Go east! (Prague)

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	Prague
Date:	20/07/00 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's what they say Paris is like.

Disadvantages: Wenceslas Square

Prague is gorgeous.

I could leave it at that, any criticisms I might make of it are irrelevant, and I can't believe anyone who went there would have anything but a positive experience. I'd heard that hotel and restaurant staff could be a bit slow and surly, but I didn't notice it (hey, I'm from the UK, I get slow and surly every day), and any idea of the cold forbidding Eastern Europe, well, forget that, it was positively Mediterranean in climate when we went.

We were too chicken to sample the rather stodgy sounding local delicacies, but every place we ate was comically cheap and the food was stunning. Superb czech beer goes for roughly the same price as a can of pop here.

As for what you're going to see, well, it's staggering. The reason why so many period movies are shot in Prague is that so much of it is so unspoilt. The area beyond the Charles Bridge (which I think is called the Little Quarter), where all the buildings are adorned with little signs for the businesses which used to occupy them, is like what most European cities used to be two or three hundred years ago. The Old Town Square, with the town hall and buildings where Kafka used to write is just stunning, you'll find yourself going back there time and again.

The castle is wonderful, a day out in itself, and the views back over the red-rooved city are glorious. Most tourists go to the Jewish Quarter, but I would say that this place should be approached carefully - it isn't simply another sight on the tourist trail, especially not the cemetery and the synagogue where the names of Jews killed in the holocaust cover every wall. Here you have to be more respectful, and take some time to look around and remember what happened. I'm not saying don't go here (absolutely the opposite), but I think you need to approach the area with more solemnity than some of the coach tours seem to do.

The only legacy of communism is the ver
y efficient tube system, and it's a lovely place.

One thing - forget that Wenceslas Square exists; it's a toilet.

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