Moleskine City Notebook Praha (Prague) [ハードカバー]

This is a very unusual product and I would strongly encourage anyone considering getting one to be completely aware of what it is before they purchase it. First, if you are looking for a single travel guide to prepare you for your trip to New York (or anywhere else there is a guide for), this is very close to worthless, if not entirely worthless. I would call one's attention to the title of the product. It is a "Notebook." That means that most of the pages are blank. This literally is a book for taking notes in.

So what do you get when you buy this? Every book in the series follows the same format. First there is a personal information page with address, phone, allergies, family doctor, passport number, then map information with public transportation maps. Then follows information on the various forms of transportation with phone numbers and websites, including cabs, buses, other forms of public transportation, and airports. There are some blank itinerary pages, measurement and speed conversion charts, size conversion charts (for shoppers), then a long series of neighborhood maps, including an index. And that's it. The final two-thirds of the notebook are blank. The next 20 or so pages are completely blank and unlined for whatever use you want to put them to. Next come several pages intended for writing down names of restaurants, bars, museums, historical sites, hotels, or whatever. The book also comes with unlabeled tabs with stickers to use as desired (for theaters, concert halls, or whatever you desire) as well as tracing paper for, as the label says, "Itineraries or Whatever." Finally, there is the usual pocket at the back that is found in all Moleskine products.

For some people this is going to be an absolutely useless product. But for many this will be remarkably useful. In fact, I can envision two uses for this notebook. First, those who are planning a trip to one of the places for which Moleskine has produced a book. Let's say one has consulted the Blue guide, the Eyewitness Guide (by DK), a Rough Guide, the Michelin guide, and the Let's Go guide. Maybe you've bought all of these, making for five guides. No way do you want to drag all of these on your trip or more than one on your flight. So what might you do? You might take the Moleskin Notebook, record into it all the places you want to see, restaurants you want to dine at, museums you want to stroll through, and anything else you want to do while in your destination of choice, and record it there. So the Moleskine City Notebook can serve as a distillation of all the various travel guides, web sites, and other resources you have consulted. And instead of hauling about a large Fodor's guide, you can carry about this small Notebook that can easily fit into a backpack, purse, should bag, or even pocket.

The only downside is that the Moleskine City Notebook is only as good as you make it. If you do a good job of planning your trip, it will be filled to the brim with useful and helpful information. If not, it will be as unhelpful as you have made it.

There is a second use to which the City Notebook can be put to use, though it is not one for which it was primarily designed. You could use it for the city in which you live, should you live in one of the cities for which one is made. I live, for instance, in Chicago. I have bought one of these so that I can over time use it to record every bit of helpful information that I might find useful or helpful. I can record what hours the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore (the real one, not the trade version on 57th Street) is open. The hours for the Chicago Public Library and the Newberry Library. Phone numbers of restaurants and addresses of bars. And so on and so forth. Granted, these books will only benefit those who live in one of those cities, but for the U.S. New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are pretty populated areas.

So this is a very well conceived product though it absolutely has to be stressed that it is a specialized one. Please note: THIS ISN'T FOR EVERYONE. If you don't want to use the Notebook to plan your trip it is going to be very close to worthless. I'll emphasize again: this is only as good a product as you make it. But if you use it to help you plan your trip, it could be the single item you would most loathe to be without after your notebook.

As a former KGB agent formerly stationed in former Czechoslovakia, I can't tell you how useful the Moleskine City Notebook: Prague would have been to me back when I was a junior agent just beginning my career at the former Prague bureau.

I remember one time I was supposed to tail a dissident on his way to meet his CIA contact. I followed the guy over the Charles Bridge towards Old Town, but then lost him in a crowd near the town square. I went back to the bureau shame-faced, but my understanding superior told me to write up a detailed report about what I saw and where. As I sat down to write that report, I realized that without an accurate map or detailed notes, I could not reconstruct what I had witnessed, so I made something up.

I ended up making up many of my reports, mostly due to my poor organizational skills. If I had had my maps and notes in one, compact and convenient notebook, I might have saved myself a lot of trouble. My understanding superior became much less understanding when he found out that I was writing fiction, and soon I found myself in Noril'sk, Siberia, north of the Arctic Circle, where I have seen people's eyeballs freeze in their heads.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, I packed my things and left the KGB, but the idea of revisiting Prague has never left my thoughts. This time, however, I plan to have my Moleskine City Notebook: Prague with me, and you can be sure whatever notes I write will have nothing to do with dissidents or defectors, and everything to do with the best restaurants, oldest architecture, and warmest hotels that Prague has to offer.

I recently bought this item for an upcoming extended stay in Prague. I'll probably make note of some places that I've been recommended or want to check out, but I mostly plan on using it to keep track of all of the things that I see in Prague while I'm there. There are places to list and rate the different restaurants I go to, places I stay, etc. There are also some black pages if I'm struck by the inspiration to journal some of my experiences and an itinerary section to keep track of my excursions. I hope to be able to use this to look back and remember what I've done as well as a reference to use and add to on subsequent visits (I hope!). To complete the experience, I also purchased the moleskine pocket notebook, which is the same size, to keep ticket stubs and other small memorabilia. Overall very pleased with the purchase and even more excited to embark on my overseas adventure!