On the tail end of our trip, my travel buddy Brady and I finished our study abroad in Prague and we are supposed to fly out of Berlin. We decided to stay a couple days past the programs end to enjoy ourselves. We were supposed to take a simple, no-drama train ride from Prague to Berlin. A straight shot. Easy. Efficient. German, even.
What we got instead? A detour so long and convoluted it felt like an Odyssey, complete with fellow travelers, mysterious guides, and more than a few brushes with hopelessness. But in the end—it was kind of magical.
The Breakdown Begins
It all started smoothly: comfy seats, on time departure, snacks in hand. We were even ahead of schedule to check in to our hostel in Berlin—by a luxurious 45 minutes.
Then, about an hour into the journey, the train stopped. Not at a station—just… somewhere. An announcement came on saying something was wrong with the train and we could be delayed anywhere from 30 to 240 minutes. Comforting!
They passed out water bottles like we were stranded in the Sahara. And eventually, we were told to evacuate the train.
Welcome to Roudnice nad Labem
We waddled off the tracks, luggage in tow, and ended up in a place called Roudnice nad Labem. Never heard of it? Neither had we. There was a lot of confused standing around, a lot of Czech being spoken, and not a lot of information.
We don’t speak Czech. We speak a dusting of German. So I stood back and tried to identify people who looked like they either knew what was happening or could speak English. My strategy? Find the calmest-looking people and silently tail them.
Then the buses started showing up.
One left—maybe back to Prague. One left—maybe to Berlin? Another one left—who knows. Every time, we hesitated. But finally, a multilingual legend asked the driver where it was going: Berlin. We hopped on.
Next Stop: The Middle of Nowhere (But Make It Beautiful)
That bus took us to a village called Hrobce, and at this point, it was dusk. Beautiful, serene… and utterly random.
We followed the crowd through a tunnel to a train station that felt like a movie set. Then came another twist: the train wasn’t coming. A lone Deutsche Bahn employee, confirmed we had to take another bus.
Panic? No. Strategy? Kind of. As soon as a couple more buses pulled up, we sprinted across the road like it was the Amazing Race.
On this bus, I sat next to someone I had been mentally tracking since Roudnice. He looked like he spoke English. Worth a shot.
His name was John. He was a pilot from New Zealand. His wife was somewhere else on the bus. We bonded over travel misadventures while the bus chugged toward a bigger station: Bohušovice nad Ohří.
Enter Jana, Our Guardian Angel
Once at the new train station, we boarded what we hoped was the train to Berlin. That’s where we met Jana. Jana was the holy trifecta: fluent in Czech, German, and English. To top it off, she lives in Berlin! She confirmed that this train was not our final ticket out—just a local one. But if we stuck with her, we’d get to Berlin.
We followed her off the train. At the next station, we saw a timetable showing our next train wouldn’t arrive for 30 minutes. But Jana casually asked an employee in Czech and—plot twist—it was already here.
We skedaddled over and found ourselves in a Hogwarts-style carriage with a sliding door. Ten minutes later, we were moving. We would’ve missed it entirely without her.
We finally made it to Berlin. From there, a quick S-Bahn ride and a 10-minute walk landed us at our hostel around 1 a.m. We quietly checked ourselves in and tiptoed into bed, our great European train odyssey complete.
The Detour Was the Destination
We didn’t get to Berlin on time. We didn’t make hostel check-in hours. But we did get:
An unexpected scenic sunset in the Czech countryside
A brush with Czech police bureaucracy
New international friends: a New Zealand pilot and a Prague-born Berlin local
And a masterclass in going with the flow
Sometimes the best part of the journey is the part that wasn’t planned at all. The path might take longer, it might get weird, but if you’re lucky, it just might lead you somewhere unexpectedly beautiful.
