We set out from our hotel in what looked like an interesting direction.  Within two blocks the tree lined street opened up into world famous Wenceslas Square.  I guess there are benefits being married to a travel agent!   It was just at dusk so I went on full alert in my role of protecting her from pirates! and after checking out the square and some side streets, we settled on an open air cafe.  I was drawn to the flame of the propane heaters that reminds me of my campfire every Wednesday with Chuck.  Tell me you cant see the resemblance!

Cool Propane Heater on Wenceslas Square

My other source of heat and light. It's been Chuck's and my venue for solving the world's problems weekly for the last 10 years. I'm going to miss this but I think I have a canoe partner in Virginia. ... Steve? Anyone? Is anyone out there ... who thinks that canoing at night is normal??? ... Never was impressed with that "normal" stuff anyway...

Luelle had one of her favorites in Europe that just doesn’t seem to be the same in the States: Tomato and Mozarella Salad with Basil.  I had trout because the waiter said that they came from just up there, and pointed to the mountains.  We’ve got 3 days.

Maybe I’ll chase that  down. By the way, have you noticed that European Ice Cream tastes better?  Or is it that Ice Cream tastes better in Europe?

This is the Astronomical Clock that is so famous. There are supposed to be little characters that come out and perform on the hour. Maybe 11 pm was after working hours or maybe the little creatures were on strike.

Goodbye San Francisco. From here we go up over Canada, pass over Greenland and Iceland. The pilot says no worries about the ash. The volcano has calmed down and we are too high for it anyway. He said it with an air of surety. So here we go....

Two Story Airplanes are usually reserved for "over the ocean" type of flights. We sat and watched this United B 757 for too long before checking in at Lufthansa only to find that they had given our First Class Seats away!. We like to fly First Class when going overseas. It gets you there more rested and you dont waste a day recovering. Paying bills with Credit Cards and accumulating Flyer miles has been a blessing for many years. The Lufthansa staff jumped thru hoops and got our seats back ... moved us upstairs ... the first time we've been upstairs on a 757.

Considering our recent luck with delayed flights, grounded planes and lost luggage, this flight rates a 10.  Non of that … everything went well.   So here we are in Prague.   We just went out to eat dinner and found the famous square and had a nice dinner.   It’s fun figuring out the value of the local currency.

Luelle with her iPad and favorite travel pillow. These things are more important on the longer trips. This will be her first time without bringing a lot of paperbacks to read. We'll let you know how the ipad does.

We're going REALLY fast!. The clouds are going by faster than usual. The ground speed indicator shows we are going almost 700 miles per hour. Without a tailwind, this aircraft goes only a little over 500. Yahoo for tailwinds, we'll get there a little sooner.

Tomorrow TravelBabe will go and get all of those details for you.   I’m finishing up my Tuesday Webinar and we’ll see how well it will work broadcasting from the Czech Republic.

Luelle cashing in some Euros for the local currency.

Landing in Prague ... Pretty sure this is Safflower. Maybe someone who knows could correct me?

As you can see, the portion of the Danube that we'll see on this cruise is less than half of its navigabble length. We'll catch other parts of it on future trips.

Here’s the map showing the parts of Europe that we’ll be visiting on this trip.  We’ll start in Prague  (Praha on the map).  Then we’ll go to Dresden where I (Dave) will attend the International PassivHaus conference.  What in the world will Luelle do by herself??  Stay tuned, I dont think she’ll have any problems.  She was talking about taking the train to Berlin…  After the conference, we go to Passau and board the River Beatrice.  It’s the newest and best ship in the Uniworld fleet.  We journey a fair distance each day till we get to Budapest, the end of our river cruise. We’ll wrap up with a week in Switzerland.

BTW the best downloadable map I’ve found is this one from Eurail.   It’s about 3MB but that means you can zoom in a long ways and not lose quality.   Download it HERE

Have you ever left on a trip and never forgotten anything?   We haven’t.   At least some little something that, “We’ll bring next time” … Actually the bigger question is, “Have you ever packed too much and arrived back home having never used some things?” … But that’s a topic for another post.

Travel Tip #1  (Learned in the School of Hard Knocks when Luelle’s passport and all our money were stolen by a pickpocket in Barcelona).  That time Heather had to scramble and fax copies to Spain.

Now what we do is have scanned copies of our passports sent to ourselves by email.   These could be in passworded documents if you are worried about security of your email.  Then if we needed them, we could log on from any computer in the world and download a copy.  The same thing could be done with Drivers Licenses and Credit Cards.  Those should be passworded for sure.  We also keep several paper copies in different parts of our luggage for additional redundancy

It always seems to happen as we get ready to get out of town.  The Mad Scramble.   We haven’t sold any property for months.  Now we are selling 2 and leasing one in California and buying one in Virginia, all going on while we’re in Europe … Ugh!    But it’s a blessing to have a great team to work with and a blessing to be living in this digital age.  We expect that all will go smoothly enough.  I’ll continue to do my webinars and even though I’m encouraging Luelle to take a break, I’m sure she’ll sell some River Cruises from her River Cruise!  What a country!   I guess it’s not work if you love it!

So we need your help!   What are your favorite things to not forget?  Maybe your favorite travel tip?  Add it in the comments and We’ll publish a complete list later.   We’ve already got Heather to take in the mail and feed Tsunami.  Thanks kiddo…

Next Post, I’ll share our itinerary and a map.  Our goal in writing this blog is to bring as much value as we can to our friends and those considering a River Cruise.  We’re committing to writing every day and including photos and video.  You’ve seen Rick Steves and Samantha Brown, the professionals.  This blog will be more the unofficial version.  We’ll be your “embedded reporters” boots on the ground, up close and personal, and do our best to tell it how it really is…

Thanks for reading,

Luelle & Dave Robinson  aka Travel-Babe  & her Protector from Pirates.

(I may get in trouble for calling her that but I think it has a certain ring to it.   What do you think?)