Stuttgart – Nuernberg – Schwandorf – Praha Hlavni Nadrazi

I was slightly surprised when my alarm went off at 7:30. I’d forgotten to disable it and having change time zones yesterday it felt unreasonably early.

I showered and went down to breakfast. I do like a buffet that has a local theme and this one definitely ticked that box. I’m making a conscious effort not to eat too much at breakfast, but this one was quite tempting. After a quite disciplined and very tasty main plate I did give in to the rather delicious sweet bread though, and am not going to let myself regret it.

I had a couple of hours before the train so checked out of the room and left my bag with reception. I’d not looked at a map but followed my nose down to the station, and around the building site. I bet this will be a stunning station again one day, but I don’t think it’s going to be any time soon.

Walking around to the front of the station, I turned right down what looked like the main shopping street. At Palace Square I rather liked this huge and imposing building, though sadly it is now just a facade leading to a shopping centre. The Palace itself was on the opposite side.

I found my way to the old town, which also has a square, where a small market was running, mostly selling flowers. A third square also had a market, this time for fruit and vegetables. I liked the contrast of the old town and the much newer clock tower in this square, just a two-minutes walk apart.

The mix of old and new architecture continued throughout the city, and with much more care than I’ve seen elsewhere. I found a lot of the 60s and 70s buildings to be quite charming in their own way.

It’s also a city with an interesting selection of sculptures. Some of them are just odd, but I very much liked this one.

I didn’t have time to explore further so picked up my bag and headed to the station. Although I was in good time, the train was already very full, with some people standing. The tiny first class area only had 8 seats, laid out in the same way as second class, but at least I got somewhere to sit, even if I was facing backwards.

Shortly after we left, the train manager guided a few other passengers into the first class area. A parent with a young child on her knee, and an elderly lady with a huge suitcase took the last of the 8 seats, and all 8 of us stayed on the train to its destination.

At Rems-Murr, I couldn’t decide whether the decoration was an art project or graffiti, but it looked good from where I was sitting.

I had a 20-minute planned connection time at Nuremberg, but our train arriving 16 minutes late made it more stressful than it needed to be. Queueing to get off the train, then to get into the underpass to change platforms was not ideal, when I could see the train ready to leave.

I dived onto it and sat down, only to see that the destination board wasn’t what I expected, but we were already on our way. It took me a few minutes to work out that I was on the right train, but in the wrong section. The service splits in two at Neukirchen and I was in the section going to Neustadt not Schandorf.

I could see that there was a 4 minute wait at Neukirchen, so rather than trying to dive off an on at one of the two intermediate stations I settled down and enjoyed the view as we passed a series of small towns and villages.

A few minutes before Neukirchen, an announcement was made (multilingual, of course) to explain the train split and advise people where they needed to be. The platform was quite busy with people swapping ends, but there was more than enough time for me to move.

The change at Schwandorf was also very short. It should have been 7 minutes but was 4 by the time we arrived. I could really have done with getting something to drink on the station but there wasn’t time. I found myself a seat in an empty first class compartment.

The border was crossed in a very rural area. Completely unmarked, as is the norm, but I think it was in a woodland area. As we passed the first station after the border, I spotted a single station official who watched us come in and leave. Some of the train crew also changed and shortly afterwards free bottles of water were handed out, which I very much appreciated by now. A little later a trolley service of drinks and snacks arrived, but I didn’t buy anything.

There seems to be a much more relaxed attitude on stations here. At Holysov, passengers got off on both sides and stepped straight across the track, away from the train.

I was impressed by the buildings next to the line as we approached Plzen, but the station itself was something else. I couldn’t get a good photo of it from the train but it was very clear that it was a substantial place.

It was dark by the time we reached Prague, and my hotel was only a few minutes walk away. I checked in, dropped my bags in the room and almost immediately headed back out. On my previous visit here a couple of years ago I’d not been impressed by what I saw on a very short walk around, which had been based on nothing more than asking the hotel reception which way to go, but lots of people had told me I was wrong, so this time I’d done a bit of reading on where I needed to go.

It was now very clear that on my previous visit I’d missed the target, heading too far south and whilst I’d found a pleasant part of the city, it really was nothing special.

This time I headed directly to the heart of the old town. Even in March it was lively with visitors and immediately impressive.

I walked for a while but decided I needed to eat, as it was getting late. For sheer convenience I settled on one of the open air restaurants in the main square. I ordered a goulash and a beer, both of which were delivered promptly.

The Czech take on goulash is a little different to the Hungarian, but I very much enjoyed it, and having it served in bread made for a very tasty and filling meal. The local beer was also good, though I’m not sure any UK bar would get away with a head like the ones they have here, which can be almost half the glass!

By now it was getting quite cold and I headed back to my hotel, down a different route but with more super buildings to see on the way.