No Pictures of Prague?

24-25 May 2006

Yes, all work and no play... However, I do have a hard earned piece of advice for those driving into the Czech Republic - buy the autobahn vignette! This little sticker (see pic) is to be purchased at the border and placed in your windshield (rental car or not) and allows you to drive the autobahn there.

On my way into Czech from Germany, I stopped to both get gas, and buy a vignette, only to discover the station didn't take credit cards. Not having Czech Krones on hand, I used the last of my Euros to pay for the gas I had already pumped. That left nothing to pay for the vignette. Not wanting to be late for my Prague meeting, I jumped back in the car and proceeded without mishap. My clients warned me, however, that they are strict on this and I should buy one when I returned. This I intended to do, and remembered only after I was on the autobahn back. As I put my blinker on and slowed to exit at the first gas station, a Czech policeman waved his red paddle and motioned me to the side of the road...

Was this my car?
No - a rental car from Nuernberg, Germany. I live there.
May I see your license and ID? Where is your vignette? Do you have one?
No - I was just pulling over to get one.
Sorry, its too late now, you have to pay a fine. Do you have Czech Krones?
No, is there an ATM inside? I can get cash.
No, no ATM. Euros?
How many Euros?
Ummm... Forty Euros.
No, I don't have Euros. Credit card (German polizei do take this)?
No, no credit card.
How shall I pay?
In Krones.
Look, I don't have Euros or Krones... (I pull out wallet and show it stuffed with travel receipts, British pounds, US dollars, and Romanian lei, but no other currency.) What shall I do? I'll go right now to buy a vignette and return to Germany. I PROMISE!
You must pay a fine.
I don't have any money to pay. Can I send it in?
Etc... etc... etc...

Finally, in exasperation, the policeman gave up and sent me on my way. Needless to say I rushed in and bought a vignette at the gas station. WITH my credit card. (My clients had assured me that the previous day I had found probably the ONLY gas station that didn't take credit cards.) Thinking I was lucky to have not been carted off to jail for failure to pay a fine, I breathed a sigh of relief as 40 minutes later I crossed the Czech border and was back home in Germany! (see comment below for link to another business traveler's experience)

Sure with you'd been there - with money!

- Tiffany