Ralph here. I woke up fairly early and ran from our hotel back to the Metronome. In addition to serving as an ironic commentary on five-year plans, the Metronome is surrounded by a large park which is likely the only large, flat area in Prague. I added a few miles in the paths of this tree-shaded park, along with a few Czech runners. Upon my return, we ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and walked (downhill!) to the train station for our first European rail journey to Ljulbljana, the capital of Slovenia.
When we purchased the tickets a couple days earlier at the train station [from the angriest czech we met], we learned the difference between purchasing a ‘ticket’ and a ‘reservation.’ The former just allows you onto the train, the latter “reserves” (makes sense!) a seat. If you do not purchase a reservation, then you just need to hope that not all the reservations are purchased, so you can then sit down in an actual chair rather than hanging out in the train passageway like a particularly committed panhandler.
We boarded the train and sat down at what we thought were our reserved seats. We learned otherwise when the actual reservation-holders showed up. Another traveler showed us on our ticket how we could find our reserved seats (they were in the next railcar) and we headed out of the compartment.
After jostling our way down the moving train passageway with our baggage, tripping over numerous non-reservation-holding Eurokids spending their summer backpacking across the Continent, we made it to our seats. Unfortunately, they were in adjacent compartments. Oh well, at least we had seats, unlike the free spirits in the hall.
Our first train was from Prague to Vienna, where we had a 45 minute layover and bought a pizza from a crowded train station restaurant. We then boarded our second train, which was much less crowded, had more comfortable seats, and even had a power outlet in the compartment. [Best train of the day – the seats reclined without taking up additional space and there were jump seats in the hallway in addition to things Ralph mentioned.] Also, Lynnae and I were in the same compartment. Lynnae was exhausted, and slept through some picture-perfect scenery as we wound through the Austrian mountains. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
We got off our second train at Maribor, Slovenia. We had been concerned about the 7-minute layover before our last train departed Maribor, but no need to worry – our last train was already sitting just across the platform.
The last train took off for the approximately hour long trip to the Slovenian capital. This train was by far the best of them all. There were no compartments, but two sets of two seats faced each other with a table in between. The train was nearly empty except for a large party of Indian people playing cards right behind us.
When the conductor came by to check our tickets, he asked for our reservation. We did not have a reservation for this leg of the trip, and didn’t think it was an issue as the train was about 10% full. The conductor’s English was very limited, and my Slovenian ability consists of me speaking English loudly and slowly, so it was not easy communication. Still, we could understand that he was asking for money for two reservations. We didn’t have enough cash for two reservations, so he just took what few euros we had and issued us one reservation. In sum: we got shook down by a Slovenian Railways conductor.
We arrived in Ljubljana (pronounced lube-yana) around 9:40pm. Thankfully the rail station information office closed at 10, so we headed there to get brochures and a city map. Slovenia is a small country both physically and in population, with only 2 million people total. As Slovenia’s largest city, Ljubljana only has a population of 272,000, about equivalent to Fort Wayne, Indiana, with a similarly-sized downtown. As such, all we had to do was tell the clerk our hotel name and he was immediately able to point it out on the map. We wandered the darkened streets for a bit and eventually stumbled our way onto the hotel. [This also means that all hotels have their own directional signs]
[And some photos of beautiful Prague that we didn’t have reason to include earlier.]