July 8th Travel from Prague through Vienna to Florence

We were packed up and ready to go in plenty of time this morning of course it helped to have some yummy strudel to eat so there was no cooking this morning.  Was we walked to the train station Roger & Pam mapped out where we were to board and which car we would be in,

while Mike and I watched the bags.  The guys had some Czech money left over so they splurged and bought some sandwiches and sodas for the train ride.  I got lucky with that one because Roger got a nice shinny one that will be my ornament from Prague.








The 5 hour train ride from Prague to Vienna was pretty uneventful which was great.  I will say riding in a train is much better than flying.  The trains here are very smooth and you have much more leg room.  Although for anyone planning a Europe trip always make sure you have reserved seats otherwise you might be standing the whole time which we saw some people doing, now that would not be fun.  Well once we got to Vienna we had 4 hours to kill which we could have spent walking around but we couldn't see anything from the train station so we just decided to sit and relax at the spot we would be catching the overnight train to Florence.

When Pam and I decided to go for a walk down stairs to stretch and then I remembered something about having your tickets validated before you got on the train, so I ran back and got the ticket and took it to the information booth.  Well the booth was empty so the VIP lounge for the train we were going to take was right there so we went in and asked them about the validation and the guy said we didn't need to do that until we were on the train but that with our tickets we could use the lounge.  So we went back upstairs and got the guys and came and sat in the soft seats and air-conditioned lounge and had snacks and drinks.  Wow we could get used to this kind of treatment.

Well that treatment only got better once we were on board the train.  A sleeper is now our only way to go overnight.  It costs more but if you have a distance to go it is well worth it and in comparison to what it cost to fly this is much better.  The beds were already made up.

Mike & Pam had the room next door.

We had a gift basket for each of us with sparkling wine, water, cookie, apple and a glass.  Then there was another bag that had a towel, a little bar of soap and water that you could use when you brush your teeth (using the sink that was in our rooms).

They also gave us a list of items that we could choose from for breakfast.  We could choose 6 items for free and then each additional item would be 1 Euro.















In the morning our breakfast was delivered to our room.