vvm

I am a little surprised by what you say. I've been living in Prague for 9 years (moved here, not Czech) and 8 of them I lived in Prague 5 bordering the Old Town, in 2 buildings build in Art Nouveau style, from around 1900. They were renovated, with modern elevators and looked pretty good both inside and outside.The area was very beautiful. Now I live in a communist tower block in Prague 4 and to be honest it's really not so bad. The apartment is OK, kind of small, especially American standards, but what i really like is the way the area was build. For example, in the middle of the area there is a school, a kindergarten and a nursery. And there are plenty of green spaces. This is definitely communist urban planning, but in this case, at it's best.

There are some nice hiking routes also in the Pyrenees. For example Carros de foc (https://www.carrosdefoc.com/en/). I hiked there 2 years ago in September. Weather was great, no bears, cottages to stay over night and with good dinners. I think it was perfect for beginners: there were some demanding parts, but no special equipment needed.

I second this, one of the best courses I attended on coursera.

"A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. "

that is quite similar to how I view it also.

And good authors are able to describe so well human behavior, that it will make it worth the read.