SUMMARY: Czech Republic

We didn't do much travelling around the countryside in the Czech Republic. We spent 8 days in Prague with a day trip to another larger town, Plzen. Our impressions of the Czech Republic are therefore almost entirely based upon Prague. The take-away from our experience was that the Czech's might be more serious about their beer than any other country we have ever visited.

Things we liked:

• Beer culture, it is cheaper than water and best in the world
• Pilsner Urquell
• Full of interesting and fun pubs
• Best vegetarian restaurant EVER!
• Food is pretty cheap, a three course meal for two with beer runs no more than $30USD
• Can easily get away with just English
• Symphony Orchestra was great, and concerts and orchestras are playing around town every day

Things we didn't like:

• Prague is full of tourists, you can't get away from them (while we are tourists too we were subtle about looking at maps and taking photos, and never dined at TGI Fridays or Hard Rock Cafe)
• With all that river frontage, there are no decent running paths or scenic walks along the river until you are a couple of miles outside the city

Interesting findings:

• Locals seem to have regular seats at their favourite bars which are kept reserved for them
• Beer cheese, beer shampoo, beer everything
• Locals seem indifferent, they will smile if you smile, but otherwise appear neither friendly nor unfriendly. They are probably sick of all the tourists. This includes wait staff at restaurants and pubs.
• We were warned to watch out for pick pockets, scam artists, and people giving you incorrect change in their favour, but we never experienced this. However, it did make us paranoid the first few days.

And, as usual, here are some pictures that didn't make the original cut.

*On the train to Plzen, Czech Republic to visit the Pilsner Urquell Brewery

 *Daryl in front of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery gate, which is featured on the beer label

*Inside one of our favourite Vegetarian restaurants

*Statues on the Charles Bridge

*Famous clock

*Daryl near the Castle Quarter, overlooking Prague

*Jackie near the Castle Quarter, overlooking Prague

*Typical street in the Jewish Quarter

*Wine that we bought for Joanne and Leo but just ended up drinking ourselves (sorry)

*Gate to our apartment (looks scary, but actually quite nice)

*Lennon Peace Wall, filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti; in the 80's, young Czechs would write on the wall to express their frustrations with the Communist regime

*Another angle of the Gehry's Dancing House

*Daryl heading into a photo art gallery where we picked up some prints

*Another pic of the Communist Memorial in Petrin Park

Recaps from Krakow coming soon!