This morning, Erik dropped us off at the train station on the way to the bank. We caught a regional express (RE) train out of their station (Lichterfeld Ost).
The RE trains are smaller and slower than the ICE trains that we take the majority of the time. All run on electricity, but ICE trains are relatively new, nice, quiet (they run on electricity), and fast. When I looked at monitors on the ICE trains, it said the speed was 220 kph or about 136 mph. RE and smaller, slower trains also have a greater chance of containing backpackers and other smelly people and animals, since the tickets are cheaper.
When we were coming back from Frankfurt on Friday morning, the RE we took from Berlin Hauptbanhof to Friedrichstrasse had a load of smelly people and dogs. Neither of which had probably seen a bath in weeks. It was so bad that if we weren't getting off at the next stop, I probably would have thrown-up. Seriously.
Since our Women's World Cup passes allow us unrestricted access to all DB (Deutsch Banhoff) trains, we generally take the fastest and cleanest trains. I think we have already used up an equivalent of 2,000€ ($3,000) worth of tickets using our passes.
We needed to change our RE train at Elsterwerda with one that would take us to Dresden. But of course, the RE train was a little slow picking us up and continued that trend until right before Elsterwerda where we were to catch the connecting train. There it just stopped for 10-15 minutes and made sure we would miss the train to Dresden.
Standing on the platform at Elsterwerda, Alicia and I looked at the next departures for Dresden. There wouldn't be another one until 1:45 pm. That was nice. Instead of catching the train at 11:45, we now had to add a two hour delay into our day. Oh well. Might as well make the most of it,
So we left the bahnhof (station) and walked around the town. It was small, but we found a döner shop where Alicia could get some more yummy döner sandwiches and I could save money. I am not trying to be a penny pincher, we just have money that we want to pull out of the ATM and since we will be in Prague, we want to pull it out in Czech Crowns, not Euros. So we only had a 5€ bill and 2-3€ in coins. Just enough for some döners and a treat from the local bakery.
We passed this bakery on the way to the döner place that had whipped cream pastries and Berliners (they look like jelly-filled doughnuts). We stopped by on our way back to the banhof and picked up one of each.. Wow was that cream pastry good. The cream tasted very fresh, not heavy with stabilizers and extra fats like I have usually experienced at home. A great dessert.
We caught the next train to Dresden without any problem. Once there, we arranged for tickets to Prague (our Women's World Cup passes are only good within Germany). We didn't have any problems catching the train, but our delays kept us from getting to Prague until about 5 pm.
From the train station we caught the subway to a stop near the hotel. The subway system is nice, but a little unnerving since my family are fans of the Doctor Who television series and the walls lining the subway look like daleks.
Since our hotel, The Golden Star has such a nice view, it meant that we had to walk from the subway stop and climb a hill. It took longer too because Prague is amazing. As the only central European capital that survived both world wars intact, the architecture is beautiful.
We were out of breath when we arrived, but the view was as described. The only problem was that the hotel had a problem with our reservation and needed to send us to another of their hotels. We didn't like that, since we wanted that hotel in particular. But it didn't seem like there was much we could do. The hotel sounded nice and it was going to be close to the Charles Bridge, so we went with it.
The new hotel, The Bishop's House, might not have been as nice as The Golden Star, but it more than made-up for it with proximity and lack of a hike every time we wanted to go to the hotel. It was so close to the St. Charles bridge that once we left our hotel we only had to go around the corner to be on the bridge.
After we checked in, we started exploring the bridge and central Prague on the other side. The winding streets, architecture, and sights were mesmerizing. We needed to get some dinner, but we kept getting distracted by one more thing just around the next bend.
Eventually we realized it was getting late and restaurants would start closing. So we went back to one of the places we spotted that had some great sounding Czech dinners. Alicia had the goulash in a bread bowl and I had asparagus risotto. While risotto may not be Czech, I couldn't pass it up. Both meals were fantastic. The risotto was creamy and full of flavor. The goulash was subtly flavorful, not over the top like many American versions. But the masterstroke was placing it in a toasted bread bowl that wasn't too large, wasn't made of white bread (it was a wheat), and had a touch of rye.
We were so full we didn't even have room for dessert. But it should help us sleep soundly.
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