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Planning for this summer's European river cruise

Prague Castle and Charles Bridge - Photo in the public domain

While it is still fairly chilly on the Costa del Sol in Spain, spring and summer are on the way and I really need to get down to planning my European river cruise.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there is so much to choose from, I am totally spoiled for choice and this makes it difficult to actually make a final decision.

However, on browsing around on the Internet this weekend, I stumbled on a river cruiser’s guide to Prague.  Now there's a wonderful city that I have never visited before!  Pictured above you can see Prague Castle and the river, with the span of the Charles Bridge, and there is so much more to see and do in this fascinating city.
 

According to the blog I visited, food in the Czech Republic is a secret unto itself and seeing as I enjoy sampling the varied cuisines of the world, this is something I definitely want to try out. The Czech cuisine tends to mainly consist of meat dishes and pork, beef and chicken are apparently the most popular.  Fish on the other hand is rare in Czech restaurants.  Typical dishes include roast pork with bread dumplings and stewed cabbage, or roast sirloin beef with steamed dumplings and cream-of-vegetable sauce, which all sounds very wholesome and tasty. The desserts (a weakness of mine!) sound incredible and are a collecton of crepes, tarts and cakes with whipped cream, chocolate and other tasty delights such as strudl. There goes the diet! While the cuisine is not that well known, Czech beer is, of course, pretty famous with its pilsner style brew, dubbed Budweis in German, which even managed to give its name to the popular Budweiser Budvar beer.  Speaking of beer, there are several beer festivals held throughout the year, making for a fun reason to visit the city, so timing is important here!

Photo: CC by-SA 4.0 Rude

Getting the mind off food and drink, Prague offers much in the way of history with several interest museums to visit, as well as fascinating castles and chateaux, theatres and cinemas. There is also some fascinating architecture, like Milunic's and Gehry's Dancing House pictured here.  Nicknamed rather appropriately "Ginger and Fred," Frank Gehry's genius just oozes from this amazing building. For the kids and younger-at-heart, Prague and its surroundings offers several puppetry and marioinette exhibitions as well as several puppet festivals.  Also near Prague, kids will enjoy the Aquapalace Praha water park, apparently the largest in central Europe.

Photo: CC by-SA 3.0  Hans Peter Schaefer

All in all, a visit to Prague, all included in a luxury 11-day trip to Nuremberg and Budapest sounds like a definite plan. Not only are there all the pleasures of Prague to explore, but two other fascinating European cities and their cultural treasures await. After exploring all there is to see in the Czech capital, I will catch a luxury coach down to Nuremburg and climb aboard my luxury ship for an 8-day relaxing and luxurious cruise to Budapest.  Fancy joining me?