shared facilities,
it's a great value. We'd definitely stay there again. Our room was long
and narrow with two separate beds and a wardrobe/closet. Bathrooms and
toilets were down the hall and were shared by the 16 or so rooms. Despite
the limited facilities, we never really had any problem finding an open
shower or toilet.
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| Our cell,
er, room, at Pension Unitas. Basic, but nice. Note the tandem on the left! |
After we checked in we went out to start touring Prague.
Although it was a cold, rainy, gray day, there was still a lot to see.
The marathon was winding down, and we got to see the last runners coming
in. They looked fairly miserable after running a marathon in cold, rainy
weather. Rock bands were playing in the main square and there was a lot
going on. We stopped at a pizza restaurant and had a good lunch (and warmed
up a bit) and then went back to the room to unpack and take a short nap.
After about an hour we walked over to the Charles Bridge,
which was close to our pension. It started to rain again (are you sensing
a theme here?), so we retired to the room to freshen up for dinner. The
heavy rain didn't show any signs of letting up, so we put on our Gore-Tex
rain jackets and headed out to find a restaurant. We looked at the menus
at a few places, but all the tables were full. We decided on a restaurant
on a small back street where we had found Internet access earlier in the
day. The food was good, but they gave us miniscule portions and tacked
on a few charges that were surprising. The first was a 20ck "cover
charge" ("ouvert" in Czech) for the privilege of eating
in the restaurant. The second was a handwritten "euro tax" on
the receipt. I'm not sure if it was justified or not, but I wasn't in
a position to argue with it. All of the various guidebooks we had read
warned readers about the unscrupulous dealings of restaurants in
Daily costs 5/23
(in CK): Train to