Prague - June 30

What a beautiful city Prague is! It has so many interesting things; an imposing palace/castle on a hill from which you can see the whole city, a big river (Voltava) with interesting bridges and small islands, big boulevards, quaint alleys great monuments, many shops and restaurants. It has lively crowded cafes and pubs with partying folks downing huge mugs of Pilsner beer, and gorgeous vibrant Art Nuveau buildings as far as the eye can see, with elaborate decorations, lovely balconies, statues and relief sculptures on every corner. We found ourselves wanting to take pictures of almost every building. The main square was the most beautiful we have ever seen. It was huge, open and centered around an impressive church with an interesting and very complex astronomical clock. It is surrounded by sidewalk cafes dozens of buildings each prettier then the other, in a mixture of styles and colors (we can site the styles, but are not sure we can actually identify them correctly, before our next trip we need to take a course on architectural styles ).

We stayed in an Ibis hotel (with AC thankfully!) on the outskirts of town and took the trams or subway everywhere within a few minutes. The public transportation was excellent as it was in the rest of Europe. The subway was a bit intimidating though, it is in a very deep tunnel and is accessed by a huge escalator that moves very fast, you feel like you are descending into a dungeon and then Lance was pick-pocketed in the subway. Fortunately our valuables were safely tucked away and the losses were minor. Rick Steves our trusty guide warned us about these guys and the propensity to cheat tourists in this town and indeed we got to experience all of them.

Dispute the pick pocketing and price gouging in certain places; in general the prices were low and the city very enjoyable.