Time to leave Vienna and head for Prague in Czech Republic. We took a taxi to the railway station, bill came to EU15.00 that is EU10 less than we paid to get to to the hotel - guess who got ripped off when we arrived? Remember how I said I thought the cab was pricy? ARGH!

Train travel really is awesome! Far better than planes. No security lines to stand in, arrive at the station, check the monitor for your platform and climb on the damn train (you don't even need a ticket, you can buy one from the conductor - although it's better to have one in case train is full)!

You have comfortable seats, a bar you can sit at and drink or eat, power for your electronics and a big window to watch the world go by.

The train ride from Vienna to Prague was 5 hours and it went by in a flash.

In Europe though you better know the city name in the local spelling otherwise you might not find your train coz the board only displays train stations in the local spelling. Vienna = Wien and Prague = Praha.  Not to mention there are three different Vienna and Prague stations to choose from!

On arrival in Prague, we checked with the taxi and they wanted $35 to take us to our hotel!~ Hell to the NO! We checked this time, our hotel is less than 3 miles from the station (thank you, Google Maps). Freakin' con artists!

Nope, we will figure out the Metro instead, bags and all. I have traveled the London Underground so many times as well as Metros in Paris and many other countries, so this is not rocket science even though nothing is in English and it's our first time in Czech Republic.

After studying the Metro map for a few minutes we got it and $2.50 and 20 minutes later with just one station change we arrived at our hotel, a 5 minute walk from the metro station we chose!

Screw you, Mr. Evil Taxi guy! You didn't get us today!

By the way, the picture on the right was taken while passing through Brno (how the hell do you pronounce that?)

Our hotel room

View from our hotel room - not fantastic but better than Vienna (didn't bother even taking that pic)

<<<<This is the street our hotel is on, very cool. We are only a 10 minute walk from old town.

Also FREE internet at our hotel and it actually works all the time - and they think Western Europe is more efficient I think NOT! Best wifi we have had has been Budapest and Prague. Go figure. Vienna sucked.

By the time we got settled in it was about 3.30 PM so we had enough time to do some exploring.

We can already tell just from a couple hours walking the neighborhood that we are going to LOVE Prague!!!

Once again no sticker shock, we had a couple beers at a fancy outdoor cafe in the busy tourist old town square and they were less than $5 each for a tall beer (500ml). Bear in mind I paid $7 for a short beer in Paris 12 years ago - so this for Europe is cheap!

We stopped off at a market (they are on every corner) and bought a couple beers for the hotel room (less than $1 each), a bottle white wine ($3.50) and a Liter of Grant's Whisky for $22.50.

THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN IN AMERICA!!!! We are on the 5th floor and the window opens completely.  Wendy is sitting on the sill!! In the USA, hoteliers are convinced people would fall to their death in this situation and would never allow windows to be opened at this height. I can't watch!  She's gonna die!

The hotel is old school - we have a real key to our room - no electronic card, a REAL key, Gigantic as it is - it's like we are back in the 50's!  The other key is to our safe and the giant fob so we don't forget our room number after so many beers!

Wendy eating Kürtőskalács (yip, I typed that, NOT, I copied and pasted it) - sweet spiral pull-apart bread that is baked rotisserie-style outdoors over charcoal. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup - That's gonna be our night tour transport tomorrow!!

For dinner we decided to treat ourselves for the first time (mostly we have been eating relatively on the cheap, with no meal and copious drinks costing more than $25 for the 2 of us). We splurged! We were also surprised and delighted to discover that Prague restaurants still have a smoking section - wow!

Wendy had a superbly cooked medium rare beef thing and I had a gigantic pork thing. I had seen signs all over the city just about every restaurant advertising Whole Grilled Pork Knuckle. Some kind of local delicacy. Well that is what I had and it was delicious but no way could I finish it!

So you factor in two of the highest priced items on the menu, plus 2 giant beers, a glass of wine and another whole bottle of wine, our bill was still a little less than $70.00!!!

Our waiter was a PRO! Congenial, affable and overall great guy.  He got an UNHEARD OF...20% tip.  He thoroughly made our evening tonight with the banter, calling his friends for Wendy to talk to on his personal cell phone about the best "insider" tours to go on, etc.  He deserved it! We are totally set for the next couple days!

And finally...

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FREAKIN' KIDDING ME!!!

And right in front of a church too!!!