Czech This Out

Prague in the Czech Republic is another beautiful city. We added a three day trip to the end of our cruise. A plus is its vibrant street life and its street food (lots of sausage and beer stands). Mostly young people are out and about, though to me nearly everyone is young. There are tons of things to do and going by looks and food, Paris has nothing on Prague except more tourist traps. Prague is surprisingly cheap. An Uber that would have cost $15 in Manhattan was about $8.

About the food. You need to like meat. I got lots of walking exercise through old town gawking at the magnificent buildings. Over the period I actually had lost weight when I got home. I vaguely recalled signs for “meat restaurants.” My memory was accurate. If you start a Google search for “Prague meat,” the next word “restaurant” pops right up. Everything was delicious. We didn’t have one bad meal. The service was spotty, but once we ordered, the food came out surprisingly fast, and well-prepared.

My preferred cuisines run to Asian, Latin, and Italian. I prefer a somewhat lower ratio of meat to sides. I immediately move on when I see the word “vegan.” But as I said, I didn’t have one bad meal.

A thing about river cruises is they are good if you have a lot of energy. I don’t. Stopping at multiple ports of call, you can cover a lot of ground. We barely scratched the surface of Budapest, Bratislava, Dornstein, Passau, Vienna, Regensburg, and Prague. There are so many grand buildings and statues that they become routine after a while. My wife joked that the boat was a bit like an assisted living facility, but with much better food. Everything is done for you. The clientele is certainly predominantly elderly, with on-board entertainment to match. (“Oom Pah Pah . . . “) We were thrown in with Aussies, Canadians, and Brits. Everybody got along well.

A note on flying and airports. I hate them with a passion. If I could, I would spring young Luigi from jail and give him a list of the home addresses of the United Airlines Board of Directors. I may never fly to Europe again. Washington Dulles, however, was very good to us. No ICE in sight. No wait at all through security for the outgoing flights, and no wait at Customs upon our return. I’ve had some bad times at Customs at Dulles so maybe we were just lucky today. By contrast, Frankfurt Airport was a nightmare. It is among the largest in Europe. I would not take any flight to the EU that was not non-stop.

We had actually thought we would visit the U.K. but you need a visa. They have a dysfunctional online application process that I could not navigate, so off to the EU we went.