I always like to give you some travel tips after I've been places in case it helps you to have as a good a time as we do. So here's a couple from the last trip:
Vienna
Zum Alten Fassl in Margereten has a beautiful beer garden and huge schnitzels. It'll take you until your second visit to realise that the "Oh let me help you understand the menu" is a little fake but the staff are still nice.
Heurigen are notorious these days for being touristy and kitchy - we went to Zum Martin Sepp which wasn't too bad but I could imagine it being hell on a sunny Sunday in July. Other visitors have told me that there are better to be found if you can handle the hike up Oberer Reisenbergweg or the other roads uphill from the centre of Grinzig. My dad would also like me to point out the the "local" red is probably not that local since mostly white wine is produced in the Vienna Hills.
Prague
Avoiding the crowds in Prague is almost impossible, as is avoiding the bucks parties coming from the UK. The best advice I have is to stay in the Old Town so that you can get a break from the crowds every so often (or get up early and get round a couple before breakfast and the tour groups). We stayed in the Cloister Inn which was perfect.
There are heaps of good restaraunts and pubs close to the hotel which is away from the more touristy ones in the Old Town Square. Across the street is the best pasta restaraunt in town (with free wireless too) and other good ones are Restaurace Stoleti,Viola (Narodni 7) and U Medvidku which is a microbrewery, pub, restaraunt and hotel. A good pub in Mala strana (near the castle) is on the northeastern corner of the square Malstranske namesti. The best cafe we found was Dinitz near Republic Square.
Some negatives now - Lonely Planet recommends the Konvikt pub but I wouldn't, also the tables in Bethlehem Square look nice for a beer in the afternoon but the waiter is a complete arsehole (not just making people wait to order/pay, or complaining when you only order drinks but also muttering Czech swearwords at tourists and then happily putting the service charge on top).
The easiest way to work out how expensive a restaraunt/pub is is to look at the beer prices. For a large (500mL) beer 30 crowns is cheap, 40-50 is OK and anything more it had better be a special view because you're being ripped off. It's also a good example of how prices have changed here - some mates were here 5 years ago and told me about 50c pints (Aussie), now you're looking at A$2-3.
Berlin
Everyone knows the best tourist tip - take bus 101 from Alexanderplatz to Zoo Station to see the main sights for the price of a public transport ticket. So get the bus from the bus station at Alexanderplatz to avoid the Lonely-Planet clutching hordes at the Lustgarten.
My personal favourite "sight" is the Geldenmarkt - its also a lot less busy than the rest of the sights. The other is the East Side Gallery which I'll tell you about next post.
When I was last in Berlin you used to be able to buy a ticket at one museum and then enter all 3 on Museuminsel - this allowed me to buy a ticket at the Alte Nationalgalerie and jump the queues at the Pergamonnmuseum. But this time I got the impression the rules have been changed.
Actually my best tip is really just to go to Bergmanstrasse in Kreuzberg one night (Mehringdamm on the U7). Eat (great kebabs if you dont want a serious meal), drink (coffee, beer, cocktails), wander the streets, people watch, ahhhh its brilliant on a warm summers night with some buskers providing the backbeat. Simon-Dach Strasse in Friedrichstein is similar, but everyone knows Kreuzberg is better ;)
When you visit Berlin you can’t avoid references to the divided city, however it’s harder to avoid being swamped with tacky souvenirs or an uncomfortable feeling that some very personal and painful stories are being profited from. Tourists would be better off escaping from the crowds around Checkpoint Charlie and take the U1 to the end of the line to see the longest remaining part of the Wall. This portion has been renamed the East Side Gallery since the wall was redecorated after re-unification with a series of murals. Here you get to feel what a barrier the wall was, how it separated friends and family but also get a truer sense of what it's fall meant to people on both sides. For me the biggest plus is that you get to do this quietly, in your own time with your own thoughts although I suspect commercialism is getting closer. This is my favourite:
