I had a plan for breakfast.
It was somehow drummed into me as a child that at functions or gatherings with a buffet it was generally bad form to locate the buffet on arrival and stand next to it until it was time to get in the car and go home.
What I learned from this is that unless you’re at the buffet first with a big plate before the stampede, there is a very real chance the good stuff will be gone early on and you’ll be left with the bits people didn’t want or, even worse, had put back. As an adult, I try to adhere to the etiquette but will normally do a reconnaissance graze before deciding what to take away with me to eat later.
At about 8am I decided I would do away with the politesse — that woman yesterday was having a conversation on speakerphone while eating, so the end of the world is nigh — and sat myself strategically between the hovering staff and the buffet so that I could keep stock of both and not need to stray too from either to refill my plate. This was successful, and I managed an uninterrupted breakfast of bread and cheese, coffee, eggs, cheesy nuggets — a surprise breakfast delicacy — beans, no mushrooms, coffee, coffee, coffee, and bread and jam. I quite fancied a pancake but they were in a warmer further than I was prepared to venture, so had to make the sacrifice.
After a morning lesson I was abluted and packed and ready to leave my lovely room by about ten, well before checkout at eleven, and the nice girl behind the desk obligingly stored my luggage in the secure luggage so I could entertain myself until whichever train I was going to take to Nürnberg. By half-past I was in the Plzeň Puppet Museum grinning like an idiot.
“Two, please!” I said to the woman behind the counter who looked confused as there was only one of me. I produced a finger puppet surrepticiously. If there was a big red button under the counter, she couldn’t find it. She looked at the puppet and then back at me, sympathetically, before circumspectly sliding a 60CZK entry ticket across the counter in my direction.
“Děkuju!” I beamed.
She looked a the finger puppet and smiled sympathetically, then looked back at me and nodded.
“He gets in free.”
The building on Náměstí Republiky (Square of the Republic) that is now the puppet museum has been an important building in Plzeň since the original medieval town. It underwent renovations after being damaged by fire in 1507, and then was again subject to major alterations between 1580 and 1590 which gave the front of the building one of the most beautiful Renaissance façades on the square.
Czech puppetry is an integral part of Slovak and Czech local theatre and literary tradition and is on the Unesco list of intangible cultural heritage. More than 100 years of this tradition can be observed in the exhibits and the story starts on the first floor in the 19th century, when the people of Plzeň would enjoy travelling theatre performances. On the second floor there are more recent puppets and an automated puppet theatre which puts on a show at the press of a button, and on the third floor there is a contemporary exhibit and most importantly a room where, according to the web site, “puppets can be manipulated” showing that the rich puppet tradition in Plzeň has not died.
I would imagine the people asking whether they can manipulate the puppets are mostly children, but the incredibly indulgent member of staff seemed totally unfazed helping a grown man in adapting a Peruvian finger puppet so he was able to stand up on stage on his own and participate in improvised scenes with his new puppety friends, some of whom introduced themselves.
It is important to say hello to the puppets.
We eventually moved onto improvising scenes with her practising her English and French in a variety of conversations with a beautiful princess afflicted by a slight limp. Despite a few uncontrollable tics she was before long able to hobble across a stage while moving her head and arms and having a conversation with her father, a tyrannical king who made wafting across a stage with regal grace look far easier than it actually is.
The other exhibits on the third floor invite you to interact with them by pulling levers and turning handles. My new-found friend encouraged me to try all of the puppets and helped me insert my own puppet into even more scenes before, alas, it was time for me to get it together and hightail it back to the hotel to quaff a tasty lunchtime Pilsner, grab my bag, and get myself to Plzeň-Jižní Předměstí for my train to the main station.
Plzeň-Jižní Předměstí was built between 1903 and 1904 and initially consisted of a single Art Nouveau style building which quickly became insufficient for local residents and employees of the nearby Škoda factory. Between 1919 and 1920, a second building was built in the Neo-Renaissance style on the other side of the road. The first served departures and the second arrivals.
Both were declared cultural monuments in 1995 but the one which is now exclusively used as the railway station (the second of the two as the first is now an art gallery) will look magnificent once its renovation is complete.
The first railway station built on the site of Plzeň Hlavní Nádraží opened to the public in 1862 but was demolished and replaced with the current imposing main station in 1907. The architect, who also cofinanced construction, committed suicide in 1908 due to the debt he’d accrued cofinancing construction of a railway station. The building suffered extensive damage in the Allied bombing of Plzeň during the Second World War and the main forty-metre high dome moved some 15cm in the blasts to the point that the future of the station was in doubt. Some Škoda workers donated their time and repaired the dome and once this was completed, the entire building was rebuilt to its original state.
The station is now a cultural monument of the Czech Republic. The main hall is light and airy and there are paintings in archways over underpasses running to other parts of the station. I watched Plzeň slowly disappear as the escalator ushered me past statues of a metallurgist and a shunter on either side of the main stairs as I emerged on the island amid the platforms.
My 13:11 train left a minute late. It was one of those paradoxical trains where the (limited) first class was made up of old carriages with compartments of five armchair seats, and modern second class coaches which were probably actually a bit nicer, if slightly noisier.
I shared my compartment with a woman who was travelling back from a conference in Prague and we respected each other’s quiet but exchanged occasional observations and later on a bit more conversation about Christmas markets and train travel. I didn’t tell her how I’d spent my morning lest she think me odd. A man from “Alex Team” distributed free chocolates.
The journey was nice because the seasons had changed again and for most of the journey we were travelling through blue skies and bright sunshine. By Schwandorf it’d become abundantly clear that I’d be better off not spending an hour in Schwandorf but staying on the train until Regensburg, where to my surprise I had the most intense unexpected Christmas market mini-experience. On platform one a DB Cargo train was carrying a large lorry traditionally used by a jovially overweigh red and white gentleman to peddle his sugary evil upon over-excited children chomping at the bit to get closer.
Outside the station was a Christmas mini-market of three stalls, where I lost Whamageddon after only four days. There was was also some Mariah, my guilty seasonal pleasure, and a consolatory Glühwein before the 16:35 ICE to Nürnberg. The platform was heaving so I made a reservation from my phone which I needn’t have as the train was strangely empty.
There were some of those tourists, so I found a single seat in the eight-seat quiet compartment at the trailing pointy end and had a DB Glühwein delivered to my seat.
The Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt takes place in and around the old town and, superlatives at the ready, is one of the largest Christmas markets in Germany and one of the most famous in the world. It closes at nine during the week, giving plenty of time for exploration and looking at sparkly tat. I had a slightly disappointing Glühsomething, which could’ve been chocolate but might have been dishwater, I wasn’t entirely sure as it didn’t have enough of anything for me to ascertain exactly what it was I had been served. Still. I had to drink it so I could return the mug and get my 4€ deposit back.
My route back to the dive was a long one. I’d become a little disoriented trying to find a falafel place, but by chance found a kebab shop called Haymat where I had probably the best falafel of this trip so far. I’d been asked what sauces I wanted, I think, I pointed at some things that looked nice. I was enquiring about harissa, or spicy, or piquant — or any word I could think of for something spicy — until I spied a thing of what looked like harissa and intimated I’d have some of that please. I think the server thought he was punishing me when he sloshed on a healthy dose but oh my word how utterly glorious it was. I’d need to go back to Trelleborg to compare, but I think we have healthy competition.
Fed and tired, I oriented myself from Jakobsplatz and aimed for the station, because I knew how to get to my hostel from there. Most of the Christmas decorations in the centre of town had been lovely simple sparkly white-light affairs, but some colour was introduced as I wandered up Fäberstraße towards the main road and onto Frauentormauer, where some kindly hardy ladies had just finished putting up their red Christmas lights and were keen to invite me to engage orally and get to grips with their umlauts. I declined politely, as it seemed unfair to ask an ignorant tourist to judge their individual installations as I wasn’t sure what the judgement criteria were, and in any case didn’t want to keep them outside for too long as they seemed unseasonably attired and in danger of catching their death of cold. I soldiered on back to my luxury squat wondering how they were managing to stay warm.
In the Hotel Continental there are talking drinks machines in the corridors outside the rooms. I dislike machines that talk to me when I’m using them, much more so when they are telling everyone within earshot to insert a coin and make a selection at 3am while people are trying to sleep.
I bought a bottle of water, a transaction announced to anyone within earshot.
