Days 19-22: Czechin' Out Prague

Your mission, should you choose to accept it... No, I wasn't Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible (part of which was filmed in Prague), but my Prague adventure started like a spy thriller nonetheless. It was 8pm on a dark Budapest night as I waited in the shadows on the train platform (ok, the light bulb was out!). My contact had informed me that my transportation would be arriving shortly (the guy at the info desk said wait on Platform 7). As the old Soviet-made train pulled into the station, I winced at the irony - use the enemy's weapons against him. I moved quietly into my sleeper cabin and worked quickly to secure the premises (checked under the bed and locked the door). The hours passed as I lay on my bed in the dark, one eye always watching out (ok, so I had insomnia and couldn't sleep). When I heard the shuffle of bodies outside my door in the middle of the night, I quickly took a position by the door and gauged the situation - border guards! I had been told they would be looking for me and was prepared. Showing them the "documents" I had acquired before my journey (my passport), I managed to slip into the Czech Republic with no trouble at all. That was easy. Too easy.

Ok ok, so I'm being incredibly over dramatic, but let an old spy-movie fan have his fun, eh? Still, joke as you may, there is most definitely something romantic about a train ride in Europe, and in a sleeper cabin even more so. I was lucky in that I was the only person in the cabin for the entire night, so I had it all to myself. I was unlucky in that it was a pretty old train and the shades didn't block out all the light. Between the lights outside flashing by constantly, the frequent station stops that almost threw me out of my bunk and the 3 border crossings where I was woken up rudely by Passport Control, I barely got any sleep all night. Still, it was a fun train ride and I saved on one night hotel stay. Bleary-eyed and flat-tailed, I arrived in Prague at 6:30 in the morning.

At first glance, Prague is a lot like Budapest. Both cities were created as a merger of smaller cities, bisected by a large north-south river, and have castles on the west bank looking over the city. But whereas Budapest is rough around the edges, Prague is finely polished. Maybe a little too smooth, because tourists were swarming around Prague in droves. Or maybe bunches is more appropriate - it seems that the preferred mode of travel in Prague is within the protective womb of a tour group. Everywhere you went, tour groups of 15-20 people were being led around by tour guides holding up a flag or other indicator and spitting out well-rehearsed diatribes about the history of such and such building.

But there was a reason there were so many tourists - Prague is a beautiful city, in every way the archetype of the Olde Worlde European city. From its wide river to its majestic castle to its large town square to its narrow cobble-stone streets. More cities than Prague have pulled off the iconic "Olde Worlde" charm, but Prague is probably the only major capital to do it so well. I must have spent two full days just wandering the streets of the Old Town, the Jewish Quarter, the Castle District and the of course the Charles Bridge. The Charles Bridge, of all the sights in Prague, defines the city the most. It is unique not only in that it is a large pedestrian bridge, but it is also a town square of sorts. Day and night, people gather on the bridge by the hundreds to admire its beauty, to get a view of the city and to just relax.

Emboldened by my luck in Amsterdam, I asked some locals for a tip on where to go out at night and was told to check out a club called Swamp. Wrong. Oh so wrong. My first clue that I was in the wrong place should have been the four flights of dark stairs I had to climb down to get to the club. I arrived somewhere around the third level of Hell, and the place looked like an old bomb shelter from WWII. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Not to be outdone, the next night I found a pretty good club called RadostFX. It was a small club but had a good layout and a good crowd. Recommended.