Dobri Den
Coming into Prague was a roller-coaster of good and bad impressions for us. We came into the Czech Republic via train passing through some nice mountainous territory and seriously run down villages. The train station on the north side of Prague was still a communist era affair, very unmaintained. Mandy followed signs to the ladies room that ended in only a dark corner. While amusing from a commie-historical perspective, we wondered how long we’d stick around.
So we jumped on the metro, came up in the center of the city and were blown away. Nearly every building in the old city is a masterpiece done in the recursively obsessive gothic style. The detail and artistry put into every piece of brick and stone is jaw dropping. Terraces and archways are held up by the rippling muscles of the old gods and goddesses. The streets are twisty and narrow with cart grooves worn into the stone. Every neighborhood has its own unique multi-colored cobblestone pattern. Every hinge, fixture and window is a medieval iron-working contraption. The place makes you feel like you’ve gone back in time into some faery tale. Now we thought we might never leave. Then we got to the town square.
While some of the most magnificent architecture is clustered around the old town square, its a hellish tourist trap. Its just thick with them, there’s nothing else. The hawking of cheap trinkets and tourist only services is like the gift shop area in a major amusement park. Oh no, we thought. Prague is “ruined”. We wondered how long we could stand it.
But outside the very center the tourism died away rapidly. One thing we’ve learned traveling about is that the nastiest tourist sites are also the most concentrated and easiest to avoid. The “ugly” set of tourists go from the train station to the tourist trap and back in a very narrow corridor and never ever leave this artificial environment. Past the icky zone was a real city with real friendly people living in it that really grew on us.
We really had fun with the Czech language. This was the first language we had to deal with that had no significant relationship to English, but we found it easy to learn and fun to pronounce.
Mandy and I have been following this body weight based yoga-eque exercise routine. We usually try to do this in secluded places, but often a corner of a public park has a handy tree branch for pull ups. We were going through these antics one morning in a park when a group of elementary school kids noticed us. They crowded around and started mimicking our routine. We stopped, but they complained, so we led them through it. Then we all traded stupid human tricks, feats of eight year old strength, and language tips.
Czech food is generally salty. They’ve got a breakfast cheese that will change your entire body’s Ph with the first bite. They also really like to put whipped cream on chicken. You can’t stop them, sometimes ice cream. I had a lovely fillet mignon with black pepper ice cream. The beer is really good too. Not quite as nice as Germany, but the quality is still there. Tmave Pivo is this delicious heavy dark beer that doesn’t taste at all like its 13%. The Absinthe is a tricky thing. If you drink to much of it you don’t feel drunk. You are, there’s no doubt about that. Coordination is off, etc, but you feel completely lucid. Great for conversation, potentially not so great in the long term if you believe the rumors about Thujone, Van Gogh and absinthism.
We found a little gnome to fix our camera for us, so as we left the city we took a couple of pictures. Our meager photographic skills and limited time do no justice whatsoever to what a fantastic spectacle Praha is. honest.
Outside of Prague we went to a little ossuary called Sedlec…
Tags: czech republic, europe, prague, travel