There was a period when I hated Prague. Whenever anybody visited me, I had to go toPrague! I had to show them Prague! People applying for jobs were eager to work in Prague! (I live far away from Prague: those CVs went directly into the trashcan on my screen.)
I did the Walk: the long trek from the statue of King Wenceslaus at the head of Wenceslaus Square
to the Old Town Square
to the fifteeth century Charles Bridge
and up the long hill to the castle
where we enjoyed the view.
ON the way, all I could see was the souvenir shops.
Dangling keychains or Tshirt with slogans like: I got laid in Prague! BohemianRhapsody! (on a t-shirt with Mozart's head) or simply Prague! on a coffee mug with Bart Simpson serenely and inexplicably cruising on a Skateboard. Or Russian crap: those Russian dolls that have little dolls inside them and other little dolls inside them; or gaudy, ugly Russian crystal hoping to get yankee dollar for “genuine Czech crystal”.
What the fuck do Matruska dolls or Bart Simpson have to do with the Czech Republic, I wondered? It was all so garish. So cheesy. So obviously designed to rip suckers off. Who spends money at these places? I wondered.
(My question was answered when my brother-in-law stepped into a souvenir shop and bought a Chinese-wrought Garfield doll for his toddler son.)
And so crowded. Jesus. You see beautiful pictures of Prague but they usually don’t show you the hordes of people ambling along, stuffing down their throats steaming trdelniks with ice cream (prounounced Turd-EL-neeks with eiskreem, but tastier than they sound) and jabbering away at each other in every single language in the world — except Czech, of course.
Yes, it’s got interesting buildings, from Gothic, to Baroque to Hapsburg to Bauhaus to ugly-yet-powerful Communist/Brutalist, to — oh, whatever.
It didn’t help that I associated Prague with bureaucracy of the Embassy or long train rides (you can get there in 4 hours by train from where I am, but if you leave at night for a 7.30 flight from Vaclav Havel Airport, it can take up to 9 miserable hours with a two-hour layover in Hranice na Moravě. Which, you know, actually has its small-town Moravian charm…but not at the train station and not at 2:17 in the morning when you’ve been up all day and are facing a 20 hour journey by plane, train and automobile.)
But then something happened.
I was in Prague with my girlfriend on a business trip in early January 2014. There were hardly any tourists. I couldn’t believe it.
I walked across Charles Bridge one evening, a bridge I usually try to push across as quickly and forcefully as possible due to the oppressive press of the crowds. This time, with only handful of tourists present, I was able to stop and examine each statue…the gold paint…the sculpted faces…the view of the city behind…the Vltava below. The hum of city life vague in the background. Unamplified din in of a jazz quartet creeping tinnily from some cafe somewhere on the other side of the River.
It was about -10 degrees Celsius, cold. Jana and I walked arm and arm and the snow was lisping down. The lights gleamed, everything glittered with frost and the snow cast a certain glow over everything that made it look…like it was supposed to look.
And then I got it.
All cities have a certain atmosphere. A magic. And each city’s magic has its own unique feel. London, New York Paris, Rome. New Orleans, San Francisco.
I think Prague is special because it is some kind of CENTRE. It’s the Go-between Spot. It’s the Threshold. The space between worlds. The great medieval trading city on the Vltava.
The Middle Ages, the Rennaisance, the Enlightenment, the 19th century, the twentieth century. They all meet. History mashes together. And thrives in the present.
Eastern Europe meets Western Europe; it crashes together like two oceans and foams like a good Czech beer. Bart Simpson sold beside Matruska dolls sold beside Bohemian delicacies. Austria, and Germany, and the Czech Republic, and Russia, and somehow America and China. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, Picasso, Dali, Mozart, Černy, Mucha, Kundera, Havel, Cimmermann. The clean European modern rush of the subways. The homey, warm, wooden decor, unvarnished, just the way it is, vole, of the restaurants and pubs.
High culture of symphony, theatre and opera, art museums and galleries and exhibits. History almost untouched by a twentieth century that left scars all over Europe. Pornographic pictures. unabashed whorehouses. Cigarette smoke. Fried cheese.
Prague: utterly nonchalant: a man shrugs his shoulders, turns his back on a beckoning supermodel and walks away for a beer with his friends.
Something in the way it all comes together: the darkness of the past: the wars, fought, the occupations, the invasions, defenestrations, executions. The tanks pressing the people back. The banners. The chants. The fall of Communism. The joyousness of that time still glowing like the cooled embers of a supernova.
The haute couture, and the trash.
It all comes together with HUMOR. Humor everywhere.
The Dancing Tower above.
Oh, nothing. Just babies climbing up a weird looking building, nothing to see here.
Oh, that? That’s just a typical statue in the park. Wait…what the hell is that?
Because Prague really needs another statue of King Wenceslaus — riding an upside down horse.
Other cities have magic too. But the best cities that I have been too have a unique feeling and details. And Prague is like that.
The exquisite details of its buildings! You look up and there’s a statue you’ve never seen, tucked into the side of a building. Who put it there? How many people have never noticed it? How long as it watched this street? A building behind an iron gate, you’ve never quite noticed on a side street. They mystery of it’s courtyard. A litle restaurant in the wall that sells burritos. )
Prague is special. The crowds no longer bother me. When I go now, I get off the main path of the Walk and explore the side streets, where the life goes on, where everything is Big City Czech, rumble of cars, bustle of people going to work, Vietnamese convenience stories, pubs, pubs, pubs, a gallery here, a weird Middle Eastern hole in the wall here a used bookstore and an electronics shop.
And I wish I had lived here and explored these streets when I was young, before life had strapped me down with responsibilities and planning. I thought I was going to.
You really should visit.
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