We had to do laundry, so we'd gotten up at 7am and hauled our clothes in our suitcases to the nearest laundromat, a few block away from the hotel, less than a ten minute walk. For the washing machine setting we selected "normalwasche" thinking it would be a typical half hour cycle. But we noticed a timer on the machine was counting down from 120 minutes. So, you've been warned. "Normalwasche" was a two hour cycle for us. I don't know how long the other settings would have been. We did laundry in Italy that was comparable to our American machines, so I don't know.
Realizing that we would be spending much more time than anticipated on laundry, we went back to the hotel and ate breakfast. We ate our last Viennese meal in the cheery breakfast room at Pension Kraml. This is what my typical breakfast plate looked like.
My kind of breakfast. I usually had coffee, too.
After breakfast, Hubs went back to the laundromat and swapped everything to the dryer while I got ready and packed. Then we checked out of the hotel and went back to the laundromat where we had to run the dryer an extra time to get everything dry. Leave yourself an entire morning to do laundry in Vienna.
We boarded the 12:30 pm train to Prague, loading up on sandwiches from Spar for the ride. Tickets were 65 euro each and the trip was just under five hours. After arriving at the train station, we got on the subway and transferred to another line, and got off to find our hotel. The subway escalators are the longest, steepest, and fastest I've ever been on.
Aparthotel City 5 was a short block away from the subway, extremely convenient. When we entered the warm lobby, we were greeted by Crisitna, the friendliest woman in Prague. She directed us to sit in the kitschy breakfast room, made us a cappuccino, and laid out a giant map of Prague in front of us. She marked entire routes for potential walking tours and highlighted all of the main sites that we should see during our visit and informed us of visiting attractions. She also lent us a Rick Steves guidebook.
Cristina asked us what our favorite European city was. Hubs and I exchanged a look and agreed on Paris. She scoffed at us, in a fun, friendly way and replied, "Prague is magic."
Cristina clearly adores the city she lives in, and her enthusiasm gave us more energy for the evening. We went next door and ate dinner at The Thirsty Deer, since it was the most convenient option and we were starving. Fortunately, the food didn't feel convenient at all. I had venison goulash, which was so rich and so good.
Hubs had spicy pork strips which ended up being a stir fry with a rich sauce.
Both meals were really good. We also each had a huge mug of Staropramen non-filtered.
The Staropramen brewery is directly behind the hotel, so many Prague eateries serve Staropramen, but there are a few different varieties of the beer. The non-filtered is the best. So, so good. One of my favorite beers in the world.
2 large beers + 2 entrees + tip = 500 Kr. At the time of our trip, 20 Kr = $1.
Completely stuffed, unable to finish all the delicious food, we followed the Vltava River up to the St. Charles Bridge. It was a 20-30 min. walk to the bridge from the hotel.
Every angle seemed to present a different, spectacular view of the palace and cathedral overlooking the city.
It was breathtaking.
And insanely romantic.
The Charles Bridge wasn't overcrowded at night.
The bridge offered yet another view of the castle and palace.
Maybe Prague is magic.
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