Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 11: Prague to Vienna

I left Prague, a bit brokenhearted to do so, at around 10am, thinking the roughly 200-mile drive would take a little over three hours.  I was wrong, but mainly of my own doing.  Although I may not have been ready to leave, PluckyMobile was!

Getting out of Prague was a challenge.  One of the things I have learned in the places I’ve driven in Europe is that if you pull up to the line at the crosswalk at a red light, as one would expect to do, you won’t be able to see the traffic light turn green.  It’s behind you.  This has caused some angry honks from drivers behind me who can see it turn green and aren’t happy that I’m not moving yet.  I’m adjusting.

The other hard part about driving in a country where you don’t speak the language is that you sort of have to have a lot of faith in yourself and Google Maps.  I am being careful to not drive down a road that doesn’t exist or the wrong way on a one-way street, but I keep passing signs with giant exclamation marks on them and words underneath I can’t read and I just sort of have to say, “Eh… I guess I’ll find out what that means if it’s important.”

Once in the countryside, the autobahn south took me through some flat-out beautiful countryside.  I mean, it wasn’t anything I haven’t seen before.  It reminded me a bit of the Pacific Northwest or maybe parts of Colorado, with rolling mountains covered in lots of evergreens.  But it’s still pretty and when I zoomed past a random Czech village in the distance, it took on a romantic flair.

Decidedly less romantic is the price of gas.  I stopped to fill up PluckyMobile and if I’m doing the math right, it was about $7.50 a gallon.

Still, I love driving in places like this.  Pedal down, music loud, wind in my… well… you get the idea.  The autobahn in Czechia didn’t have an unlimited speed limit so it was a bit more civilized, but I was still grateful when Google Maps sent me off the highway onto a two-lane road through the countryside.

When I wasn’t stuck behind a truck – which I was often – it was a great road.  All twisty and turning, up and down little hills.  PluckyMobile is very tossable and seemed to enjoy the exercise.

Every 10 kilometers or so there would be a tiny hamlet, the kind of place you’d find in the dictionary next to whatever the Czech word for quaint is.  I didn’t stop in any of them, mainly because it would’ve involved pulling into someone’s driveway and taking pictures of their front yard.

I’m sure the reality of the existence there is nowhere near as charming as they appeared to this uneducated American tourist eye.  They are probably the equivalent of those small towns you drive through in the US, where things are harder than they should be most of the time.  I’d like to believe it’s nothing but hearty Czech people eating and singing and drinking and doing whatever traditional dance they do there, not a care in the world, but perhaps I’m indulging in a bit of scenic hagiography.

I did find a parallel to the US as a passed through a larger town, Znojmo (population 34,000).  The outskirts have the shopping centers – the grocery stores, the drive throughs, etc.  Then you have the main part of town, with the walkable sidewalks and old buildings.  Then you have the strip of car dealerships (in this case mostly used, but a VW and a Renault outlet there, also).  I could almost map the sections to a place like Statesboro.

It was lunch-ish time and I was hungry, but I’m out in the wilds of southern Czechia and not expecting much when I see, there on the right, what looks like a dragon.  Was I still delirious from all the steps yesterday?  Wait, no, that’s definitely a dragon.  And there’s another one.  And a giant globe that says “The World is Yours.”  And there’s an airplane.

I pulled over so fast that PluckyMobile’s tires screeched.

This completely unexpected place is called Family City, located right on the border of Austria.  This is like the holy grail of roadside attractions.  It has, in no particular order, a kid’s theme park with carnival rides, go karts, a small roller coaster, and water rides; a jukebox and pinball machine museum; a petting zoo; a dinosaur “experience” (crappy concrete dinosaur bliss!); a giant Lego museum; shopping, restaurants (including the Excalibur Café with the dragons), a beauty salon, a spa, a casino, and much, much more.

There was almost nobody there so a lot of it wasn’t open (or maybe the other way around), but this is the kind of place I could’ve spent all day in. 

I ate at the Excalibur restaurant.  The menu was all in Czech but there were pictures and I got the idea that it was mostly big, heavy schnitzels, goulash, and pot roast.  I opted for what seemed like a sensible, smaller meal of sausages and fries and got, basically, a couple of long hot dogs and something that resembled fried potato like objects but may not have been.  In other words, it was exactly what you would expect out of a place like this.

I crossed into Austria, passing through a former border control station with guardhouses that they never bothered to tear down.  Then it was a quick jaunt to Vienna.

The two-lanes roads, and some heavy rain here and there, slowed me down a lot.  I didn’t make it to Vienna until almost four o’clock, which means some of the stuff I intended to do this afternoon will have to wait until tomorrow.

The hotel is nice enough.  The NH Collection of hotels in Europe is supposed to be like the Curio Collection for Hilton or the Autograph Collection for Marriott – smaller, a little more luxe, usually better located.  I’d argue with the more luxe part at this particular property – it feels like a glorified Ramada, really, but the room is huge (they upgraded me to a view).

It’s located on MariahliferStrasse, the main shopping street of Vienna.  It’s wide, mostly pedestrian, and lined with stores and restaurants.  Side streets have more of the same, but with a little more European character. 

I went hunting for food and nothing was striking my fancy until I walked past a narrow street and saw a white and blue building that screamed “I’m a Greek Restaurant!”  Sure enough, Mythos served up everything I could ask for, which in this case was tzatziki with warm pita bread, chicken souvlaki, baked potatoes, and a small salad.  I could literally eat that tzatziki every day of my life.

Tomorrow is a day of exploration as I head to Old Town (about a mile away) and knock a few other Viennese things of my bucket list.