Dinner at 140 kph

We got up bright and early today to hike across town, to catch our connection to Karlovy Vary. As it turned out, we were a little too early, as the train was delayed 80 minutes, so it was a long wait at Prague station, listening to many incomprehensible (to me) announcements, preceded by a jaunty little jingle that I'm sure would lose its novelty for those who work there, but I liked it. We whiled away the hours by sitting briefly in the park eating potato cakes, before feeling too conspicuous amongst the yelling hobos and gypsies (which admittedly was entertaining for a while, until the police left, then it just felt unsafe), and then taking pot luck on the platform our train might eventually leave from and sitting there people-watching.

Andrew's favourite past-time

The train trip itself to Karlovy Vary (approx 4 hours north west of Prague) was quite pleasant. We treated ourselves to first class, which meant our seats were beige velour (reminscent perhaps of a late 1980s Magna's interior) and they could recline. We had the cabin to ourselves for the entire journey, which mean Andrew could indulge in his favourite pastime of drinking beer with his head out the window like a giant puppy dog. Ah, this is the life.

The elegant dining car

We then moved to the dining car and were also the only people in there, thus we got excellent service from the waiter/chef. He customised the meal just for us, including recommending the soup (Best. Soup. Ever.) and bringing out the 'special' cheese (which he allowed us to smell, in case it wasn't to our taste...it was) for the chicken meal we ordered.

Karlovy Vary was wet and overcast when we arrived. Water was pouring from the station roof, even though it had stopped raining. We took a taxi to our pension, which was just out of town (and, let's be honest, at the furthest point possible from the Grand Hotel Pupp). It was, however, situated above a dentist's room, which has to be one of the greatest cross marketing exercises seen, and something that is clearly a lost niche market in Australia. THe smell of disinfectant and the sound of the drill thankfully did not filter upstairs. Our room was cosy and clean though, so we ignored the owner's very bad shorts (and the fact that it took him ten minutes to answer the door!).