This story is about a minor bus connection screw up. It turned out okay and we didn't have to sleep in a train station or something. But it had the potential of turning into a bigger mess up, and I'm hoping someone will read this and avoid the same kind of mess.
Now I don't proclaim to be a trip-planning veteran, and the places I travel to usually have sophisticated public transportation systems (Japan, North America, Mexico, Southern Europe), and connection problems are usually quite manageable. The Czech Republic is no different: searchable timetables on the Internet, a wide and reliable bus network, and punctuality is generally quite good. So how did we manage to screw up?
Let's start with the morning of our Day 7 in Vienna. My trip-planning sheet read as follows:
May 16 (Wed):
Wien Floridsdorf-Znojmo
(1.(P1/2) 8:11-9:11 (P1) Retz (P21) 9:18-9:44
2.10:11-11:44
3.12:11-13:44)
Znojmo-Telc (Bus 13:05-15:05,13:30-15:25,15:00-17:40,16:00-18:15)
It looked pretty clear to me at the time. Take the train from Wien Floridsdorf Platform 1/2 at 08:11. Arrive at Platform 1 at Retz and hurry to Platform 21 to catch the train to Znojmo. Arrive at Znojmo at 09:44 and tour the town for a little over three hours. Then take the bus from Znojmo to Telc at 13:05 or 13:30.
08:00. The day began on a ominous note, as the normally punctual ÖBB (Austrian rail) cancelled our 08:11 train. I kept rushing up and down the stairs for a half hour to get the latest departure prediction between the platform display and the departure screen at the concourse level. At the end we managed to board the next train, originally scheduled to arrive at 09:11, at around 09:25. So instead of catching the 09:18 connection at Retz, we had to settle for the 11:18 connection, and to arrive at Znojmo at 11:44.
11:18. Well, nothing we can do about it. So we stayed positive to enjoy the scenery. The half-hour trip from Retz to Znojmo was actually the most amazing train ride in our entire tour. Perhaps the Czech-Austrian border had been devoid of human activity during the Cold War years and still hasn't recovered, but it was like a wildlife safari! The train seemed to have disturbed everything into running across the fields: deers, wild hares with huge long ears and legs, pheasants, and then a hawk flew towards our window and perched on top of a tree beside the rail tracks.
11:44. After getting off at Znojmo, we walked over to the bus station hoping to locate our next connection, and then perhaps have a quick tour of the town and take a few pictures beside the famous Znojmo Rotunda before we depart at 13:30. This was where the real screw up happened.
The bus station was irregularly layed out over a long, wide street, with at least 15 bus-stop signs for both local and long distance buses. Each sign served multiple buses, and the timetables for each bus was posted below the sign. So, in order to look for a particular connection, one had to go through each timetable on each sign. It's a hassle, but not yet a problem.
The real problem was that my trip-planning sheet did not write down the connection's bus number, nor the final destination. I could not find a bus whose final destination was Telc, and so I asked the locals at the bus station. I asked fellow travellers, store keepers, some guys just loitering and having a smoke, and the small ticket office. Nobody knew how to get to Telc. Some people even suggested going to Prague first and change there. Mind you, I do not speak Czech and I understood perhaps 10% of what the folks were trying to tell me.
12:30. Frustration and disappointment started to set in. It was past noon and my wife was hungry and tired, and I had to make a decision. We decided to just go to the train station's cafeteria and have a simple lunch, and to find alternative ways of getting to Telc without my trip-planning information. Fortunately Telc is also reachable by train, but upon querying the connection times at the ticket office, the next reasonable connection to Telc would leave around 15:00, involve a few interchanges along the way, then get to Telc no ealier than 19:30. We were started to get really disappointed.
13:00. Decision time. The plan was now to try and find the hypothetical 13:30 bus connection to Telc, and if that failed, we would take the train and arrive at Telc in the evening. I found an accurate geographical map at the train station and refreshed my memory on the relative locations of the bus destinations...hmm...Jihlava sounds like a reasonable candidate. So I set out to re-read the bus timetables again, hoping to find a connection that goes to Jihlava that departs at 13:30. And I found it...actually...two of them.
Both would depart at 13:30. Bus #1 would go through some place I've never heard of, take a long scenic route, then terminate at Jihlava. Bus #2 would go straight to Jihlava and get there faster, and then the bus would carry on and terminate at Prague. More decisions. At this point I tended towards taking Bus #2, which would arrive at Jihlava earlier and hopefully we would be able to catch a connection to Telc.
13:22. Bus #1 was the first to arrive. My wife urged me to talk to the driver and get some info, so I lined up and waited for other people to get on first, then fielded my question to the driver, in the simple form of holding a piece of paper and uttering one word: "Telc?"
Short questions often produce the most complicated answers. The middle-aged driver fell into his deep thought, tapping his pencil on the forehead and frowning deeply. After a minute he said something to me. I didn't understand a word of it, but his body language meant "come on board, I'll show you how to get there."
At that point, Bus#2 arrived. This time the decision was easy, as I simply had no better schedule information than the calculation inside that driver's head. We would board Bus #2 to some place we've never heard of.
The bus went through a lot of small towns, picking up some elementary school kids and then dropping them off as it went through the rural villages. After more than an hour, we reached a small countryside intersection with a highway sign of particular interest: go straight to Jihlava, left to Telc, right to Trebic.
The driver summoned us and with his body language he said: "Take the bus that goes in that direction. The time is now 14:40. Your bus will arrive at 15:10. That particular direction." I didn't have the Czech words to express how much I wanted to thank this man; "Dekuji" was the only word I knew. He smiled and carried on with his journey. Then sharply at 15:10, the promised bus to Telc arrived, though the small collection of bus schedules posted there did not contain any information about it.
End of story. Beginning of lesson. Here is my revised, tried and tested instructions on trip-planning with the Czech long distance bus system.
1) Go to http://idos.cz/ConnForm.asp?tt=X&cl=E5 and select the language you're comfortable with (eg. English, German, Czech).
2) Entering your "From", "To", Date, Time and search for connections.
3) Let's take the complicated example to get from Karlovy Vary to Cesky Krumlov. You'll see many trip suggestion, some using buses, others a combination of trains, buses, and even local transportation.
4) Carefully note the transfer time between each connection. I would not recommend anything less than 15 minutes, for reasons of possible delays, as well it often takes time to drag your luggages\backpack around and locate your desired bus in a large, unfamiliar station. It's quite possible to make it, but be prepared to take the next connection if you fail.
5) The really important part is after you've decided on a particular trip suggestion. For each bus or train connection on your trip, note down the BUS/TRAIN NUMBER (eg.Bus 370003) as well as basic stuff like bus's final destination, departure time, name of the stop to get off at, and arrival time. The Bus Number will immensely help, especially when you're standing in front of 10 timetables for buses going to Prague and you're trying to pick one out.
6) Now you're equipped, and common sense should take you from there, like confirming your desired destination with the driver. I've seen older buses with multiple, self-conflicting destination signs and I almost boarded a bus that had a Ceske Budejovice sign but was really going to Brno.
7) For the most part, tickets do not need to be pre-purchased at the ticket office (though it's a good idea for popular long trips like Cesky Krumlov to Prague). Just walk up to the driver, say the name of the destination (learn a little Czech pronunciation before setting out), and he'll calculate the tariff for you and give you back your change.
8) Finally, if you're getting off in the middle and you're not sure where, let the driver know and he'll watch out for you and signal you to get off. Sitting close to the driver is a good thing.
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