On Saturday 29th January 2011, Dave & Kate spent most of the afternoon and evening in a newsagent within the Central Station perched on stools at 1 of the 4 internet terminals, hearing the chants of the Dynamo Dresden football fans, on their way and returning from the match, echo around the train station.
Not the most pleasant setting for trying to get down to the business of figuring out where and how they could stay the next night somewhere. It was becoming increasingly clear that going straight to Vienna was out of the picture. The train tickets from Dresden, which had been around €58 all up at the beginning of the week, had now more than tripled in price.
They began looking at alternatives... maybe stopping off in Munich for a night or two, or somewhere else in Germany. Each place they looked at there was a brick wall as they were so last minute in booking all prices were way out of their league. Yet again Life narrowed it down to no choice to be made - the only option was to go to Prague for a few nights and then onto Vienna.
They had ruled Prague out after finding out it wasn't in the euro currency zone. It was still going to be a lot cheaper than anywhere else in Europe at this point. Pretty soon they started to come across very cheap hotels and then they saw this aparthotel at €20 Euros per night. It was basic but importantly had cooking facilities. Still they weren't sure about committing, continuing to look for a bit longer. They were so absorbed in this that they forgot all about tea and when they finally got round to getting something to eat all they could find open was a shopping centre with not-so-nice bratwursts.
Then the right one made its appearance. Kate spotted another aparthotel called 'Apart Hotel Susa'. It was a few euros more per night but looked more comfortable inside with better facilities. They made the booking and then set about looking into how to get to Prague from Dresden. The train was something like €68 all up - great in relation to other fares. But there was also the bus now an option. It took the same travel time as the train and cost more than €20 less. Only trouble was it was too late now to book online and the ticket centre within the train station had also closed for the day.
The tourist info girl told them their only option was to turn up in the morning at the bus and buy a ticket from the driver. When they asked if the bus was usually busy she replied yes.
The bus station was just behind the train station and so they turned up early on Sunday morning in an attempt to catch the bus and if not they'd hope they could still buy a train ticket. Luckily, it all worked out and they were on their way to Prague now by bus.
