We didn't love Prague. We tried to find a way in, but although we've gotten to be rather fond of Czechia as a whole, we couldn't quite warm to the much-beloved capital. Certainly it is full of beautiful old buildings – Baroque, Gothic, Renaissance, Art Nouveau, Cubist… – I didn't take many pictures, largely because if I started it would be hard to know where to stop. And, to be completely fair, we were only there for a little over two days / three nights, some of which was much-need rest time. But our major impression, for the time we spent was that the city (or at least the relevant historic quarters) are hugely over-touristed and, as we say, Machu Picchu-ized – even a low season midweek, the crowds were considerable, and the old town is fairly overrun with tacky crap shops and overpriced food vendors. (Admittedly I did have a pretty delicious 60Kc Klobasa in the old town square.) Also it's a really annoying city to navigate and supremely difficult to get around by bike.
Anyway, here are some pictures of buildings and such, mostly from our walking tour, which was an efficient and informative (among other things, our guide had an unbelievable memory for historical dates) but not entirely satisfying way to cover all the major tourist bases.
St. James – another church we couldn't go into (and we tried both days)... but through the window we could see some of the incredible interior as well as the still-hanging hand of a 17th-century thief who was trying to rob the joint
this is Cubist Architecture, apparently
opera house where, among other things, Mozart's Don Giovanni was premiered. local musicians came to see it (despite the high ticket price) and within a day were performing some of the melodies out on the streets – Mozart went around in disguise and gave them some coins to thank them for the free publicity.
outside Kafka's apartment
this served as our Golem for demonstrative purposes
Elsa goes for some luck
St. Wenceslas' (in Czech it's Vaclav; not quite sure how that works)
BBQ Pork Ribs, by any other name...
benjamin air fresheners...exotic!
Day two was drizzly and chilly, the first significantly cold day we've had, so we checked out a couple of museums to get a taste of more recent and contemporary Prague. We hardly expected the Museum of Communism to be unbiased or dispassionately academic – its main advertising image is a Matryoshka doll with vampire fangs! – and it wasn't, but while it was a little bit a of a tourist trap it did help fill us in on some important recent Czech history. It was also very much a curiosity unto itself, every bit as kitschy and propagandistic as the material on display, which was mostly a big semi-random assortment of Soviet-era stuff, with semi-homemade-seeming placards (in Czech, English and German, with Italian and French added more recently but not, somewhat pointedly, Russian.) A few highlights:
"timely arrival to work deals the decisive strike against the american aggressors"
"the truth about the Communist Kingdom of North Korea." but it was on the rainy porch so we didn't read it.
"the best amelioration – manuring of meadows"
kind of inspiring to be in Wenceslas Square after learning about the events here in '68 and '89
we were a little tempted to shorten our trip
rainy day in old town
there used to be a giant (15.5 M high!) statue of Stalin here, though it only lasted for about five years – by the time it was finished they already didn't want it anymore. now it's a giant metronome instead. because...i'm not sure.
In the afternoon, the DOX contemporary art center, which was appealingly very close to our hostel (i.e. rather far from the central areas) but also looked legitimately promising for its own sake. It turned out to be curiously sparse, in terms of both museum-goers and actual art – a towering, blankly majestic edifice of stark white modernist concrete (almost defiantly un-Prague) with, at the moment at least, a measly two exhibits. One of fairly uninvolving architectural models; the other a curated smattering of art school grad work from across Europe, Bienniale-style. Only two pieces were really engaging, both of them videos: one in which a rhetoric teacher and a "twerk dancer" take turns giving each other lessons in their respective fields, the other a straightforward documentary about a lavish vacation resort built (secretly) during communism for the use of party officials.
some nice quotes on the exterior though. i think they change the decoration here from time to time.
And then, at the final moment, we stumbled on something in the city that we could get genuinely excited about: Cross Club, a sort of all-purpose hang-out complex which combines a cafe/restaurant (serving an astonishingly tasty and tasteful menu at very reasonable prices – I had a duck leg confit with various trimmings for around nine bucks. Also: grog!) and adjacent micro-cinema on one floor with a beer garden, bar and nightclub below, all of it (but especially the club) decked out in elaborate and inventive steampunk decor. Maybe this town isn't so bad after all…
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