28 June, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This post is super long, but I wasn’t able to write about Prague from the road, as I did in Budapest and Amsterdam. [Can I just say these Czech words have given my international keyword a workout? I didn't even know half of these accents existed. Bloody hell.]

Okay, so I wasn’t too excited to leave Budapest, because, you know, they have such good food there and such gorgeous men. But alas, it was time to pull up stakes and head to Praha. I visited once before in 1997, very briefly. I didn’t like Prague too much back then, but I chalked this up to being tired at the end of a long backpacking trip and having some sort of stomach ailment — not ideal conditions for visiting any city. Over the years when I’ve told people I didn’t really enjoy Prague much, I have almost always received the same reaction — one of shock, horror, disbelief. I didn’t love Prague? What was wrong with me? You’d think I’d said I liked to strangle kittens in my spare time.

So I looked forward to returning to Prague again 11 years later. I liked Prague much better this time, but I have to admit I still don’t love it. I have very specific reasons for not loving it, however, which I will explain in a moment.

I arrived in Prague after a seven-hour train ride from Budapest. The train was comparable to a British train (which isn’t saying much). At first the train was empty, which was splendid, but then in Bratislava (in Slovakia), at least half the country jumped on. In Brno about a million more people boarded, so it was packed. [I have this weird thing about crowded trains -- I get very claustrophobic and begin to freak out.] Sitting for seven hours is not comfortable — after all, you could fly from London to New York in less time. I got up at one point to walk around and stumbled upon the dining car. It had tables with linen tablecloths and waiters. However, there were only men in there and they weren’t eating but drinking very heavily. Needless to say, I didn’t stay there long. The scenery all along the way was lovely, particularly for about an hour or so out of Brno. It was mountainous and there were pine trees everywhere, which are my favorites. So that was a treat.

I arrived in Prague late and as I stated in an earlier post, I did what everyone told me not to do — I took a cab. I had Rick Steves’s guidebook and he said to not even consider taking a cab from the train station, but to walk a few blocks and then hail a cab off the street. So that’s what I did and everything worked out fine. [If you dare to doubt Rick Steves, God will strike you dead.] The driver didn’t turn on the meter at first, so I asked him to. He seemed insulted and said “of course!” Rick Steves says that no cab ride in central Prague will cost more than 200 Kč [$13/£6.50], so if the cab driver does charge you more than that, pay 200 Kč and that’s it. He said the police will always take your side in a dispute. However, I’d like to add my own caveat: Be sure to get your luggage out of the taxi before starting this kind of argument!

I did wonder if my taxi driver was “taking me for a ride” when I saw we were crossing the river. I don’t know the layout of Prague, but I thought my hotel was in the Old Town (Staré Mĕsto), which is on the same side of the river as the train station. Turns out I had made a mistake — my hotel was in the Little Quarter (Malá Strana):

This turned out to be a very lucky “mistake” on my part, as I will explain.

On my first day in Prague, I went to the Old Town, which was packed with people. From the Charles Bridge all the way into Old Town Square [Staromĕstské Námĕstí] it was a mob scene, which is to be expected. [I was also there on a weekend.] This is a pedestrianized zone for the most part and it includes the grand Old Town Square, which features the astronomical clock that keeps hordes of tourists mesmerized:

I don’t really have any photos of Old Town Square because there were bandstands and big screens set up in the middle for Euro 2008, which sort of ruined any chance of getting a good photo. The beautiful Týn Church (that’s not actually the name — the English translation is something like “Church of our Lady before Týn”) looms over Old Town Square:

Unfortunately, the square has been built up right in front it, so as far as I can tell, the only way to get a complete picture of the front of Týn Church would be from a helicopter (if even then). What a tragedy to obscure something as beautiful as this. As you can see, my photo is only of the top half.

After being in the Old Town for about 30 minutes, I fled. Though I would return briefly a few times during my stay in Prague, I can’t bear this kind of carnivalesque atmosphere. In Times Square, yes. In Piccadilly Circus, sure. But not in a picturesque city like Prague. It just seems…wrong.

I walked back across the Charles Bridge [Karlův most] to my neighborhood. All along the bridge, there are vendors selling things, mostly photos of Prague, some of them quite exceptional. They often offer deals — buy one get one free, etc. I liked what this photographer was offering:

The bridge is lined with statues, including a few large crucifixes, as you can see in the sunset photo at the top. Here’s the bridge at night, when there are fewer tourists:

Surely the Charles Bridge is going to cave in eventually from the weight of so many tourists? [Given the name of the bridge, and because I used to live in Boston, I kept referring to the Vltava River as the Charles River.]

After my experience in the Old Town on that first day, I just wanted to go back to my hotel and take a nap. But sometimes when you visit a city, it just takes a little while to find a part of town where you feel comfortable, to find your niche. On the other side of the Charles Bridge from the Old Town is Malá Strana, where I was staying. There are touristy parts, but it turns out there are also quiet oases. While the Charles Bridge/Old Town area looks like this:

Just a few blocks away in Malá Strana, you can find areas like this:

You see, this is much better. As soon as I found this area, I knew I would survive. I walked a block or two from my hotel and found myself in Kampa Island (not really an island). There were rose gardens, streams, parks, little cafés and the smell of honeysuckle thick in the air. It was lovely.

I spent almost all my time in Malá Strana. There are a few gardens, including the Wallenstein Garden [Valdštejnská Zahrada], which is filled with peacocks and stalactites (!). There is also Vojan Park [Vojanovy sady], seen above. The area is also filled with embassies. My hotel was connected to the Japanese and Finnish embassies. St. Nicholas Church [Kostel sv. Mikuláše] looms large in this area:

While in Prague, I didn’t visit the major museums or the castle. I guess I’m just a lazy slut, but there were too many people for my tastes. Also, I just wanted to walk around. Prague is full of delights that can only be enjoyed by wandering away from the tourist mobs. The houses used to have signs, rather than addresses, and if you walk up Nerudova you will see lots of them. [The street is named after poet Jan Neruda, who lived here. Too bad for him he shares his last name with a much more famous poet!) This street leads to the castle, so it is very steep, but worth the effort. Here are a couple of my favorite signs:

Also, this area has fab doors. You remember my obsession with the doors in Paris? Well, these doors are even better:

[There are more signs and doors in my Prague set of photos on Flickr, including the specific addresses.]

In addition to doors and signs, so many times I’d stumble upon something cute, like these two fat cherubs having a hair-pulling catfight:

I’m sure that’s not really what they’re doing, but it looks like it. There are so many other delights in this neighborhood:

I couldn’t possibly take a photo of it all.

I also visited the Jewish Quarter, including the cemetery that has graves dating back to 1439:

I totally love it that when visiting Jewish sites, men have to cover their heads while women don’t have to do anything. What a refreshing change. In both Budapest and Prague, the Jewish sites were the only tourist sites where I saw security with a visible presence. Not sure what, if anything, should be read into that.

After visiting the Jewish Quarter, I went to the nearby Rudolfinum for a classical concert. Luckily they played Dvořák (one of my faves) and Pachelbel (another fave), and even the best parts of Carmen, the opera (without the singing, of course).

I did make it to two museums. First, the Mucha Museum, which is a small but delightful museum showcasing the work of Alphonse Mucha. You may not recognize his name (I didn’t), but you will have definitely seen his art, mostly his iconic art nouveau posters:

Mucha also designed the famous Fouquet shop in Paris, as well as a lot of their jewelry. He seemed to have a hand in designing so many things, including even the postage stamps and banknotes of his country. This is a very tiny museum for such a renowned artist, leading me to wonder where the rest of his art is displayed. This was my favorite poster, so I bought my own copy:

I also went to the Kafka Museum, which on the surface seems like a crass money-making venture because as a museum, it’s kind of a joke. It gives a history of Kafka’s life, his family and the Jews of Prague, but does not feature many original artifacts from what I could see. A lot of the letters and photos looked like facsimiles and there weren’t many exhibits overall. From the website, it seems as if this may be a long-term exhibit, rather than an actual museum. If so, that makes sense, though I think one of the giants of 20th-century literature deserves his own museum. Many people may not realize Kafka is from Prague because he wrote in German and is considered a “German writer,” though he lived almost his entire life in Prague.

After visiting the museum, I really did want to learn more about Kafka. I was already reading him before I got to Prague, but the museum is filled with quotes from his diaries that really spoke to me. I’m now reading his short stories and I’ve ordered his diaries. [I didn't purchase them at the museum because they were charging astronomical prices for the English versions.] The museum was quite crowded too and perhaps others left with a greater interest in Kafka as well. So despite the cheesiness of this non-museum, anything that gets people thinking literature and Kafka is a good thing.

I don’t have much to report on the food front. The local food was pretty much off-limits to me, since it mostly revolved around one specific ingredient:

If you’re an orthodox Jew or Muslim, you may starve in Prague because they really seem to adore pork there. Sigh. Pork neck, pork knuckle…ack!!! I ate Italian food and also Mexican. Yes, Mexican. There’s a fab place called Cantina [at Újezd 38]. It’s the best Mex food I’ve had outside the US. Seriously.

I also ate this piece of chocolate marzipan cake:

Yum-o. In the beverage department, I bought a little bottle of absinth as a souvenir. They sell absinth everywhere in Prague. All the American tourists were snatching it up. I think many Americans believe that absinth is still illegal in America, but it’s not. Anyway, I bought the absinth in case the writing starts to go bad this winter. I could develop a raging absinth addiction, which would be fun.

There are lots of things to buy in Prague, including crystal. There’s a wonderful shop called Dr. Stuart’s Botanicus that sells bath salts and lotions and candles that are all natural and plant-based (rose, lavender, etc.). It’s an amazing place. Also, there are puppets and marionettes for sale everywhere, many of them with a sinister twist:

My overall impression of Prague is that it’s certainly one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. There can be no question about that. The thing that strikes me the most is the color. The buildings come in all colors — blue, pink, purple, green, orange. It’s spectacular, like a fairytale. It’s all very whimsical and I’m a great fun of whimsy. So many times I’d walk down a street in Prague and not believe my eyes. It’s difficult to believe something so beautiful still exists in real life and hasn’t been paved over to build Tesco and Burger King and Baby Gap and bland high-rise apartment blocks and soulless skyscrapers.

You can probably sense a “but” coming…

I wanted to really love Prague, but what keeps me from loving it is that it’s far too touristy. Despite the astonishing beauty of the city, what I didn’t like about Prague is that the central part of the town is essentially a theme park, much more so than in any other big European city I’ve visited. While in other cities, for example Paris or London or Rome or Berlin, there is a big tourist presence, the locals and the tourists are still mixed together. You at least get a glimpse of what daily life is like for a local person. You see people rushing to work and walking around with their children and doing all sorts of normal things. You encounter people who – gasp! – can’t speak English. Not so in the touristy heart of Prague. The only locals I encountered were working in the shops and restaurants and hotels. When you encounter them, they automatically speak in English. I realize that unlike in the other cities I mentioned, a tourist is very unlikely to even know one word of Czech, but still it’s strange. In Budapest, people usually spoke in Hungarian first, then upon realizing I was a foreigner, switched to English if they could. [Part of the fun of visiting a foreign country is getting to do charades when no one can understand you.]

Prague has over a million residents, but they live their lives outside the Disneyesque tourist zone where all visitors are herded together. It’s like visiting Paris and hanging out in Montmartre the whole time. I guess this is what I meant when I said Budapest offered the most authentic travel experience. Even Amsterdam, which is very touristy, does not hold a candle to Prague in terms of being so tourist centric. In Budapest I had fun browsing around the supermarket near my hotel. [The cashier got so irritated with me for unknown reasons, but never told me off. In Budapest, an American tourist in a supermarket is still a bit exotic.] When I travel, I find doing things like visiting supermarkets to be as valuable as going to a museum. I know I’m a weirdo, but you can learn a lot about other cultures this way. I didn’t even see a proper supermarket in Prague (or a dry cleaners or a real bank, rather than a money changer). On my last day in Prague I did stumble into a mini supermarket full of construction workers buying these donuts:

[Sorry, I just needed to include a gratuitous photo of baked goods.]

Most tourists, including me, will never see the genuine Prague and that’s too bad. We will stay in our little bubble and cram into the Old Town Square and onto the Charles Bridge and that’s it. Perhaps this tourist-centric focus preserves the central part of the town, which is good, but I would still prefer that the tourists and the “real world” mix like they do in most cities. I like that in the other cities I visited, people would mistake me for a local. That would never happen in Prague, because there really aren’t any locals walking around in the areas where the tourists are.

When I do return to Prague, it will most certainly be in the winter or late autumn. I have to return to Budapest in November, so it’s a possibility (if my sister goes with me and drags me there). The city would be less crowded then, but also, I think it would look even lovelier under winter light. While I was visiting, it was very cold (!) but also very sunny. A colorful city like Prague cannot be appreciated under bright summer sunlight. It washes out all the color. I felt annoyed that I could not capture what it really looked like with my camera. I did try, but ultimately failed on that front. Prague reminds me of Venice in many ways, from the ultra-touristy aspect of it to the bright colors of the buildings. I visited Venice in the winter and I think Prague is more of a winter city. I imagine it would be particularly pretty at Christmastime.

This may seem strange, but my favorite part of visiting the Czech Republic was the train ride from Prague to Dresden. I was treated to the most spectacular scenery. The scenery on the way to Prague was nice too — the landscape was much flatter and there were fields with little villages popping up every once in a while, all of them with their orange roofs and church steeples. On the way out of Prague, it was rainy and foggy. [I guess I can't complain about the British summer any longer.] The train traveled through a more mountainous area, along the river and through many valleys and towns. We passed through Dĕčín and Ústí nad Labem. It was so lush and green. Big white clouds were sitting low, right on top of the villages, like big fluffy balls of cotton. It was magical to see, and that’s no exaggeration. The train stopped for a while on the tracks. Everyone else seemed annoyed at the delay, but I wanted to open the door and jump out. I took a few photos but they’re quite blurry, so this is just something I’ll have to remember. I won’t forget it anytime soon.

A few last images of Praha:

1. Comments RSS | TrackBack URI

1. SpliceGirl Says:

   June 28th, 2008 at 5:33 am

   Go in winter. It’s AMAZING. Empty. Crisp. Beautiful. Dreary. Sigh. Also, I don’t know who your sister is but she sounds awesome. Dragging you around to fairytale cities? She sounds like a winner. With great taste. And extreme amounts of intelligence.

   We shall go to Karlovy Vary…soon…

   (I bought a ton of marionettes in Prague but not that one! Eeee! I want it!)

2. Anglofille Says:

   June 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

   Dreary? I don’t want that!

   I checked Karlovy Vary on Wikipedia. It says it’s also called Carlsbad. I saw lots of bath salts for sale in Prague that said they came from Carlsbad, but I didn’t know what that meant. Now I wish I would have bought some of them!

3. Lea Says:

   June 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

   I haven’t been to Prague but now I want to go if it’s as beautiful as you say.

   I don’t like traveling in summer either.

4. Greig Says:

   June 30th, 2008 at 3:07 am

   That was a lovely post, you’ll do an esy 100K a year doing guides if you are ever stuck,

   I’m a retired publisher, I know about these things.

   Prague was my home from home when I wasn’t in ( East) Berlin, or Amsterdam, one of my stage names was from a Doll’s shop in Amsterdam allied to the Sudeten Crèche project,

   http://www.sudetencreche.com

   ( I gor relgion and was left out o the current line-up, I’m a conservtive Christian these days)

   My memories of Budapest, Prague, relate to the communist era, you’ve hit the nail on the head, too many darn tourists, that was far more limited in the communist era

   My brother’s ‘Pul Prague’ identity is a different musical persona to the one he has in Sudeten Creche, he’s still in Creche, which dates to the late 1970s.

   It’s like Angofille says, I needed to hace solitude, to get my head around the art thing, it’s difficult to feel part of something if it is like the boat deck of the Titanic

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