Sunrise or Sunset: Prague

If I begin talking about Prague I may not stop so know before you wade knee deep in this blog entry that you might be here a while.

Prague is really a city. When I first saw it I thought maybe it was the first real city ever and indeed many of the tourist books call it "the mother of cities". I mean it's really a city.

The train trip to Prague from Munich is over 6 hours. That's half again as long as the trip to Hannover even though Prague is about half the distance from Munich. The train to Prague is a) much slower than the (ICE) train to Hannover and b) stops at every town on the way. However, I didn't experience my usual travel annoyance and fatigue, at least not for the first 4 or so hours. It was a mostly daytime trip so that helped, and I was excited about going to Prague. On that train ride I saw the most amazing sunset I've ever seen. It was kind of cloudy, more of a haze really than clouds, and the sun looked pink from behind the haze but not just any pink, the brightest pink I think I've ever seen, like the juice from a blood orange, only brighter. It was amazing.

When I was about 4 hours into the journey though, the sun had gone down and I was uncomfortable, and tired, and annoyed as usual. Then I got to Prague and found that my hotel was kind of far outside the city center and the cab ride there cost more than two nights at the hotel cost. Also, it was kind of uncomfortable, and depressing, and had a shower so small I could barely fit in it. To be fair, it was a really cheap hotel, but if I'd known it was going to be that depressing I'd have either a) stayed at a hostel which would have been just as cheap (or more) and just as uncomfortable but way more fun or b) paid more for a hotel closer...which is what I ultimately did for the second night.

In the morning I took a cab back to the train station, determined to find a hotel within walking distance of it, and found that the first cab driver had charged me more than double, but even the cheaper cab ride was still really expensive considering the distance and how cheap everything else in Prague was. I walked to Wenceslaus square (about a block from the train station) and first had breakfast. I had dessert for breakfast because I found Czech style breakfast to be way to meat focused for me, especially after Switzerland and Germany where, when I ate breakfast at all it was usually some kind of sweet bread and tea. This restaurant served an, apparently traditional Czech, dessert that is a type of pancake but it's more like a doughnut and it's served on a citrusy cream sauce with plum jam. It was awesome. Especially the plum jam. In fact I kind of wish I'd bought some plum jam in Prague, it was so thick it was more like a paste than jam and totally delicious. A jar of it would have been heavy though and I have to consider the luggage weight limit for my flight home.

After breakfast I found a great (four star) hotel right on Wenceslaus Square with rooms available and a last minute booking deal. Prior to breakfast I'd been starting to think that coming to Prague by myself was a mistake. So far, I've been enjoying my solitary experience in Europe. Things I love, like wandering aimlessly, can't easily be done when you travel with someone because you have to agree on what to do and see which usually means a plan of some kind, at very least a time and place to meet back up with them. I embrace the opportunity to not have any plan. I love it. So, by extension I love traveling by myself. However, Prague is a place that should be shared and when I first got there I wasn't sure I'd be able to enjoy it on my own. Four star hotels, staffed by cute Czech boys have a way of brightening things up though. My room was on the top floor with a balcony looking out on Wencelaus square. It was amazing and totally worth it, even if only for the opportunity to drink complimentary Bohemian champagne while taking a bubble bath.

I only had one day in Prague really and I wanted it to be both relaxing and full which is a fine line. I took a guided tour of the city (and the castle) which was great fun but made me wish I had at least a week there so I could have explored things for myself and gone to some of the (many) museums there. You do learn fun facts on a guided tour like the fact that the Prague castle is the largest in the world (It covers about 5 K and includes several chapels and palaces built by various different Czech kings), or the fact that Prague is home to the oldest synagogue in middle Europe, or the fact that the city of Prague proudly consumes more beer per person per year than anywhere else in the world (some of you may be getting souvenirs with "Prague Drinking Team" printed on them). There was a young German couple on the tour that I took so the guide said everything in both English and German which was nice and because his English was far more accented than his German. I was actually sometimes better able to understand him in German.

Architecture is a big deal in Prague. The guide on our tour was constantly talking about the architects that designed things. I wish I could remember any of it. I, in fact, am a bit crazy about architecture. I don't know the first thing about it, but I'm none the less fascinated. I like to take pictures of buildings from odd angles. I'll stand in doorways and take pictures of them. Perhaps I like taking pictures of buildings because they don't pose. I also love taking candid photos of people but when people see you're about to take their picture they always want to pose. Buildings don't do that. The Prague city tour was ideal for indulging my love of the inanimate. It seemed like at least half the buildings in Prague had some sort of interesting architectural history.

After the tour I just wandered around the city for a while. The Easter market was fun to see. Two shopkeepers asked me if I was Russian. That makes four times I've been asked that in the last year or so (twice in Seattle where I'm actually from) by people who've heard me speaking in American accented English. One of the guys in Prague that asked me pressed on after I shook my head and asked where I was from. I said I was from the US but he felt sure that I spoke something other than English (based apparently on my accent) and I told him that I spoke a little bit of German but was just learning it now. He was surprised that English was my first (and really only) language. I get it that maybe I look Russian because, in point of fact, I am a bit Russian (about an eighth if you can really deliminate race that way), but these people that keep asking me if I'm Russian seem to be basing it on my speech rather than my looks and that I find very odd.

Back to Prague though. It is a city of tourists. If I had to guess I'd say about 90% of the people on the streets in Prague are foreigners (either tourists or foreign students). However, whenever I did run into actual Czechs they were, with very few exceptions, beautiful. The Czech boys were super cute but I didn't find myself trying to catch their eyes because the Czech girls were so beautiful there'd be no competing with them.

I mentioned that everything in Locarno was granite so I feel compelled to mention that in Prague the streets were paved with marble...well, not the streets so much as the sidewalks and not paved, of course, but cobbled. The best were the sidewalks cobbled in alternating pink and black marble. I think cobbling sidewalks is the best use of marble, it looks so much better there than on counter tops or floors.

Prague, without a doubt, is a very beautiful city. However, it's also very dirty. Everything is covered in at lest ten layers of dirt and there is graffiti everywhere and pigeons. Okay, every city has pigeons, but not like the ones in Prague. I think they're way smarter than pigeons ought to be. There were many of them inside the Prague train station. Which reminds me, since I've talked about every other train station I should give some time to the one in Prague. Munich, Hannover, Braunschweig and Zurich all had big modern train stations. The ones in Munich and Hannover especially are bustling modern centers of commerce and transportation. Prague's train station, like every thing in Prague, is dirty. Also, it seemed to be more full of pigeons than people. I'm not quite sure why or how the pigeons get inside the train station. Okay, obviously, I'm sure how. All train stations are partially open to the outside, they have to be for trains to come and go, but I didn't see any pigeons in any of the other train stations I've been to, or even on the platforms at any of the others. Seriously, whole flocks of pigeons, just flying around inside the train station.

I'm coming full circle here and I am reminded of a question I see a lot online that supposedly tells people something about you. The question is, do you prefer sunrise or sunset. My usual answer would be sunset and having described in glowing detail how amazing the sunset was that I saw from the train on my way to Prague, you might expect that view to have remained unchanged. However, having seen at least one of each in Prague, I have to say that in Prague I preferred sunrise. The streets are still full of people at sunset, it's loud and it's the height of tourist activity. At sunrise, presumably especially on Sunday though I have no comparison, no one is around, it's quite and you're able to feel isolated even in this gigantic city that is so full of life and noise normally.

In an odd coincidence I've now been in the home cities of two of the authors I had to read for European Lit last quarter (in fact the only two I read all the way through). The Prague city tour took us by the former home of Franz Kafka and right here in Munich is the former home of Thomas Mann. So, raise your glass (of Bohemian beer) and drink a toast to truth and beauty and isolation, and to Prague.