Renting a Car in Prague
My father was here in the Czech Republic in 1945, and I wanted to go to the places where he was stationed. I have had this paper with the names of five cities on it since I got here. He had showed me a map the route taken by the Fourth Armored Division during World War II. On Friday after Thanksgiving we went to the airport to scope out the car rental situation, found 10 companies, but only one that would rent a car for a few hours. Alimex. They have another office in Prague where the prices are half as much as at the airport. So I made a reservation for today, and went to the office yesterday to make sure I could find it, and we had everything organized.
We got up early this morning and got to the office. The paperwork took about ten minutes, and the young man gave us a map with directions for getting out of Prague. Of course neither his directions nor the map matched the actual roads, so we spent half an hour of high stress flying by the seat of our pants (actually Lloyd's sense of direction won the day) and we were on our way.
It was interesting to see the Czech landscape -- almost identical to New Hampshire, white birches, rolling hills, fields, and little hamlets. Geographically we wouldn't know the difference between New Hampshire and the Czech Republic.
The houses are different: they don't use wood, instead it looks like some kind of cement or stucco, in many beautiful pastel colors. We found Susice, which Dad remembers, then followed the 4th armored route to the other towns. It was a gray day, but visibility was good and we enjoyed it. We took pictures of things Dad might have seen.
Then we headed home around 3:00. It began to rain more steadily than it has since we got here in September, it got dark and by 4:00 when we got back to Prague it was dark. We got terribly lost and spent two hours trying to find our way around Prague. We passed our apartment twice, and the second time stopped to use the facilities and study our maps, then out again, and we got to the Alimex car rental office with 3 minutes to spare -- their office closes at 6:00. We had to fill up the gas tank, the girl at the counter spoke no English, and we couldn't figure out how to work the pump. Stress! Stress!!
We are home safe and sound. As Mark Twain says in Innocense Abroad, the discomforts will slowly disappear from our memories and we will be talking about our wonderful trip driving around the Czech Republic!
We got up early this morning and got to the office. The paperwork took about ten minutes, and the young man gave us a map with directions for getting out of Prague. Of course neither his directions nor the map matched the actual roads, so we spent half an hour of high stress flying by the seat of our pants (actually Lloyd's sense of direction won the day) and we were on our way.
It was interesting to see the Czech landscape -- almost identical to New Hampshire, white birches, rolling hills, fields, and little hamlets. Geographically we wouldn't know the difference between New Hampshire and the Czech Republic.
The houses are different: they don't use wood, instead it looks like some kind of cement or stucco, in many beautiful pastel colors. We found Susice, which Dad remembers, then followed the 4th armored route to the other towns. It was a gray day, but visibility was good and we enjoyed it. We took pictures of things Dad might have seen.
Then we headed home around 3:00. It began to rain more steadily than it has since we got here in September, it got dark and by 4:00 when we got back to Prague it was dark. We got terribly lost and spent two hours trying to find our way around Prague. We passed our apartment twice, and the second time stopped to use the facilities and study our maps, then out again, and we got to the Alimex car rental office with 3 minutes to spare -- their office closes at 6:00. We had to fill up the gas tank, the girl at the counter spoke no English, and we couldn't figure out how to work the pump. Stress! Stress!!
We are home safe and sound. As Mark Twain says in Innocense Abroad, the discomforts will slowly disappear from our memories and we will be talking about our wonderful trip driving around the Czech Republic!
posted by Pastor Lori Wiley at 10:19 AM
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