Prague Articles

April 22, 2006

Currency Craziness!

We left the Euro just about two weeks ago and it has been a daily challenge to keep up with the constant currency conversions -- first the Polish zloty (about 4 zl = 1 euro), then the Czech crown (about 28.5 kr = 1 euro) and now we are researching hostels in Budapest, which requires converting Hungarian forints (about 266 = 1 euro) -- oh the fun! Thank goodness for CJ's career in finance and business, she is able to do conversions and approximations in her head much faster than me...she was also smart enough to pick up a conversion calculator while we were in Berlin, it has been a livesaver.

We are at Bohemia Bagel in Prague right now, catching up on travel planning, emails and news from around the world. It has turned into a cold rainy Saturday night here in town, but it is fine for us, we have had several sunny filled days with great walks, parks and beer halls, of course. They are calling for rain tomorrow too, so I'll hit a museum and we might do some spring shopping too. For now, it's back to the hostel searching and number crunching...

by Kelly Amabile | # | Comments (0)

April 17, 2006

Krakow to Prague: The Day Train

Lots of folks take night trains to save money and time during their fast-paced 2-3 week loops of the major European cities. Since CJ and I have the luxury of time on our side, we decided to skip one of the most popular night trains -- the stretch between Krakow and Prague. Instead we opted to do it today, during yet another (conveniently) gray Monday. We were able to read, rest and study up on Prague, which we didn't do much of before boarding the train this morning.

The ride was fairly uneventful, and I was suprised that the first leg, on a German train from Krakow to Kadowice, included free coffee service too, I still wonder if it is just a Polish thing, because when we switched to the Czech train for the duration of the journey, we were not offered anything, and I don't remember free service on the German train to Berling either...

We arrived in Prague around 5 pm and have begun deciphering the tram and metro systems here. Can't wait to explore this place...hopefully on foot mostly, but looks like we will need the public tranport from time to time too. We've already decided to change hostels, the one we have for tonight was a huge disappointment, so we quickly came to this internet cafe to book a new one for the rest of the week and were lucky to score beds in a brand new place that just opened last month. I'll dish the details on all the hostels when I get my reviews done...hopefully in the next week or two...gotta find time between all the travels.

by Kelly Amabile | # | Comments (0)