Memories of Prague

October 10, 2012

I don’t know that we’ll return to Prague, but we’re both extremely happy that we listened to friends and visited once. It’s a fairly small city with a brilliant history, great art, wonderful views, kind people, and interstitial surprises that seem to comprise it’s highly contentious past.

The city is spotless, but there is an amazing amount of graffiti on buildings, trams, windows. I’ve never understood the aesthetics of painting on public property, and I believe it’s more nihilistic than anything else. Yet here it is amidst immaculately kept areas. There are five different kinds of tram that I could identify, one of them out of Star Wars, and the trams are heavily used.

The Palace, as I’ve written about here a couple of days ago, dominates the entire environs. The artwork in the churches throughout town is truly remarkable. The hotels and restaurants and sincerely friendly and the food and wine are wonderful.

Interestingly, outside of the hospitality industry (and I’ve noticed this throughout Europe with the exception of the UK), people, though overwhelmingly kind, rarely say “I’m sorry” or “excuse me.” It seems to be an admission that most don’t want to make, and someone can slam you with a backpack or bump into you in a line and they merely look at you with that disdain that attempts to prove you assaulted them. (I know what you’re thinking, they weren’t Americans!)

I can’t begin to imagine the impact of the nationalistic, Nazi, and Soviet regimes on the country. Today, in my jaded American eyes, it’s a treasure. The airport is modern and efficient, there are outstanding accommodations, and tremendous culture (as just one example, in the great, ancient Palace, one of the small churches was featuring an evening of Baroque composers in a space they may well have played themselves).

I’ve heard Prague called “the Paris of eastern Europe,” but I don’t agree. Comparisons are odious. Prague it its own beautiful place. And you can see and appreciate it the old fashioned way—on foot.