2004.09.17 in Prague

The night train's ride wasn't the best we saved some Euros by not paying for a couchette. We just hogged an empty 6-seat passenger compartment! We got into Prague before 8am - the earliest we've arrived anywhere - and ventured to find accomodation. Unfortunately, our first choice (Golden Sickle Hostel) was booked all weekend but they kindly pointed us to another one down the street. This 2nd hostel had a double room which we asked for 1 night and would cost us 600kc (Czech krowns) each! The manager said it was 5 minutes away (what the-?) and it ended up being at some accomodation agency whose manager actually wanted us to stay 3 nights minimum! We passed on that and said we'd look elsewhere and come back if we found nothing...We trekked to 2 other hostels on my list but they were both full as well so we headed back to the 3 nights place. An hour had passed and when we arrived the room was already taken! We headed out the door worried and distraught when the manager said she'll make some calls. After a few calls, luckily and thankfully she knew someone with a similar 2-bed private room for only 500kc not too far away. That's hot we said and we got ourselves a nice set up and a landlady who knows no English but has 3 rooms for tourists. We went on a 4 hour walking tour in the afternoon - I was really frustrated because I had to recharge my digital camera's (DC) battery while we were on the tour, but then I didn't have much room anyway - and I missed a lot of great potential shots. Thankfully Le had his DC with extra memory card and battery... I asked our tour guide for a good Czech restaurant and she told us about some place called "Pravek." We had another recommended Czech restaurant to try from a fellow backpacker we met in Warsaw, but we went to try our guide's suggestion for dinner. After realizing we got off the wrong tram stop for 20 minutes, we found the restaurant and all the directions we received for it were right all along.

Pravek has a cool Stone Age/prehistoric theme and offers diverse meats along with the usual beef, pork, chicken, and fish dishes. They had kangaroo, deer, boar, and roe dishes! The food is not genuinely Czech, but this is a helluva restaurant and probably *THE* best we've ever been to. We tried a roast pheasant legs appetizer which was good - pheasant legs have many skinny bones on them! My main dish was 300g of turkey with herb cream sauce and a huge stack of potato wedges. Dessert was 2 large scoops of ice cream and we also had 2 pints to wash it all down. In total, the dinner was under $15CDN for each of us! The value was unbeatable and the food was delicious and presented well. We planned on going there one more time before we left that's for sure!

Walking around Old Town at night we checked out some of the many souvenir shops and passed hawkers handing out flyers for either local caberet clubs or classical music concerts...

Beer Rating of the Day: Staropramen = 4.5 out of 5 stars