Why Europe Rocks: Reason #6

"At the...what?"

Here in Europe, a lot of places are really old. And the older a place is, the stranger the name it has. In Czech, the name of the place is usually described by what it's by or at. So, for example, there's a restaurant called "At the Two Suns" and you'll look up and see two old suns on the building somewhere. Or like the above hotel is called "By the Golden Well." There are also places called: "By the Mill", "At the Three Ostriches," "By the Black Madonna," and my new favorite is just: "The Crooked Dog Pension." I don't know if we could get away with that in the States. We'd have stuff like "At the Five-Way Intersection" or "By the Big Starbucks," "The Super Target Pension"...it's just not as cool, somehow.