Prague

The Charles Bridge to your left, the beautiful river and the great castle on the other side. The castle is two kilometers long, and nearly a half kilometer wide, making it the biggest castle in Europe, and probably the world. The other side of the river is definitely the chi chi part of town. Its all cobblestone streets and half timbered buildings.
Tycho Brae lived and died over there, under the reign of the greatest of Renaissance Emperors, Rudolph the second. Alhough generally considered a bit of a backwater these days, only a couple of hundred years ago, this capital of Bohemia was the centre of culture for the world...a great rivalry with the city of Vienna only a hundred miles to the south helped to drive Bohemia to undreamed of heights of technology, music, and science. Now of course, we don't call it Bohemia any more, but rather, the Czech Republic, and it is STILL the centre of glass technology (who has NOT heard of Bohemian crystal?) and of course, hockey. The Czech Republic exports more hockey players than any other country except of course, for Canada.
I didn't take in a game when I was there. Pity.

Click on the images to enlarge. The top pic should be cropped to make it into a real postcard, but I rather liked the dichotomy of the ancient and the modern. That thing that looks like an anti-aircraft cannon covered in graffitti in front...well, its a telescope. And like most Eastern European items, it took my money and refused to work. Oh well, good thing the same can certainly not be said about the people who were as salt-of-the-earth as you can get! Somebody described the people in Prague as "battered but enduring". Maybe because I grew up in "next year country" out west and saw lots of the same kind of attitudes, I felt that I had a lot in common with them. Good people.