bardo1

Prague is a magically beautiful medieval city in central Europe, divided by the Moldau River (Vlatava in Czech). It is dominated by the huge Prague Castle, high above the city on the west bank of the river, and is imminently walkable, with practically all the interesting tourist sites within a mile's walk of the Old Town Square, where we stayed six nights. I traveled with our old friend (OF) and my dear wife. We stayed in a large and well-appointed apartment in a building dating at least 600 years - the Seven Angels. There are about 10 apartments in the building arranged around a small courtyard. An acclaimed restaurant by the same name, which has been in operation since Czechoslovakia was under Soviet control, is next door.


Monday, October 3rd

Our United flight departed Dulles International Airport at 5:15 pm. The flight was extraordinarily uncomfortable. The 747 was absolutely full and had seen better days. The movie screen was a projector on the bulkhead. The sound system didn't work (at all!). The food was Godawful. The flight was bumpy. The stranger sitting to my left threw up the entire way to Frankfurt.

We changed planes in a daze at Frankfurt, happy just to be off the flight from Hell, and took a 45-minute Lufthansa flight to Prague International, arriving at 9:45 on Tuesday morning. Very comfortable and pleasant. The 45 minute hop included drinks and a meal.

Tuesday, October 4th

We took a taxi from the airport. Prices are not regulated, and (according to those I've talked with that have lived there) the drivers shamelessly gouge their passengers, especially tourists. However, we were able to agree on a price of 725 Czech Koruny, or Crowns, guided by our hotel host, who had told us not to pay more than 800 Crowns. Things are not dead cheap in Prague, as I hear they used to be, but neither are they expensive. Our apartment was $4,450 Crowns per night, or $180, and we had an enormous layout. A large separate bedroom with a king bed; bathroom; living room with a single bed against one wall and two leather couches and satellite television; and fully equipped, full-sized kitchen. Highly recommended - http://www.7angels.cz

Our taxi driver was a certifiable maniac. Since none of us had slept a wink on the plane, it was good to get the adrenalin flowing. We reported in to the Seven Angels at 11:00 and were told to come back at 2:00. We left our luggage and brought our trusty map of the city (which I never once left the room without), and did a short walking tour of Old Town. We were about two blocks from the Old Town Square, where the famous Astronomical Clock is, in the Town Hall tower. Unfortunately, the clock was under repair, completely covered by a tarpaulin, from October 1 through November 30 - just our luck! It's the most famous thing in Prague!

We soldiered on through the enormous cobblestoned square and went another five or six blocks to the beautiful Municipal House, a gorgeously restored Art Deco building that is home to Smetana Hall and the Prague Symphony. Next to that is the Powder Gate, an old tower that was part of the original walled city. We toured the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, a huge double-towered edifice that dominates Old Town Square. "Tyn" means "fence", as this church marked the edge of the central market place in the 13th Century. We next toured St. Nicholas church (there are two St. Nicholas's - one in Old Town, then a much larger, more famous one in Mala Strana at the base of the castle hill). The Old Town St. Nicholas looks big from the outside, but really isn't. It did have an enormous crystal chandelier. The church is Hussite (named after Jan Hus, a Czech national hero and religious reformer). Hussites are Protestant, but with ordained priests and bishops (including women clergy since 1947).

We had a traditional Czech lunch at the Franz Kafka Café behind the church, the first of many meals featuring pork, dumplings and sauerkraut. After lunch, we were able to check in to our lovely apartment and, after unpacking, we all crashed. We had made dinner reservations at the Seven Angels restaurant for 6:30. About 5:30, OF and I raced down our narrow cobblestone street, Jilska, to the supermarket Tesco, which we hit at grocery shopping rush hour.

Our dinner at the Seven Angels Restaurant was quite formal and equally delicious. I had rabbit, OF had goulash and dumplings, and DW had pork medallions in a mushroom cream sauce. There is a reason no one has heard of Czech wine - I'll leave it at that. After dinner, we walked across the famous Charles Bridge, with the Prague Castle silhouetted against a soft purple sky.


Off for coffee, be back soon...

bardo1

Wednesday, October 5th

We slept in until 9:00 and had a late breakfast at Seven Angels. (Breakfast was included in the price, and was served from 9:00-10:30.) DW and I ordered badly - the concept of omelets is not well understood in the CR. They were burnt brown on both sides. OF's scrambled eggs looked much better. Excellent artisan rye bread and cherry jam, and perfectly awful orange juice. About 10:30, we packed up and walked out to the Charles Bridge to do a waling tour from Frommer's websight. The Charles Bridge is over 600 years old, and is Prague's most celebrated structure. It links the Old Town to Mala Strana (Lesser Town) and the Castle.

There are 30 statues lining both sides of the bridge; the first sculpture, of St. John of Nepomuk, was put in place in 1683. A few of the bridge's sculptures have directly biblical themes - a Madonna; a Pieta; John the Baptist; and a bronze crucifix with a gilded Hebrew inscription that was paid for with money extorted from a wealthy Jewish businessman in the middle ages who was accused of mocking the wooden crucifix that had formerly stood on the site. The rest are saints important to the Bohemian region, such as St. Wenceslas, St. Adalbart, St. Ludmilla, St. Norbert, and St. Sigismund; or other famous Catholic faith, such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Christopher.

My favorite: St. John de Matha, St. Felix of Valois, and St. Ivan, the three founders of the Trinitarian order. These three men rescued Christians from Turkish captivity. The sculpture shows a huge rock with a prison cell hewn in the center, guarded by a dog and a Turkish guard with a whip. Above the prison stand St. John de Matha (with money to buy the prisoners' freedom), St. Ivan, and St. Felix. This sculpture was being cleaned and repaired, so I was unable to get a good picture of it for our son, who graduated from DeMatha Catholic High School, and had many Trinitarian brothers as teachers.

Street musicians, buskers, and artisans also line the Charles Bridge, selling their wares. It is always a fun and bustling scene.

After our very leisurely bridge crossing, we walked through the streets of Mala Strana. We peered into the Church of Our Lady Below the Chain, which was built for the Order of the Maltese Knights. It had cool ironwork in the gate in the shape of a knight on horseback, and a beautiful carved crucifix that was becoming enveloped in ivy.

Our next stop was at the Church of Our Lady Victorious, which is the home of the famous wax statue of the baby Jesus, the Infant of Prague. The baby is dressed in gorgeous finery that is donated by Catholic parishes around the world. The Carmelite nuns carefully change the infant's robes in accordance with the liturgical seasons. Some of the costumes date back to the 1600s.

We then went to the Vrtba Palace, a block of Renaissance houses with vineyards and formal, terraced gardens rising behind the buildings. The gardens were peaceful, with fantastic views of the roofs of Mala Strana. We passed on touring the Church of St. Nicholas in favor of lunch at a local pub called the Three Black Roses, which had typical Czech fare and wonderful potato pancakes. The Prague Castle loomed above us, but we decided to save it for the next day (a wise decision), and instead took the tram to the Manesuv Bridge and walked across to the Rudolfinum Concert Hall, home of the Czech Philharmonic. We bought tickets for Friday night's presentation of Verdi's Requiem.

The transit tickets are good for trams or subway, so we got on the Metro (subway) right beside the Rudolfinum and rode two stops on the Green Line to Muzeum, to tour the National Museum. This is an imposing building at the far eastern end of Wenceslas Square that has somewhat pedestrian exhibits on paleontology and natural history.

After the museum, we backtracked one Metro stop to Mustek station, where the stone remains of the bridge from the Old Town to the New Town were discovered by subway construction crews. On a bizarre side note, the Metro workers had to be inoculated when they uncovered viable tuberculosis bacterium that had laid dormant, encased in horse dung, since the Middle Ages.

We stopped at a sidewalk café for coffee and Pilsner Urquell, listening to political speeches interspersed with folk songs and a band of parading Hare Krishnas. We were only about 6 blocks from the hotel, so we came back and rested for an hour or so until dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant in a small shopping and cinema center near the Powder Gate.

The restaurant, Kogo, was excellent, despite being out of everything that I ordered. The total bill for this meal was high for the Czech Republic (more than $100 U.S. for three people) because we ordered a wonderful bottle of Barolo that cost more than the our three dinners combined. I've seen the same bottle in Washington D.C. liquor stores for more than twice what I paid for it at Kogo - I'm wondering now if they made a mistake on the bill...

bardo1

Thursday, October 6th

We actually set the alarm (!) and got up at 7:00 to get to the Prague Castle before the crowds. We walked south from the Charles Bridge to the streetcar stop Divaldo Na Zabradi, across from a lovely city park with a gothic spire in the center. We got on the wrong streetcar and went one stop, then figured out that we needed route 22 or 23 (the most useful routes for tourists crossing from Old Town to Mala Strana), and took this line across the Moldau River.

At the Malostranska stop on the other side, we stopped for a quick and rather bizarre breakfast at a terminal café. Bizarre because my order of a baguette got translated into a huge ham, cheese, tomato and cucumber sandwich on a baguette. We got back on the 22 streetcar, which snaked up the hill behind the Castle, and got off at the top across from the west side entrance.

The guards at the front of the Castle change every hour, with impressive rifle twirling and heel clicking. We each bought a full-entry pass, which got us into all the areas of the Castle complex that are open to tourists. (The President's offices, however, are off limits.) We walked through the first courtyard under the Matthias Gateway, and into the second courtyard, to make our first tour stop at the Holy Rood Chapel, a plain and peaceful chapel reached (oddly enough) through the gift shop. We had the place to ourselves for about 10 minutes, then a large tour group closed in.

In the third courtyard, the enormous St. Vitus Cathedral loomed. The cathedral began construction in 1334 under King Charles IV and was completed at the end of the 19th Century. There are many side chapels and gorgeously lit stained glass windows. We went down in the crypt, where Emperor Rudolph and King Charles IV (along with his four wives) are buried. We also climbed to the tower (287 steps!!) for impressive, but hazy views of the city below. The altar of St. John of Nepomuk was stunning, about 20 feet high and 10 feet wide, all in solid silver. And the Chapel of St. Wenceslas, built above the saint's tomb, is decorated with polished semi-precious stones. We spent about 2½ hours in the cathedral, and didn't even come close to seeing everything.

After that, we needed a break, and had coffee and desserts at a courtyard café. Then we toured the Royal Palace, which has an enormous, floor-to-ceiling wood hall, where presidential swearings-in are held today. In the Palace, we watched an excellent and thorough documentary film (fortunately in English) that described the development of the Prague Castle complex through its 1,000-year history.

Next was St. George's Basilica and Convent, founded by Benedictine nuns in 973. The plain Romanesque architecture was beautiful, and many of the wall frescoes were still intact. The final area of the Prague Castle that we explored was Golden Lane, a street of 16th century houses built into the Castle walls. We ate a late, light lunch at the Franz Kafka Café at the head of the lane (another, different Franz Kafka Café than where we ate lunch on Tuesday. That guy is everywhere!). Potato soup, garlic soup, the original Budweiser beer (called Budvar), honey cake, potato pancakes, and crepes filled with ice cream. This gave us strength for a little shopping - Czech sheet music for a friend and some other unique gifts. By the time we left the castle complex, the crowds were overwhelming. I suggest visitng as early in the day as possible.

But we weren't done yet! We exited the Castle keep and walked down about 100 steps to the base of the hill and the Malostranska station, where we took the streetcar up the hill again to the same stop, but this time to walk through the Royal Gardens that bound the north side of the Castle.

At the eastern end of the gardens is the Belvedere, and Italianate summer palace built by King Ferdinand for his wife Anna, who died before its completion. In front of the villa is the "singing fountain" that resonates like a bell as the water splashes down into it (the water spurts out of a rather unseemly part of the cherubs' anatomies). After wandering the gardens for about an hour, we got back on the trusty #22 streetcar and rode back across the river to the Narodni Trida stop, behind the Tesco supermarket, only 5 blocks from our hotel.

After resting about 90 minutes, we went out for dinner to a very traditional and extremely inexpensive Czech restaurant called Mikalska's Vinarium. I had ground steak "piquant", OF had wiener schnitzel, and DW had a "chicken steak" swimming in oil and brown gravy and topped with mozzarella cheese (weird and almost inedible). We walked up to Old Town Square and had some gelato (which helped), and returned to the room by 9:30 to collapse into bed.

Next, Josefov...

bardo1

Friday, October 7

After such an exhausting day Thursday, we needed to take it a lot easier on Friday. We started our day with a late breakfast at Bohemia Bagel and internet café. We stayed over two hours sending emails, and OF had a work assignment (!) that he needed to send in.

The next walking tour on our agenda was the Jewish Quarter (Josefov), which lies north of Old Town on the east side of the Moldau River. Josefov was Prague's former Jewish ghetto, and was once surrounded by a wall. Jews have lived in Prague since the 10th Century, and by the 1700s, more Jews lived in Prague than in any other European city. Today, there are fewer than 3,000 Jews in Prague, and most of the beautiful synagogues in Josefov are no longer used as houses of worship.

We started our tour at the Franz Kafka exhibit, which was more of a souvenir shop than museum, so we didn't go through it. We walked up Maiselova Street, one of the two main streets in Josefov, and toured the Maisel Synagogue, a neo-Gothic temple that now houses the Jewish Museum's collection of silver ceremonial objects, books, and Torah covers confiscated from Bohemian synagogues by the Nazis during World War II.

Next was the Pinkas Synagogue, where every inch of the walls are painted with the names of more than 77,000 Czech Jews who perished in Nazi concentration camps.

We then went into the Old Jewish Cemetery, Europe's oldest Jewish burial ground. This two-block plot of land was the only place that the local government allowed Jews to bury their dead, so new layers of earth were added on top of the cemetery when it got too full, the old tombstones were raised up to the new level, and bodies were interred in layers above the old. The stones are crowded together, sometimes leaning heavily against one another - more than 20,000 people are buried in this small cemetery. It was a solemn and beautiful place.

By this time, we were ready for a late lunch, and walked to a wonderful Belgian beer café called Les Moules. We had a fantastic, big lunch starting with soups,salads and a selection of six cheeses including Tete du Moine. DW enjoyed steamed mussels, OF had pork confit, and I had lamb. Between the three of us we enjoyed six different Belgian beers. It was wonderful! Probably the best food/value in the area of the Jewish Museum.

After lunch, we returned to the Jewish Museum's tour, visiting the Old-New Synagogue, which is still an active house of worship. It was originally called the New Synagogue to distinguish it from an even older one that no longer exists, but the Old-New Synagogue isn't all that new - it was built in 1270. Our final stop was the Ceremonial Hall, where rites for the dead were once held. We saw exhibits on Jewish daily life in Prague in the 18th and 19th centuries, and learned about the traditions that surround milestones such as birth, circumcision, bar and bat mitvahs, marriage, illness, and death.

When we returned to our apartment, we weren't EVEN hungry for dinner (duh!), so we skipped dinner and made a light snack of cheese and bread to eat in the room and rested for an hour or so.

Then we got dressed up (thankfully, as I only spotted two males in the orchestra section without jackets) and walked to Rudolfinum Concert Hall to hear the Verdi Requiem with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Chorus, and four wonderful soloists. The masterwork was very operatic and moving. The alto soloist had a particularly tender and warm voice. The hall, which holds 400-500 people, was absolutely quiet - until someone had the temerity to cough, and the conductor wheeled around to glare at her! There was no standing ovation at the end of the concert, but we did applaud steadily for 20 minutes and through at least 10 curtain calls. Ticket prices were roughly 1/6 of those at the Metropolitan in NYC (for equal or better quality of music, IMO).

After the concert, we stopped at Staromestska Restaurace in Old Town Square for dessert. Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the square was completely overrun by drunken Dutchmen in orange shirts - the Netherlands were playing a World Cup soccer qualifying game against the Czech Republic on Saturday night, and it seemed like half the population of Holland had come to cheer on their team. There was a brass marching band, loud singing, and much good-humored mayhem.

Myer

I'm planning an early June trip to Prague, Budapest and Belgium (another story-air miles) and I'm reading your report with great interest.

Thanks for the detail.

I realize you haven't completed it yet but I was wondering how long you spent in Prague and how long would a visit need to be without the churching?

Since Prague was the original reason for the trip if I'm going to err I'd like it to be a day too long rather than a day too short.

Our style: We normally are not museum or church goers but we will visit a well-known or interesting museum. We usuall like to wander around and take in the sites. My wife likes to spend some time in the shops.

Again, thanks for the great detail. Most interesting so far.

kopp

Very nice bardo1. We will be making our first trip to Prague next July, so I am following your trip with a keen interest to learning all about it.

We love visiting the churches, and it would seem Prague has its fair share. Time for me to get a guidebook and start reading.

As we will be staying 7 nights, we will also be looking for an apartment, so I will look into the one you recommend.

Thanks!

bardo1

Myer,

We were there 6-1/2 days and that included a day trip 1 hour outside of the city. I personally felt like another day or two would have been better. Just do what your schedule allows. A week is in no way too long - even if you never set foot in a church. There was a lot on our original list of things to see that we never got to. How long is your trip in total?

bardo1

Saturday, October 8

This was the only day we had planned to take a day trip out of the city. The logistics were challenging; Kutna Hora, a medieval silver mining town about an hour away from Prague, doesn't have a train station right in town, and we weren't about to drive. We left the apartment at 8:30 am. We wanted to take the bus, which was supposed to run from Prague to Kutna Hora (and then on to Brno) about every hour, but we couldn't find the right Metro station that had the bus transfer station. Once we finally figured that out, we were told that, because it was Saturday, only two buses ran to Kutna Hora and the next one wasn't until 3:15. We decided to take the train and walk on in to Kutna Hora, but we had just missed the 10:30 train and the next one wasn't until 2:30!

While agonizing about our poor options for awhile and walking aimlessly for miles, we returned to the main train station and reserved a tour (anathema to the three of us) with a private tour company, Premiant, that was scheduled for a 1:15 departure.

I had an interesting conversation with the ticket window agent about getting our train tickets refunded. She kept asking me if he wanted "come back"? I said no, I didn't want to come back, because I wasn't going to go on the train in the first place!

Apparently, "comeback" is how she understood "refund". Go figure.

For 950 Czech crowns apiece (about $38), we got a 5-hour tour of Kutna Hora, including St. Barbara's Cathedral, the Italian Court, a walking tour of downtown, and a stop in Sedlec at the Ossuary (or Bone Church). The great thing was that, after all that frustration and running around trying to figure out how to get there, we three were the only customers on the tour! We had our own 24-passenger van, driver, and tour guide, Andrea. Although the pace was brisker than we'd normally choose, it was a thorough and fun tour.

The first stop was in Sedlec, just a couple of miles from Kutna Hora. All Saints Chapel is a smallish church that had been ancillary to a huge cathedral that was destroyed during the Hussite uprisings. In the basement of the chapel is the Ossuary, where untold millions of human bones are used as chandeliers, wall hangings, and other decorations, and are piled in massive pyramids in the four corners of the room. We didn't linger long, because it was time to move on to Kutna Hora.

The city is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, has wonderful gothic architecture, and a large, open town square. The square was spookily empty by 4:30 pm, especially compared to the bustling crowds of tourists in Prague's Old Town. St. Barbara's Cathedral was built in the late 14th and 15th Centuries. St. Barbara is the patron saint of miners, and the rich silver mines made Kutna Hora a major economic power in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. The Bohemian patricians in Kutna Hora wanted to outdo the French Cistercians' cathedral in nearby Cedlec. Basically, the Kutna Horan town leaders were very rich, and wanted to make sure everybody knew it. However, the mine closed in the 1700s, and the Cathedral was never completed - it is still basically half finished. The roof is an unusual shape, with tent peaks. The most beautiful part of the cathedral is the most recent addition, early 1900s Art Nouveau stained glass windows.

The next stop was the Italian Court, where we were shown how silver was minted into coins, the "Prague Groshen", a stable currency for 500 years, until the mine tapped out in the early 1700s. The minting complex is called the Italian Court because experienced smiths from Florence were brought to Kutna Hora to work at the royal mint. The chapel at the Italian Court was breathtaking, with beautiful Art Nouveau frescoes painted from floor to ceiling by husband and wife painters in the early 1900s.

We returned to Prague about 6:30, and walked to a homey Bohemian restaurant about 7 blocks from the apartment called U Benedikta, which featured Bernard beer. Yet another delicious Czech beer - you just can't go wrong! To cap off our long day, DW and I went to the Prague Opera Marionette Theatre and saw puppets perform Mozart's "Don Giovanni". Many different puppetry techniques were used, including traditional marionettes, shadow theater, and tiny finger puppets (so as to appear appropriately small against the statue of Komtur in the graveyard scene). There were many funny and bawdy parts, and it was an experience that we could have had only in Prague.

About 10:30 that night, the Dutch sports fans were back from that evening's soccer match, which they had won.

For five minutes, a sea of happy, drunken men and women wearing orange and playing trumpets, sousaphones, and drums, singing lustily, passed down our narrow street right below our windows, at about 130 decibels.

Myer

Well, I don't think the issue is how many days do we have.

I always try to expand a trip and my wife compresses it. She kind of has a 2 week max although sometimes I'm able to stretch a day or so.

We're doing this trip on air miles so it actually gives us a bit more moving around space.

The original trip was focused of Prague and a few days in Budapest.

I then attempted to stop over in Italy to spend some time in Tuscany on the way back.

We've been to Italy several times but never touring the towns in Tuscany.

Well, that didn't work out in air miles so I picked another place we haven't been to. Belgium, etc.

So the days add up and 'm about to give up.

At first I though 2 days in Brussels and day trips to Brugge and Ghent.

We were in Amsterdam years ago and my wife was sick most of the time. But it was very nice. People rave about it so I'm thinking of that but it's about 3 hours by train.

So.

Prague either 4 or 5 days including the partial day of arrival.

Overnight (originally had part of 2 days in Vienna but dropping that) to Budapest.

Budapest 3 days with an evening flight to Brussels at 7PM of the 3rd day.

Brusssels/Brugge/whatever 4-6 days?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Have to get back and read your latest installment.

Thanks.

elaine

great report bardo1, thanks

bardo1

Myer,

Your latest plan looks fine to me. I humbly suggest that you also start a new thread to maximize the feedback to your planned itinerary.

bardo1

Sunday, October 9

We slept in until 8:30, then I ran out to Bohemia Bagels and brought back breakfast for us to eat in the apartment. We took the Metro to St. Clement's Anglican Church, still in the Old Town, but about ½ mile to the northeast. The parishioners at St. Clement's are primarily British and American ex-pats, and the service was warm, friendly, and familiar.

After church, we took the streetcar to Mala Strana and Petrin Park, a sprawling hillside park full of strolling families and couples. To save our tired legs, we took the funicular to the top of the park (the last day it was running until spring 2006), where the Petrin Lookout Tower, a replica of the Eiffel Tower, was built for the great Prague Jubilee Exhibition of 1891. There was no elevator service to the tower, so we went through the Petrin Mirror Labyrinth instead, full of distorting fun house mirrors and - incongruously - a diorama of "the Battle of Prague Inhabitants with Swedes on the Charles Bridge", the historical event that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648.

The final stop on our Petrin Park tour was the Strahove Monastery, founded in 1140 and still a working monastery. The library is amazing, with ancient books, manuscripts, art objects, and natural history collections. After touring the library and peeking into the beautiful cloister church, we sat at a lovely Italian café, Bellavista, which overlooks Mala Strana, the Prague Castle, and the eastern side of the city. We had coffee and drank in the breathtaking views. This restaurant offers the best views of Prague - hands down. The menu looked sublime, though expensive. An excellent choice for a splurge meal.

A streetcar stop is conveniently located directly behind the monastery grounds, so we rode down the hill to the base of the Charles Bridge, then walked back across to Old Town, enjoying the early evening light and the street musicians.

Our last dinner in Prague was at Chez Marcel, an unpretentious French café near U Benedikta. We had Becherovka aperitifs (a strong Czech liqueur flavored with oil of cloves), and enjoyed a relaxing, delicious and inexpensive French dinner. Again, the price of the wonderful wine seemd too inexpensive to be correct (I didn't question). There was just time for a quick dessert back at Staromestska Restaurace on Old Town Square and a half-hour of power shopping before the stores closed at 10.

Monday, October 10

Even though our flight didn't depart until 2:15, we didn't try to squeeze in more sightseeing. Instead, we sadly packed, had a very leisurely breakfast downstairs at the Seven Angels (DW and I got the scrambled eggs this time - excellent!). After a final, relaxed stroll through the neighborhood we took a crazed taxi ride back to the airport. We were somewhat early, and had plenty of time to spend our last Czech crowns at the airport shops and have lunch before boarding our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. The flight from Frankfurt to Dulles was on a Boeing 777 this time - MUCH better! Although I still didn't get much sleep, I was a lot more comfortable than on the flight to Europe.

We were so fortunate in our weather - every day we were in Prague, it was in the high 60s to 70 degrees, and sunny. What a wonderful trip, and a &lt;B&lt;beautiful<b> city!

</b>

bardo1

preview, preview, preview!

ThinGorjus

Whilst I enjoyed your report, I thought it was ignorant to infer that Czech wine is terrible. You can imbibe in many very good Czech wines if you do your homework and know which wines to order when dining out. Your lack of knowledge is no reason to insult. There is also no room to complain about Czech wines when considering the price. I bought several delicious bottles of wine in Prague that were no more than $5. When you have sampled all the wines of the Czech Republic, then you can become a wine critic. Basing your critique of Czech wine on one or two samples is daft.

bardo1

ThinGorjus,

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed the report.

I indeed have had precious little exposure to Czech wines. A friend shared some at his house after a recent visit. It didn't suit my taste at all.

I enjoy wine with most meals (especially dinner) and love having a bottle of French, Italian, Spanish, Austrailian, New Zealand, German, Austrian, Portugese, Chilean, South African, Californian, etc. with nightly dinner. There probably are some wonderful Czech wines. Unfortunately, none of the wine stores I shop at carry any. Perhaps the world still doesn't know what it's missing and one day the Czech Republic will be an exporter to rival the better known wine exporting countries of the world.

At any rate, I WANTED to experience a good Czech wine. Our waiter at the Seven Angels offered 2 different bottles of their finest which we couldn't drink. Feeling bad and wanting a positive experience, we humbly accepted the third bottle and drank half of it. These are just my impressions.

bardo1

ttt just in case this slipped by any interested parties...

kopp

Thanks for all the info, bardo1. Last night I made the trek to B&amp;N to get my Prague (and Berlin) guidebooks. Have looked up numerous places you mentioned -- wow! I've got stickees all over the place. This will be a new experience for me (hubby was in Prague in '68 during the Russian invasion--I'm sure it's changed since then!)

Let the planning begin...

Thanks for the great report!

bardo1

kopp,

Thank you - glad you enjoyed it. When are you going to Prague? It was never actually at the top of my list, but DW had her heart set on going. Now <b>I</b> want to go back!

kopp

Hello bardo,

Just got my FF tickets issued last night for our trip next July!

We'll be flying into Frankfurt, then a week in Berlin, couple days in Dresden, a week in Prague, then a week hiking in the Alps of Switzerland, flying out of Zurich back home.

I'll have lots of questions. Germany &amp; Czech are new to me.

Happy travels!

Myer

Ahhh. I found it!!!

bardo1, you are the one who stayed at the 7 Angels.

Could you tell more? Does it have the feel of a hotel or apartment building? Their web site gives it more of a hotel look.

Is it located as well as it appears on their web site? How long a walk to the Charles Bridge?

Amenities? Elevator, air conditioning, bathroom reasonably modern with hair dryer?

Thanks.