We arrived in Prague late afternoon and managed to snuffle the last 2 beds at a central hostel, sharing a room with two French and Belgian guys who Andrew, after one night christened Farty and Snorey. After 3 nights in Prague we decided that this is a city for lovers, not for brothers. The legendary nightlife was proving to be very elusive. On the night before NYs we found a Celtic bar which served buckets of Belgian beer which tasted (in my opinion only) like white chocolate and citrus. Here we met 5 French lads and with them we found a Rock Caf� which had a �Faith No More�covers band. I had been wondering where all the bogans in Europe had been hanging out� From there it was out into the streets where it had been snowing heavily. A snowball fight erupted on Praha�s central streets, snowballs thwacking into 500 year old churches and 25 year old Frenchmen. One for the good guys!! Onwards to the largest club in Eastern Europe, 4 stories and 16 seedy bars full of wired Czech teenagers. Needless to say, an interesting night all in all.

On NYs day we left Prague early with heavy heads to Cesky Krumlov in SW Czech. Cesky is a small magical medieval town sitting in a kink of the River Valta. With some luck we stumbled on a room in the third oldest building in town, built in 1260 .The wall in the dining room was covered in Christ figures. The caretaker told us the story behind them - each had been collected from a church or cathedral by his grandfather during the wars before they were destroyed. Awe-inspiring. Cesky was riddled with underground cafes and bars, often ducking down 2 flights of stairs into ancient converted cellars. Our favourite bar served 30p pints and had small pillared stairs in the toilet leading up to a pixie sized hole, going nowhere. A mystery, which after a few beers rivalled the pyramids. Our favourite restaurant served fresh soup in bread; you ate the bowl after the meal. We spent 3 or 4 days in Cesky eating and drinking like kings, despite the temp bottoming out around 20 below. We journeyed to Vienna by day but were not stoked to be back in a western city and left the next day for Budapest.

Budapest is by traveller�s word of mouth the new Prague, the fabled city for backpackers. It was not such a fabled city for us. We were caught riding the underground illegally and were fined and were cautious of the pigs chuck, calf goods and pigeon breasts on the local menu. Our Australian friend Ben tried the old �You have beautiful eyes� line in Magyar on the local kebab girl at 1 in the morning but alas, she was not impressed. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Roman baths where we steamed, sauna�d and soaked our way through a Hungarian sunset beside locals who wore less than we would have hoped, playing chess in the pool.

Back on the rails through silvered forests and frozen lakes through Slovakia back to Prague. Faces on the street were no longer those of tourists but from somewhere all the stunning Czech girls had emerged. By night it was a very different scene also � Andrew was offered sexual services for the price of 600 Kc or around 12 pounds. Quite competitive I would have thought. Two unsuccessful nights there (we didn�t manage to rediscover our Belgian beer bar) and it was back to London-town�