Ed and Annette's Excellent European Adventure: Prague day one

Up earlier than usual (who knows why) and off to the train station to head to Prague. Sunday morning it is relatively quiet and almost no one at the station; we grab a quick breakfast and onto the train for a two hour ride to Prague. Lots of room to spread out and off we go through the beautiful countryside. Our train travels trough a gorge and along the river most of the trip. What a pastural view of peaceful life in the quaint beautifully styled country homes. The vast open fields of mustard plants, bright green foliage, shear rock face cliffs and wide flowing rivers. Simple words cannot express the beauty and emotion along this ride. A few picture below barely capture what we experienced.

We arrived in Prague fairly early at the train station. Immediately we realized that speaking the language here is going to be a lot tougher. We practiced a few phases on the train and are very happy that many here speak english. The Czech language is very different with the unusual letters and odd pronunciations. We exchanged some money at the train station (don't do this if at all possible they rip you off big time) so we could buy tickets to the Metro system. Although the Czech Republic is part of the European Union they have not adopted the currency yet; so we are learning the Czech Crowns. It's about 18 crowns to the dollar. We all pull out our calculators to determine the price we are paying for the item

Our hotel is a short walk from the Metro station and nicely located in the old town area. A grand old building that is very elegant. Our rooms are spacious and seem very upscale for the $96 a night price (including b'fast); what a deal!!! Oh, I miss the hostel - oh, I mean the hotel! (just kidding Ed)

We couldn't wait to go out exploring this marvelous city. We have three nights here and have so much to take in. The transportation system is amazingly easy, efficient, clean and well used. This was a solid bastion of the communist rule and has only been a free county since 1989. It is amazingly progressive and has a solid infrastructure. I think we always think the communist areas were not up to our American standards, but being in these areas now my opinion is very different. I would love to sit down with a life long resident of this City and hear about how it has changed.