Pious, Pitious Prague

Well, in all honesty we were really looking forward to Prague. What we were confronted with was a wall of tourists nearly end-to-end in the Old City. The darkened, cobblestone streets that I had pictured were hard to navigate through bumbling groups trying to all take pictures and simultaneously walk and unfold umbrellas at the same time. Yes, awkward. And yes, beautiful. The city is certainly aesthetically pleasing with Gothic towers and Art Noveau styled entryways to many of the small shops. But at the end of the day, the ex-Soviet regime has put on its commercial hat and shows no signs of letting up. And for all the beauty and layers of history within the city, it's hard to see much past the glittery trinkets and neon signs from the center.

BUT, there are redeemable aspects of Prague as you get out of The Trap (as we began to call the main hub). The first restaurant we went to was an total gem. We thought we had topped the charts with a basket of Czech bread, two enormous Pilsners and delicious soup... until the live music started. A middle-aged man with an unending repertoire of techno-Polka began to bang out the tunes on his synthesizer. Jackpot, we loved it! Second best was an exhibit of Georg Baselitz (a German painter/sculptor) that we found incredibly raw and inspiring at the Rudolfinum on the Vltava River. The cemetery for the old Jewish Ghetto is eerily beautiful, but we had to wake up early and get there when it opened to avoid the hordes of people and around-the-block lines to get in. The headstones tipped and swayed with the settling earth in unexpected patterns, giving the graves a sense of peace. Most of the sites were 10-12 people deep, and the main synagogue was better preserved than the national museum. And Prague being the final home to the Czech artist Alfons Mucha meant that we had to pay tribute to the father of Art Nouveau. A collection of his beautiful lithographs can be found in a museum that shows only his work.

(On a separate not, DO NOT go into the Prague Castle, where a ticket and audio guide for two people comes to $120. The line to get a ticket extended well outside of the office, and after waiting for nearly 45 minutes just to get a ticket, we found that the prices had to be bargained for - no wonder it took us so long! We finally got the cheapest ticket - only to be able to walk in and see the chapel and a bunch of bureaucratic buildings. The beautiful, young woman trying to sell us our ticket lied about a two hour line that we would need to stand in without an audio guide, and when we still didn't want it she almost didn't sell us a ticket, saying she needed to sell the audio guide. Our whole bargain took about 10 minutes, with an hour-long wait out the door, nearly cost us over $100 for a racket, and I think we might have made that young lady cry because we simply didn't want an audio guide for an obscene amount of money. If you go to Prague, enjoy the free view from the castle, it's more beautiful from a distance anyways!)

So, all in all, Prague was a bit of a disappointment. As we battled the near-freezing rain and a barrage of tourists, our main sources of reprise were delicious homemade soups and large pints of good beer in quaint, warm cafes. Prague has been the home to endless battles, upheavals, religious clashes, despair, Soviet takeover, a Velvet Revolution and, ultimately, a peaceful city with beautiful architecture and it seems that everyone in the world must agree - ruining what should be treasured. At least we had the synthesizer and accordion!