What became our favorite hang out in Prague, CoffeeHeaven. We sat on the second floor overlooking a busy pedestrain street in very comfortable chairs.

Scenes from a train in the Czech Republic

View from the Cesky Kumlov castle

Cesky Krumlov

The Bus ride from Prague to Cesky Krumlov

More Prague

Czech Republic

I really enjozed the Czech Republic, especially Prague. It was great fun traveling with Becky, who has now headed home for the holidays in Minnesota and then on to a new teaching job in Portland in Janurary. I wish her the best. She is a special education teacher with a heart of gold who was a great travel companion and a wonderful volunteer in Yaroslavl. I will miss her company.
Prague was great. Unlike a lot of European cities who were severly bombed during the second world war, Prague was not. Because of that is has many buildings that are 700 to 1000 years old. The people are very friendly, the streets are large and very pedestrain friendly, and the weather was great. This is my favorite city.
We also took a day trip to Cesky Krumlov, a small town that all the books saz is a must see. For us it was more like a trip into the Twlight Zone. We took a three hour bus ride from prague and arrived around 12,30. We then checked into our hostel....Hostel 99. We aere in a room with 4 beds and met our two roomates as soon as we wnet in. An Aussie and a guy from Winnepeg, Canada. It was a little strange that none of the doors had locks onlz the front door, but....
We then left and walked around town for a while looking for coffee, Coke light, and some lunch. After eating lunch we returned to the hostel about 2 and found the Aussie asleep. No big deal..just an afternoon nap. We again leaft and explored the town, i walked around and Becky went to a art muesuem. When we returned to the hostel the Aussie was still asleep so we decieded to see what was on TV. We then found out that one of the guest had stolen a DVD, or at least was accused of such, and the TV was locked up as punishment for the crime. No TV for anyone. OK..we had gone to the grocerz store and bought snacks, cheese, bread, and juice to eat for supper so we headed to the kitchen to unload them. In the kitchen was out Canadain roommate so we stayed and talked. He told us that our Aussie had slept 26 hours straight a couple of dazs before and might sleep until morning, so dont worry about waking him up by opening your backpacks, etc. he also told us that for the last two nights the whole staff had returned to the Hostel at 6:00 am after a night of partzing, and went in the lunchroom and continued the party by turning the stereo up full blast. When one of the guest had gotten up and ask them to turn it down, they were told to like it or pack up and leave. Wow. After a while we decided to go to the bar-cafe next door which is owned by the same people. There wasnt much else to do and it stayed open until 1. But no, at about 9,00 as a customer was putting another log on the fire, he was infromed that this was not his house and he should have asked before adding wood. What if they decided to close at 9,30. he replied that the sign on the door said thez were open until one. She said...we close whenever we want to and we will close earlz tonight. Wow++good ole customer service. So we headed back to the hostel to check the next days bus and train schedule and make our plans.....but while we were gone someone had removed all the schedules for the bulletin board. So we visited the castle the next morning, went to the bus stop, tried for an hour or so to figure out which bus we should get on. We then were told that our bus would be there at 11.30 (we had gotten there before 10) so we waited, boarded the bus to a larger town about 30 miles away, were we caught a bus back to Prague. We immediatlz checked into our new hostel and headed for our favorite cafe in Prague, Coffee Heaven. Man it was nice to be home.

Walking around Prague