Euro Tour

While the astronomical clock is a must-see on the hour for the apostles in motion, Old Town Square has more. The architecture itself is worth looking at. The Kinsky Palace has nightly puppet shows of Mozart's Don Giovanni...a real treat. You may also visit St. Nicholas Church, admire the Jan Hus statue, see Tyn Church (just behind the ...

First things first: Prague is a very beautiful city. With some six hundred years of architecture virtually untouched by natural disaster or war, few other cities, anywhere in Europe, look as good. Straddling the winding River Vltava, with a steep wooded hill to one side, the city retains much of its medieval layout and the street facades remain smothered in a rich mantle of Baroque, Rococo and Art Nouveau, all of which successfully escaped the vanities and excesses of postwar redevelopment. Of course, while the Iron Curtain was still in place, Prague was seldom visited by westerners – since the 1990s, however, all that has changed. Prague is now one of the most popular city break destinations in Europe, and is enjoying the sort of economic boom not seen since the 1920s.
Prague's emergence as one of Europe's leading cities, capital of a country poised to join the EU, has come as a surprise to many people – but not the Czechs. After all, Prague was at the forefront of the European avant-garde for much of the last century, boasting a Cubist movement second only to Paris, and, between the wars, a modernist architectural flowering to rival Bauhaus. With a playwright and human rights activist as their president, the Czechs easily grabbed the headlines in the 1990s. Even today, the country's athletes and models enjoy a very high profile, and its writers, artists and film directors continue to exert a profound influence on European culture, out of all proportion to their number.
Naturally, not everybody is happy with the changes. Like most central Europeans, Czechs love to moan, especially over a glass or two of beer. Prices have gone up dramatically over the past ten years, with ever- increasing rents pushing locals out of the centre, and ever more expensive restaurants making the old town a no-go area for the average Praguer. Some argue that over-zealous restoration has turned central Prague into a theme park, that the arrival of the multinationals has made Prague like every other European city, and that the smartening-up of the city centre has made the place just like Vienna (a city universally disliked by Czechs).
Certainly, the exhilarating popular unity of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, and the feeling of participating in history itself, have now gone for ever. Few Czechs refer to the events of 1989 as a "revolution". Disorientation at the speed of change, disillusionment with modern politics and the first real taste of Western vices in the capital have taken their toll. The lifestyle gulf between Party and non-Party members has been replaced by the Western malaise of rich and poor. There's nothing new in this, but it does serve as a sobering footnote to the city's glowing image in the West.

Take in a busker's tune or simply enjoy stunning views of the castle above and river below. Linking the Lesser Side with the Old Town, the pedestrian bridge's foundation stone was laid in 1357 on July 9th at 5:31am (note the sequence: 1357 9 7 531); it was believed that a sequence of odd numbers would secure successful construction. Between 1683 and 1928, 30 statues of saints were placed along the bridge. At statue 16, there is a plaque, which visitors can rub to give them good luck and ensure their return to Prague.

The oldest and most important square in historic Prague, dating from before the 12th century, it was originally a market place where merchants from all over Europe gathered. The square has witnessed many events of historical importance including the execution of 27 Bohemian squires in 1621 and the installation of the new city council in 1784 after the five districts of Prague were united. It was also the epicenter of the Prague Uprising in May 1945. The Hus Monument (1915) stands in the square...

Open Hours
Summer: 9a-5p M-Su, Winter: 9a-4p M-Su

The castle was originally the seat of Czech royalty and nobility but is now the residence and offices of the Czech President. However, President Masaryk updated and modernized the buildings in the 1920s. Lined on three sides by palaces (with the fourth by its main gate), there are a number of galleries and gardens to visit as well as the Military Museum. The Changing of the Guard takes place every hour on the hour; at noon expect an elaborate ceremony. The galleries and museum are closed on Mondays.

Amsterdam is a compact, instantly likeable city. It's appealing to look at and pleasing to walk around, an intriguing mix of the parochial and the international; it also has a welcoming attitude towards visitors and a uniquely youthful orientation, shaped by the liberal counterculture of the last four decades. It's hard not to feel drawn by the buzz of open-air summer events, by the cheery intimacy of the city's clubs and bars, and by the Dutch facility with languages: just about everyone you meet in Amsterdam will be able to speak good-to-fluent English, on top of their own native tongue, and often more than a smattering of French and German too.

The city's layout is determined by a web of canals radiating out from an historical core to loop right round the centre. These planned, seventeenth-century extensions to the medieval town make for a uniquely elegant urban environment, with tall gabled houses reflected in their black-green waters. This is the city at its most beguiling, a world away from the traffic and noise of many other European city centres, and it has made Amsterdam one of the continent's most popular short-haul destinations. These charms are supplemented by a string of first-rate attractions, most notably the Anne Frankhuis, where the young Jewish diarist hid away during the German occupation of World War II, the Rijksmuseum, with its wonderful collection of Dutch paintings, including several of Rembrandt's finest works, and the peerless Vincent van Gogh Museum, with the world's largest collection of the artist's work.

However, it's Amsterdam's population and politics that constitute its most enduring characteristics. Celebrated during the 1960s and 1970s for its radical permissiveness, the city mellowed only marginally during the 1980s, and, despite the gentrification of the last twenty years, it retains a laid-back feel. That said, it is far from being as cosmopolitan a city as, say, London or Paris: despite the huge numbers of immigrants from the former colonies in Surinam and Indonesia, as well as Morocco and Turkey – to name but a few – almost all live and work outside the centre and can seem almost invisible to the casual visitor. Indeed, there is an ethnic and social homogeneity in the city centre that seems to run counter to everything you may have heard of Dutch integration.

The apparent contradiction embodies much of the spirit of Amsterdam. The city is world famous as a place where the possession and sale of cannabis are effectively legal – or at least decriminalized – and yet, for the most part, Amsterdammers themselves can't really be bothered with the stuff. And while Amsterdam is renowned for its tolerance towards all styles of behaviour and dress, a primmer, more correct-thinking big city, with a more mainstream dress sense, would be hard to find. Behind the cosy cafés and dreamy canals lurks the suspicion that Amsterdammers' hearts lie squarely in their wallets, and while newcomers might see the city as a liberal haven, locals can seem just as indifferent to this as well.

In recent years, a string of hardline city mayors have taken this conservatism on board and seem to have embarked on a generally successful – if often unspoken – policy of squashing Amsterdam's image as a counterculture icon and depicting it instead as a centre for business and international high finance. Almost all the inner-city squats – which once well-nigh defined local people-power – are gone or legalized, and coffeeshops have been forced to choose between selling dope or alcohol, and, if only for economic reasons, many have switched to the latter. Such shifts in attitude, combined with alterations to the cityscape, in the form of large-scale urban development on the outskirts and regeneration within, combine to create an unmistakeable feeling that Amsterdam and its people are busy reinventing themselves, writing off their hippyfied history to return to earlier, more stolid days.

Nevertheless, Amsterdam remains a casual and intimate place, and Amsterdammers themselves make much of their city and its attractions being gezellig, a rather overused Dutch word roughly corresponding to a combination of "cosy", "lived-in" and "warmly convivial". Nowhere is this more applicable than in the city's unparalleled selection of drinking places, whether you choose a traditional brown bar or one of a raft of newer, designer cafés, or grand cafés. The city boasts dozens of great restaurants too, with its Indonesian cuisine second-to-none, and is at the forefront of contemporary European film, dance, drama and music. The city has several top-rank jazz venues and the Concertgebouw concert hall is home to one of the world's leading orchestras. The club scene is restrained by the standard of other main cities, although the city's many gay bars and clubs partly justify Amsterdam's claim to be the "Gay Capital of Europe".

Paulus Potterstraat 7
Amsterdam, NH 1071 CX Netherlands
31 20 570 5200

Since 1973, this museum has housed the world's largest collection of Van Goghs, including paintings, drawings and letters. The museum also has a large collection of works...

This large, green oasis was created in the second half of the 19th Century, and named after the poet Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679), a statue of whom was unveiled here in 1867. Today Vondelpark, one of the most-visited spots in the city, is a restful haven for citizens away from the city's chaos. Come here for inline skating, let your children play in the large playground or have a cup of coffee on one of the four terraces.

31 20 620 42 25
info@decompagnon.nl
Open Hours
Lunch: noon-2p Mon-Sat; Dinner: 6p-11p Mon-Sat

This has been called the most splendid market square in Europe. Its esplanade is completely enclosed by tall, gabled, Flemish Renaissance buildings dripping with ornamentation and statues. It is alive with daily commerce and a colorful flower market. Impressive as it is by day, it is even more beautiful at night in the golden glow of floodlights. During spring and summer evenings there is a light show that shouldn't be missed.