Travel Thread

[jkahn]

We were planning a trip to Slovakia and the Czech Republic in the summer, though Bonni is now having second thoughts (where second thoughts equals she was distracted by an International House Hunters episode from Slovenia).

Will be visiting Budapest and Vienna, followed by a return trip to Prague, in early May.

Did Budapest and Prague in 2008.  Most memorable was the Terezin (Theresienstadt) tour.  Our guide Pavel Stransky of Wittman Tours was a survivor of Terezin and Auschwitz.  The tour company was also very accomodating - we (two couples) were supposed to go the day before and literally had to cancel at the last minute due to a missing passport we had to get replaced at the U.S. Embassy.  If you're going to do Terezin you might want to call Wittman and ask for Pavel (he's still on their website).  Even if he's not available, they seemed to be a knowlegeable group and a lot better than the random tour company we had for the downtown Jewish quarter tour.
We were in Prague during the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Czech rebellion (which is why Jaromir Jagr wears # 68).  One day during our trip the government was giving out free beer at the Palace to celebrate.  Lines were about 40 minutes long.
In Budapest we stayed at the Hilton Budapest with beautiful views of the Danube.  The first morning there we walked out of the hotel and heard this consistent humming sound.  It was the Red Bull air racers practicing for a competition later that day.

[RatushnyFan]

Anyone have suggestions for a summer house rental, near Ithaca, ideally lakefront on Cayuga?  My oldest two boys are probably going to Schafer's hockey camp (anyone have experience with this?) this year and my wife wants to spend the week near Ithaca.

Sounds like a good vacation idea to me.::banana::

[Roy 82]

Anyone have suggestions for a summer house rental, near Ithaca, ideally lakefront on Cayuga?  My oldest two boys are probably going to Schafer's hockey camp (anyone have experience with this?) this year and my wife wants to spend the week near Ithaca.

Sounds like a good vacation idea to me.::banana::

Indeed. Let me know if they teach the finer points of breaking a stick over your head.::twak::

[David Harding]

Anyone have suggestions for a summer house rental, near Ithaca, ideally lakefront on Cayuga?  My oldest two boys are probably going to Schafer's hockey camp (anyone have experience with this?) this year and my wife wants to spend the week near Ithaca.

Sounds like a good vacation idea to me.::banana::

Ithaca is, indeed, an excellent place to spend vacation time!!  I have always had family to stay with, so I don't have personal experience with rentals, but a good friend found a very nice place on another Finger Lake through Vacation Rentals By Owner a couple of years ago.

[Josh '99]

I have always had family to stay with, so I don't have personal experience with rentals, but a good friend found a very nice place on another Finger Lake through Vacation Rentals By Owner a couple of years ago.

I don't know about places in the Finger Lakes in particular, but friends and I have found good rentals in other areas on VRBO before.

[RatushnyFan]

VRBO looks good, thanks very much for the suggestion.

[Dianne 99]

Reviving an old thread here...I just decided this weekend to join a friend for a few days in Prague later this month.  Neither of us have ever been there or know much about it, so does anyone have suggestions for restaurants/entertainment that absolutely shouldn't be missed?  We're only there for five days and four nights.

Thanks in advance!
Dianne

[Robb]

Reviving an old thread here...I just decided this weekend to join a friend for a few days in Prague later this month.  Neither of us have ever been there or know much about it, so does anyone have suggestions for restaurants/entertainment that absolutely shouldn't be missed?  We're only there for five days and four nights.

Thanks in advance!
Dianne

I went there in December of 2008, but just for a long weekend.  We mostly hit the Christmas markets, toured the castle/cathedral, and caught an opera (Carmen).   There's lots more to do and see, but we just didn't have time and we were so busy at the time that we really didn't do much research before we went.  We loved it - definitely one of the most picturesque/fairy-tale-like European cities I've been to, and the food was great - very hearty Eastern European food, which was perfect for snowy December days.  It would be quite different in August, I'm sure!

The day trips from Prague are supposed to be fantastic, too - amazing Bohemian castles, etc, but we definitely didn't have time for those.

[Al DeFlorio]

Watch for pickpockets on the Charles Bridge.

[Rosey]

Reviving an old thread here...I just decided this weekend to join a friend for a few days in Prague later this month.  Neither of us have ever been there or know much about it, so does anyone have suggestions for restaurants/entertainment that absolutely shouldn't be missed?  We're only there for five days and four nights.

I can vouch for the deliciousness of the beer at U Fleku.  It's an overpriced German-style biergarten, but definitely a great place to meet people, foreigners and locals alike.  I have so much fun there that I can't imagine not going there whenever I return to Prague.  I would try the "medicine" (Becherovka) exactly once: it's basically Jagermeister without the extra coloring.

Czech food is, in general, very utilitarian and not much to speak of: as a holdover from their Soviet history, the food in many restaurants is still measured and sold by weight, and it tends to be very basic meat-and-potatoes style.  I would also avoid Czech wine at all costs: you are much better off with beer.  For the traditional saaz-heavy pilsner, I prefer Staropramen to Budvar and Pilsner Urquell; for less saaz in your pilsner, go with Gambrinus.  For dark beer, there's the aforementioned U Fleku brew, which is basically somewhere between a Czech pilsner and a German dunkel or schwartzbier, or Krusovice.  You can also often find German beers on tap or in bottles.

Enough about beer.  The most important thing I can stress about Prague is to walk as much as possible.  The touristy areas are not very big—they may cover 4 square miles or so at the most—so it's easy to walk from place to place.  I even spent much time out late at night wandering by myself, and didn't run into any problems.  YMMV.

I also can *not* vouch for the midget stripper at Darling, though I've certainly heard a lot about her from drunken Brits wandering around Wenceslas Square in the morning. ;-)  Talking to shop owners in downtown Prague was one of the few instances in which people were relieved to hear I was from the United States, rather than Britain.


Age, you need to make your software and/or database UTF-8-happy. I kept getting errors until I replaced all the foreign characters with Latin equivalents.

[Josh '99]

For the traditional saaz-heavy pilsner, I prefer Staropramen to Budvar and Pilsner Urquell

I haven't had any of them in the Czech Republic, but I agree with this based on having had them all on tap in the States.

[Robb]

Oh - also, avoid any and all puppet/black light theaters like the plague.  I would rather watch us lose an ECAC championship game to Harvard than sit through that rot again.

[Killer]

If your schedule and travels allow, go see Divokej Bill http://www.divokejbill.cz/.  Happy to reimburse you if you can bring back a copy of their latest CD (Mlsna).

Oh, and if all the beer suggestions still leave you craving something cold, get some zmrzlina.

[jtwcornell91]

Apparently you should check out the Clown and Bard.

[Trotsky]

We blew off my people and decided on England instead.  Spirit of adventure my ass, I want AC.  ::panic::