Ok next stop Prague- it was sensational! full of beautiful old buildings on tiny winding cobblestoned streets. In fact the taxi couldn't pull up to our hotel and we had to get out & walk the last 20 or so metres. We stayed right near the astronomical clock, in the centre of the old city. The weather was high 20's every day and the streets were teeming with people day & night. It was still light up until 10.30Pm and the atmosphere was fantastiche. Over the 3 days we had our fill of Czech food, seeking out authentic restaurants & always trying the local beer & wine. I think we all agreed by the end of our stay there we needed some lighter meals that weren't so heavy on the meat & starchy dumplings! It's a pretty romantic city & we saw about 4 wedding parties while we were there. And what's with all the smoking going on in Europe! Not sure if it's just me out of touch with being in the public domain so much but by this time the smoking was really starting to get to me. All of the cities so far London, Berlin, Prague seem to have an abundance of smokers. The worst thing was because it's summer you naturally want to sit outside to eat but just about every table would have smokers. Anyway that's my grumble out of the way! The boys loved the night life in Prague. Every night at 9pm they would join a pub crawl tour that would meet next to the astro clock. The first hour was supposed to be free beer/wine/spirits/absinthe...what's with that? for €10 then they would take you to overpriced bars. It turned out that on one of the nights they actually ran out of beer & I 'm happy to report that the boys weren't too enamoured with the absinthe. But the beauty of the system is that they met people from all over the world (even from Warwick in Perth!) & it was a greatvway for them to get out & about. Unfortunately we got the devastating news on the second day that our house had been broken into and all we were told at that time was that Tom's car had been stolen & inside the house the cupboards & drawers had been upturned & our things were scattered all over the floor. Luckily for us our quick thinking neighbour must have disturbed them & they left in a hurry as Marriane got hold of the police. To our relief, from the feed back we've had from our rental agent & Paul Hearne, we think items of a close personal nature were left as they seemed to be opportunistic robbers looking for cash & quick selling items. I spent a day in tears as we waited for the forsenic police to finish their investigation inside the house before we could ascertain exactly what had been taken. It has been a real blow to us but we realise there's not much we can do now until we get home. So we finished our stay in Prague & had organised a mini van to take us on a 3 hour car trip back into Germany to Passau, on the Danube River and not far from the Austrian border. It was with great excitement the we looked forward to our next leg of the trip- cycling down the Danube into Vienna. Tschus!