Bittersweet Prague

In alot of ways Prague is fantastic. In alot of ways it is not.

Not so Fantastic
Amy and I were both disheartened when we first got to Prague by our shoddy hostel. We are on the 5th floor (123 steps with no elevator--Amy counted), have no hot water, and are next door to a group of Americans who like to noisily stroll in at 2 in the morning. AH!
Prague is already a popular tourist destination. You can hardly walk down the Old Town and Charles Bridge without feeling like you're in a cattle call. Both Amy and I thought Prague was going to be cheap due to years of rebuilding after Communist occupation, but that is not really the case. Things are still relatively expensive. Beer is cheaper than water here. Most of the tourist attractions have silly gimicks, like varying levels of tours, nothing is "included" everything is itemized. Wenceslas square is a tourist trap.

Fantastic
Almost no building in Prague is under 100 years old. Luckily this was one of the main European cities that did not get bombed by World War II. Instead, Britain and France just gave it to Hitler. Thank you Neville Chamberlain and Edward Daladier? The houses have neat designs for addresses...for instance, a house with three violins above its door located its address. It wasn't until much later that Germans forced actual address numbers on Czechs. All of the roads and walk ways are cobbled with stone.
If you love Art Nouveau, this is the place. Many of the buildings are covered with designs and frescoes harkening back to the late 19th/early 20th century. The Municipal House and Hotel Europa are neat examples of this.
In addition to seeing St. Vitus (amazing especially Mucha's stained glass window) and the Prague Castle, we visited the Museum of Communism and the Mucha Museum. Both are fantastic. The Museum of Communism had a nice, but low budget--sorry, Soviet pun not intended--exhibit on Czechoslovakia under socialism. The Mucha museum was amazing (http://www.mucha.cz/index.phtml?S=home&Lang=EN) . It had a nice collection of his works and a short video that about his life and periods of art. As fans of his work, we highly recommend it. Today we are planning to venture into the Jewish Quarter, Kafka's territory. While Prague is beautiful, I think we will be ready to go.