The train from Vienna to Prague is about 4 hours 45 minutes. For some routes a reservation is required, but not for this one. However I suggested to Yanmei we get a reservation anyway. A reservation provides you with a seat number, otherwise you just sit wherever there is space. Our Eurail pass is for 1st class, but they ticket lady said they only had one 1st class seat left, so we reserved two 2nd class seats. I was annoyed at myself for not making the reservation the previous night when we got back from Budapest and walked past the ticket office. However the 2nd class reservation turned out to be money well spent since the train was packed. People were sitting on the floor and standing in corridors, not something we want to do for nearly 5 hours.
We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner, since it was supposed to be nice. The service was great and they had live piano music, but the food itself was just okay. I had a Czech hanger steak with dumplings and Yanmei had a mushroom risotto.
The next day we did a tour. We started at the Prague Castle. Inside the castle is the Saint Vitus Cathedral. The construction of the cathedral started in 1344 and was only completed in 1929, 585 later. You can see in the picture that we were under serious threat of rain.
Once we got down to the river we took a 40 minute cruise on the Vltava river.
The river floods periodically. The most recent was in 2002, which they called a thousand year flood, because it was the highest water ever recorded in the city's history. If you go to YouTube and search for Prague flood 2002 you can find some videos of it.
Finally we walked across the famous Charles bridge.
As part of the tour we had a late lunch in a “medieval restaurant”, and then finished up with a quick walk through the Jewish quarter.
-David
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