Having been in Europe for more than 2 years now, my perspectives on which places to visit have evolved over time. I started with the disposition that I should travel mostly to places within Italy; there's more time to explore everything else, I'd say. And so I went on exploring cities within my reach (Rome and Naples at first, and small towns in their vicinity). Then, I progressed to nailing various regions within Italy (Tuscany, Lombardy and, eventually, Veneto... Sicily has perpetually eluded me) until seeing every flavor of Baroque, Gothic and Romanesque church had me saying that I probably had enough of Italy (I learned loads though - the North-South divide, facts on the Unification, regional differences and flavors). Time to move on to other places... France, Spain, Belgium (by chance)... easy since I could speak passable Italian (some French from back in my undergrad days, some Spanish from being Filipino)... But then they all started feeling and melding together and sort of being the same.
Anyway, bottom line is that after 2 years of being here, I found it strange that the eastern most city I've been to is... Naples, not only my home base but a city that is as inherently "western European" as any other city I've been to. I decided that this fact had to change.
Anyway, bottom line is that after 2 years of being here, I found it strange that the eastern most city I've been to is... Naples, not only my home base but a city that is as inherently "western European" as any other city I've been to. I decided that this fact had to change.
| Of course, Eastern Europe is a big region in itself -- where do I start? While one could, ideally, do one big mega train trip by stringing together a handful of the big cities (Prague, Budapest and Vienna mostly come to mind) I had neither the opportunity nor the money to do that. It came down to picking one main city and maybe exploring some side cities around it (my normal strategy anyway) - wrestling between Budapest and Prague, I decided to go with the latter since most of my travel friends have been there and it seems to be the bigger star (the other, I defer to a later opportunity... little did I know that I'd be coaxed into doing that later this month as well). But I digress. So I went to skyscanner -- found the cheapest and most reasonable flight I could for this coming long weekend (Rome - Brno), mapped a tentative route leading to and from Prague (which gives me the chance to see 3 other cities: Brno, Olomouc, Karlovy Vary), did some research on Czech beer and gastronomy and called it a plan. |  City by the river: Pražský hrad (Prague Castle) and Karlov most (Charles Bridge), Prague's main attractions by the Vltava river |
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