Hike to Vyšehrad, hilltop fortress in Prague, Czech Republic

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Travel demands a certain strength. This was an extra day in Prague in the Czech Republic for Masayo and I – we changed our plans so we could see more of this great city. But the sickness that’s been nagging at me persisted, and there was nothing I could do but ignore it and explore Prague anyway. My diabetes let me know I was getting sick with some high blood sugars, and by the end of the day I was feeling worse – but the travel gods still led us to some fascinating sights and hard-won views over the landscape.

Rather than explore Old Town, which I’m sorry to realize we will probably miss entirely on this trip, we opted to check out a large hill in the south part of Prague called Vyšehrad. Our friend Lukáš recommended it to us yesterday. And when a guy with an “š” in his name recommends a place with an “š” in its name, what choice do you really have?

I woke up in the morning with good and bad news. Despite having pizza last night, my blood sugar was 185 which is better than I expected. But I felt a little worse than yesterday – clearly weak and probably needing rest. We went downstairs – actually, down on the elevator, which has been broken our entire time here at the Hotel Jelení Dvůr until today. I ate what I could from the breakfast buffet, and Masayo and I hung around in the room relaxing afterwards.

I got a shock at noon – my blood sugar had shot up to 319. Why? Must be the sickness. I took some Humalog before we left the hotel to find Vyšehrad.

You may be sick and high and miserable but that’s no reason to stay holed up in your room all day. There are cathedrals and trams and castles and fortresses to see!

We took trams instead of walking, after buying a pair of 24-hour passes from the hotel’s front desk (for no markup, as far as I could tell). There’s a tram stop right outside the hotel, and it wound down the hill on some very curvy roads to a stop in town called Karlov náměstí, on the edge of Old Town across the Vltava River.

From there we walked to the infamous “dancing building” which looks like just that: a strange, undulating office building made of curved glass and wacky angles.

Up Vyšehrad

It was another cold, quiet, and overcast day down in Prague; we strode along the river and eventually came to the Vyšehrad area. It’s a large hill that you climb via a long set of steps. I was feeling a little worse but was still well enough to walk around, though I did worry that the cold air would make we worse. All I could do was keep a positive frame of mind and hope that my body could repel whatever I had.

I haven’t been “sick” in several years, after all.

On top of Vyšehrad there is a cemetery which includes the graves of many famous Czechs. I found Antonín Dvořak’s grave; I don’t know too much about him except that my friend Dave often listened to him when we were in high school.

Next to a huge cathedral I checked my BG and was pleased to find it was 119. Well, kind of pleased: it seemed low for having been 200 points higher so recently. It made me nervous.

Masayo was hungry so we stopped in at a small cafe on the edge of a park and I got a hot chocolate. Luckily, it wasn’t as thick as the ones I’d had in Kraków or on our first day here in Prague. It was just right, and I elected to take no insulin for it since the 119 seemed suspiciously good.

I always talk my brain into this sort of thing. I wish I wouldn’t.

We spent a while walking around the fortress area on Vyšehrad but never had any context for anything because we couldn’t find the tourist office. There were signs pointing to “Informace Špička”, which I assumed was tourist info, but suddenly the signs would stop and there’d be no office, or anything else. After walking in circles for twenty minutes we gave up.

So with no map and no knowledge we just poked around and looked at the interesting structures and the peaceful little roads, and the inspiring views over the Vltava River and Prague that stretched far in every direction.

Eventually we climbed back down the long staircases and caught a tram back to the Karlov náměstí stop, where we bought some food at a small grocery store in a little mall. (I hadn’t really had any lunch, just the hot chocolate.)

Then it was back up the winding hill by tram to our hotel. I love it when the local transportation works as expected – take note, Warsaw! Aboard the tram, which Masayo and I shared with several bored-looking locals, I checked to see what the insulin-less hot chocolate had done to me, and the news wasn’t good: 210.

My genius plan to eat without taking insulin hadn’t magically worked out for me. Go figure.

In the room I finally took some Humalog and ate the sandwich and yogurt I’d just bought. But I was feeling worse and spent a while just resting in bed.

Sly rip-off dinner

By 7:30 pm my BG hadn’t improved; it was now 232. And it was time for dinner and we wanted a real restaurant meal. What we actually got was, for budget travelers like us, a cruel shock.

The place we found was on a corner down the hill from the hotel just outside Prague Castle — typical for the area, a little touristy, but it looked good for us.

The guy who sat and served us was quite nice, friendly if not exactly warm. Masayo ordered spaghetti and I got chicken in garlic sauce. (We both though garlic might help my immune system.). We also split a bottle of sparkling water.

I did noticed that the single-sheet laminated menu didn’t have prices on it. That was unusual, and we joked that maybe each dish was $20, and the water was $5. (We’re traveling for months and rarely spend more than $15 total on a meal, generally less.)

As we ate we got more and more genuinely concerned with what the price might be. A $40 meal is definitely not in our budget.

Masayo’s spaghetti was pretty awful, overcooked and with crummy sauce. It reminded her of a school lunch. Too bad for her because my food was quite good. Despite my grogginess I ate nearly all of it.

Towards the end the waiter appeared and asked if we’d like another bottle of water. Nice try, I thought, and we braced ourselves for what could be a larger than expected bill.

It was even worse than we’d feared… it came and my heart skipped. A total of 1010 Kč, about $50.

Fifty dollars! We stared at it, studying the itemized list to figure out what cost what. My chicken was $25 and my rice was extra. The water alone was $9! And it was only 750 ml; we’d seen 1.5-liter bottles in the supermarket earlier that cost twenty cents.

A 9000% markup? That’s hard for budget travelers like us to take.

But there was nothing to do but pay it, and curse ourselves for patronizing a restaurant that sneakily left off the prices from the menu. (They know if they show them that nobody would eat there; there’s a cynical business plan for you.) Plus I realized that the service had actually been quite good and that we had to leave a tip too. Lukáš told us that 20% was average in these parts so we dropped an extra 200 Kč note on the table (about $10) after paying the bill.

Never again will we eat at a restaurant that doesn’t clearly and proudly show their prices. And hopefully we can avoid places that charge us “couvert” — a nonsensical fee just for the privilege of being a customer there. It’s not like this was a swanky, upscale place or anything, just an average little place with an advantageous location.

Ah well, what’s done is done. At least the food was good (for me). I had bigger problems to worry about that night.

Back in the hotel room my nose got pretty runny, and I sat with my head spinning and tissue crammed up my nostrils. At 11 pm my blood sugar was 244. I blamed the rice and took some Humalog, and we went to sleep.

Maybe I felt bad today, and maybe walking around so long in the cold air made me worse. But there’s a kind of pride in having gone out anyway to see Vyšehrad. Despite the fact that we still haven’t seen Old Town Prague, we are definitely planning on leaving town tomorrow. The travel gods pull us onward.

I hoped I’d sleep this sickness off overnight.

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