Munich, Germany to Prague, Czechia
Woke early to pack, then downstairs for breakfast (turned on the tv to see that someone tried to assassinate ex-president Trump the day before). None of us ate much. Nerves and jet lag persist.
Met our taxi driver, Nivan, who was dressed stylishly and drove a 7 series BMW. Our luggage barely fit, but he Tetris’d it all in. We had a good conversation with him. Told him our itinerary and he complimented Sylvia’s vacation planning.
Checked in with the Goethe Institute and found we had an hour and a half, so Vix accompanied us to rent a car from SixT (Dennis was our rental guy). We decided to upgrade to an Audio Q5 diesel, hoping we’ll save on petrol overall.
Having the keys to our rental, we stowed our large luggage in the trunk before walking back over to the airport (Munich airport is really well designed for ease of use) to trying to switch our middle leg flight (Munich to Frankfurt) to an earlier one to help us make our dinner reservations in a couple weeks. The line was long, so we took a number. Vix got to pet a cute dog.
We all then walked back over to the hotel where Vix would be departing from with the other campers. There was filming going on in the atrium and a cow standing guard at the entrance. We said our goodbyes and Vix entered the conference room filled with kids waiting to be driven into another country. It was a weird feeling.
With our newfound seperation anxiety, Sylvia and I returned to the Lufthansa counters to wait in line. We did get the flight changed to one an hour earlier (in retrospect, considered we arrived with only around ten minutes until our reservation time, this was a much needed switch), then returned to the rental car in the garage and spent way too long trying to switch the car’s system to English. This was where Google Lens real time translations came in super handy.
Hit the road. Beautiful views. Stopped in Straubing, Germany for lunch. I had the Alsatian burger with Camembert cream & cranberries. We were surrounded by a couple different bus tours filled with Americans. They are the fuel that runs the soft serve economy.
We drove through SO MANY small Checzian towns. 100kph speed limits become 70, become 50. Rinse, repeat.
So many ice cream shops with their yellow and black stand displays. The entire economy of Eastern Europe appears to be soft serve based.
We discovered that there is an electronic vignette needed to pay tolls along the country. We couldn’t find any place that was open that sold one, so we went into a Tesco and, using google translate, asked the cashier if she knew where to get one and she, using her own phone to translate, told us to buy one online.
Along the journey, the car beeped a warning about needing AdBlue/DET, a diesel additive. It said we should add 8 liters in the next 1000 km. At some point Sylvia needed to find a restroom, so we found a gas station and they sold the stuff in a 10 liter bucket. Used the entire container after looking up a YouTube video explaining how to do so.
Got into Prague- that’s where driving became kind of stressful- tight streets and odd yielding rules. Because parking in Prague involves a deep understanding of witchcraft, the hotel provided a helpful list of acceptable and not acceptable places we could park our car for the duration of our visit and suggested we take a picture of any signage where we find parking so they could verify it was ok. I found a place a few blocks away.
The hotel is so incredibly unique with creative details at every turn. Our room is on the sixth floor and houses a balcony that looks out over the city and includes large, metal mushrooms. The bathroom had the exact same green glass tiles as we installed in our upstairs bathroom at home.
There was a bottle of complimentary champagne with a note greeting us. We did a toast.
Went to U Fleku, a restaurant that has been around since 1499. It was filled with people of many different nationalities. Hungarians next to us, Germans to the right. The food was all heavy meat and bread based with gravy. We didn’t finish our meals.
walked back to the hotel for a few minutes before embarking on a walking journey down to the river front. It was a Sunday night and the city was ALIVE with people walking around and hanging out everywhere. This city is an incredible mixture of very old and fresh, creativity. Looking forward to more exploration tomorrow.
Sylvia grabbed an apple strudel in the hotel cafe. Cool spot! Breakfast there tomorrow!
Back to the hotel and both of us dozed off during the Euro Cup 2024 (I woke up when England scored). Vix called from camp. She’s made friends with the other Americans, a girl from the UK, and a girl from Spain. Her roommates are from India and France, but they can’t communicate much, so aren’t close… yet.
Sometimes designer showers are TOO clever- the walk-in at this hotel spills everywhere.
(15,390 steps)