Prague

What a picturesque city!  Prague is the kind of place that you would find on text book covers, magazines, and fairy tale illustrations as architectural perfection.  The lights at night on the castle are spectacular, a particularly hot tourist destination.  Supposedly, the tourist season is primarily in the summer, which I can imagine is incredibly busy based on the quantity of people visiting during our stay (when it is super cold out!).  It is quite the contrast to take a walking tour through the historic city only to be bombarded with people selling segway tours, trinkets, and a million other souvenirs at every corner.

The Czech Philharmonic was an incredible concert, and I was particularly impressed by the Violin soloist, and the section blend of the orchestra.  I have never seen such fluid violin playing, and such precision in long chromatic runs, or in the tuning of double stops.  It was mesmerizing and incredibly emotive throughout the entire performance, so much so that she played two encores!  Also, I was amazed at the section playing of the flutes, and at the unison sections, It sounded like one player.  The piccolo player was also incredibly in tune, which is also a challenging feat.

Of the three cities that we have visited this far, Prague was by far the coldest, but also the first where there was substantial snow.  It felt kind of like a Disneyland dream with all of the narrow cobblestone streets and ornate buildings dusted with a layer of powdery snow.  Prague most closely resembles what I imagined Europe to look like before coming on this trip, and I cant wait to see Austria!