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cramped limbs on a whistle-stop tour of the Old Town,
complete with requisite Charles Bridge snapshot and a
very welcome half-litre of Budvar at Café Tramvaj
(32
Václavské náměstí, Nové Město)
, a static bar in a tram in
historic Wenceslas Square. And breathe.
09:39
PULLINGOUT OF PRAGUE
The EuroNight Metropol leaves Berlin at 6pm bound for
Austria. Jumping on in Prague at one minute past
midnight, midway through the journey, we’re lucky to get
a six-seat cabin all to ourselves for the six-hour hop to
Vienna. My sister’s insistence on bringing the animal
onesies pays off when we clamber into them for warmth
on the cold train. Our best impressions of a lion and rabbit
even win a fan – a Czech 20-something asks if we’ve seen
the Hungarian cult film
Kontroll
, featuring a girl on a
train in a bear costume. She’s keen to get one, so we tell
her where to go in London (you can pay us later, Primark).
Tired, yet wired, I stare out at the dark Czech
countryside, rewarded with the odd flash of floodlit
Bohemian castle, until the rocking of the train lulls me
into a half-sleep.
16:01
ARRIVAL IN VIENNA
Waking up in a new country gives us a tiny taste of what
life is like for the legion of InterRailers who hop up and
down these lines each day. It’s a right of passage for
many people – a gap-yah staple of the past 30 years. It
must be great, we agree, to jump off into fresh air and
fresh adventures each day. If only we had time...
We hop off in Vienna, right on schedule, dull and
sleepy at 6am. A quick change train-wise leaves no time
for a quick change clothes-wise – hence the odd looks. “I
guess onesies haven’t got here yet,” my trend-
worshipping sister says, shaking her head.
And that’s where we encounter our first delay – on the
train to Bratislava. Twenty toe-tapping, watch-checking
minutes ensue. At the mercy of the trains, we grab a
cheese toastie and watch the commuters. Our own
mornings spent travelling to work feel a long way away.
This is brought home as my sister remembers we’ve not
even drunk any water since “three countries ago”.
18:07
BEYOND BRATISLAVA
Thoroughly over it by now, we’ve still three trains to go.
The toilets get progressively worse with each one and I
enter them clutching my hand-sanitiser like a nun
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