The City of Cobbles

..Prague!

Arrived at 8.30pm last night into the main train station, which wasn't particularly inviting given the chaos of the renovations and lack of signage, lighting (in some areas) ATMs and help! Finally found the pucker taxi rank, after dismissing offers of 'fixed price of 750 Crowns' to my hotel, from a decidedly dodgy-looking fella with a laminated mini-cab business card around his neck. I wasn't being fleeced again, so was pleased to have persevered and found the official taxi rank, and be driven to my hotel in a yellow skoda :-) at a cost of just 188 Crowns.

A very very comfortable night at the Hotel Constans, in Praha 1, just below the Castle, which is just a five minute hobble up the cobbles to the beautiful Embassy building. Good to meet the staff here and we had a pleasant lunch-hour, walking up the 250 something steps up to the castle and palace, where we went to a canteen style restaurant for the people that work in the vicinity - away from the hundreds upon hundreds of tourists, all queuing up for tours and photos with the uniformed guards at the entrance. The weather stayed like this all day and I was disappointed again to not have longer to enjoy the city. I visited in 2002, I think it was May, but it was nowhere near as beautiful as it was today. Anyway - I went off to the airport for my first experience of Czech Airlines' service to Warsaw.

Nice to be home though, I missed my flat!

Have back-blipped Vienna and Bratislava too!