Prague Top Ten ... Well, Mostly

10. Vibrancy. After Vienna (oddly empty) and Salzburg (oddly quiet), it was great to be in a city that felt thriving and busy, people on the streets and little shops and restaurants everywhere.

9. Public transit. We walked everywhere in Italy because the cities were smaller and easily navigable on foot. We tentatively took a few trams in Vienna because it was the only way to get between different parts of the city, but we didn't feel confident about it (and immediately went in the wrong direction on our first trip). In Prague we started to get our European public transportation act together. The tram across the street from our apartment made it easier. We bought tickets on board like experts and didn't even go in the wrong direction. Also, the sight of trams making their way down a long, curved hill in the mist between tall pink, green, yellow, and gray buildings is beautiful (see also 6 and 3).

8. Anora. We saw previews for this film in Florence, which features an actress from one of our favorite-of-all-time TV series, Better Things. We took a tram to a cinema in a part of Prague we hadn't yet explored. Really good film, the actress is terrific, although it's a little bit hard to endure that much indulgent Russian oligarchic corrupt behavior. This marked our third film-viewing experience in Europe (Joker: Folie à Deux in Florence, The Room Next Door in Salzburg, and if you're willing to skip ahead in our chronology to make it four, Lee in Berlin, where we are now as we write this.)

7. Ham and cheese popcorn. We ordered popcorn at the movie theater and were asked if we wanted ham and cheese or salty. We were not expecting this question. We were given a taste sample of the ham and cheese to help us understand the situation. It tasted fine, basically cheesy and salty but we went with salty. Five minutes later, seated and eating our salty popcorn, we realized we should have ordered the ham and cheese. Kind of like Doritos popcorn with a bacon-y vibe. Come on, America – catch up!

6. Michelle's dream. If you follow Michelle on Instagram you will know the story of her recurrent dream featuring a tram descending a long curved street with sidewalks among tall windowed buildings. That place is Prague, and it felt nice to be in that cityscape, among that architecture. The sidewalks in Prague are also strangely beautiful: different mosaic patterns everywhere, white and gray patterns among cobblestones. Not great for your suitcase, but gorgeous to look at.

5. The river. The Vitava river winds through Prague, some areas filled with tour boats, other areas quiet and placid, birds flying among tree-lined banks. The castle and the Kafka museum in Prague are on the other side of the river, and you can walk along the river below the sidewalks.

4. Winter wear. Once we crossed the Alps into Austria, we pulled out our puffy coats, but it didn't start to really get cold until Prague. We also pulled out our gloves and hats and, for Michelle, a scarf. While we were here, the weather was mostly gray and often quite misty as well. The Czechs know how to dress for this weather and they absolutely don't care if it's fashionable or not. Ear muffs, fur-lined hoods on fur-lined coats, pom-pom crested knitted hats, extra long puffy coats and extra thick puffy coats, actual fur coats or possibly fake fur coats that look like actual fur coats.

3. Our neighborhood. Probably my most favorite thing about Prague was looking out the windows of our apartment onto the street filled with people, with green and red and yellow lights at night, with trams moving slowly. There was a mini mart two doors down where we bought milk, a busy street called Revolution a few blocks away where we had lunch salads, an amazing little cafe a few blocks further on with the most gorgeous open-face sandwiches, otherwise known as chlebíček. (Seen here: crab salad, pepperoni, smoked goose breast, beetroot.)

2. The public library. It may be easy to forget while reading our blog that we spend close to half our time writing and working in these cities. Prague has a lovely public library with free wifi where we got some good work done, sitting at long tables upstairs, looking out the windows.

1. This one gets its own post, so stay tuned!