update #5

Date: Sat

16 Aug. , 1997 07:35:32 (PDT)

Subject:

Update Number

Five-

Rochester

RTW Travels

We stayed in a garret (yeah, really) next to the Vlatava river. From our window we looked past a water wheel over the Charles Bridge and up (everything in Europe is up) to the St. Vitus Cathedral and the castle/palace where president Vaclav Havel even now continues to live. The lights at night on the bridge tower and cathedral spires, especially as fog settled and drifted over the scene, created storybook visions.

Beer was cheap - between 30 and 50 cents - and not just any beer but Pilsner Urquil (the original pilsner, thanks Jay), the original Budvar (Budweiser) and a keg or two of others. They didn’t actually pay me to drink their 16 year old Lagavullen, but it felt damn close. I guess the state subsidises things a lot, but it was hard not to keep being surprised at the low prices - 20 cents to mail a postcard that would cost us 1.50 any where else.

Inexpensive is just the bonus; Prague has an open and happy atmosphere. We don’t know how to describe the difference—old buildings, cobble stones, and romantic bars on every corner abound in Europe — but Prague just felt better to us. Our hostess’ boyfriend insisted on taking us to “Prague’s Oldest Beer Hall,” where the beer is still brewed on the premises (dark beer - not as heavy as Guinness, more like Shiner Bock). We walked in and the sign over the door read “Since 1499”! Oh, was Columbus only on his second voyage when these kids started brewing? It still blows me away.

Poignant note - The Jewish community was allotted so little land for a cemetery that, over the centuries, they had to keep adding layers of new dirt over the old in order to bury the next generation. Now all the tombstones from 400 years are set and stacked leaning willy-nilly on the surface. It looks like a gravestone antique shop with Patti in charge of organisation. Over 100,000 are in a space allotted for 10,000.