As often happens when I plan our trips, the place that we are staying in Prague has ended up costing us about twice as much as I thought it was going to. It is a very nice place though. It is right on one of the main streets of Prague - in fact, the street just outside our building resembles a mosh pit throughout most of the day. We can see over the rooftops to some of Prague's most famous sites from our window.
Prague is an absolute tourism nexus. There are absolute hordes of tourists here at the moment, I have never seen anything like it - London pales in comparison. I think that half of Europe must come here for New Years.
As with any tourist town, there are also all manner of scammers camping out to rip off as many stupid tourists as they can. We have been eating out for pretty much every meal, so we have well any truly sampled the restaurant scene in the inner city (I am pretty much over goulash and dumplings!). One restaurant we went to had reasonable prices on the menu, so we sat down and ordered two pizzas and two beers. When the bill came they had charged us for two times a couvert fee (table setting) and taken the liberty of adding their own tip up to an amount around twice of what it should have been. I argued about it but they just closed ranks and wouldn't have a bar of it, until I gave up. If you stay in Prague, don't go to the Taverna Toscana!
On the bright side, however, Budweiser Budvar and Pilsner Urquell are among the best beers I have tasted, and you can get half a litre for 27Kc (about £1). Woohoo!
It is dead set hard to motivate yourself to get out of the hostel in this weather - it barely breaks zero during the day, and the weather channel says the nights lately have been around -7. Not yet average winter temperature in Prague, however, which is more like -9!
We have checked out the Prague Castle, which is amazing - I have posted lots of photos. We have also seen various churches and other historic buildings around the town - we are thinking of going to the Jewish museum next.
We are also meeting up with Sharon's sister's husband's family tonight, who are also in Prague for New Years.
Having fun, hope to get in touch with some of you soon!
