Prague
By Larry Berle
Prague may be one of the oldest, primarily intact cities in Europe that did not get wiped out by the World Wars.
We are staying at the Mosaic House a new form of accommodation that is a combined youth hostel and hotel.
It Opened in Spring of 2010, so its brand new.
It has 330 beds 64 of them are secure and contemporary hotel rooms and the rest are dorm rooms of 4,6,and 8 beds.
They have one all girls dorm room. The entire place has AC, is very eco friendly, has free Wi Fi and Internet access with their computers. All rooms have bathrooms in the rooms. The entire hotel is Non-smoking and has 24-hour reception. Hostel beds range from 15 to 25 dollars a night. The hotel rooms range from $45-95 depending on the season. For a family of four booking a 4-bed hostel room, you just can’t beat the price.
Inside our hotel room we found a double bed with oversized pillows, flat screen TV, telephone, desk, iPod docking station, mini-fridge, pin-code safe for valuables, air-conditioning, and a stylish bathroom with low-flow rain head shower. We also have an outdoor deck overlooking the city.
Belusi’s is the lobby bar, where young people from all over the world meet to discuss their travels. They also have wonderful food, including a full menu of gourmet burgers, and tonight we had the spare rib special with salad and fries. It was outstanding and under $15. Its also a sports bar with several big screen TV’s. and several times a month they have live music on their stage. It’s hard to believe it’s a hostel.!!
Mosaic House is also a very environmentally friendly and green bldg. The roof is totally solar panels. One thing I had never seen before was Gray water recycling. Sink and shower water is reclaimed, heat extracted, and reused for flushing of the toilets. The staff, which is very helpful, is from 19 different countries. So the staff is diverse as the guests.
We took a free walking tour of the old town (just tip the guide at the end if you want; most did) visiting most of the important sites of Prague, which has beautiful old bldgs and wonderful windy cobblestone streets. The Spanish synagogue is the oldest synagogue in Europe. And the nearby castle is the largest in Europe. It was the birthplace of the composer Dvorcak and of course Franz Kafka. The Jewish quarter is the oldest in Europe and we were told it stayed in tact because Hitler planed to use it as a museum to an extinct race, after he completed his mission of exterminating every Jew.
This is a fascinating old city, with lots of Jazz clubs lots of history to learn from the old sites and we even went to see the “Image” black light theatre. www.imagetheatre.cz A silly story tying together dance performance done all in black light with fascinating moving images.
And if you are coming you will love Mosaic House It’s like a 5 star experience for a 1 star price.
If you go www.mosaichouse.com
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