| Extraordinary Prague |
The door uttered a loud squeak as I twisted it's handle and swung it open, the old wooden floorboards moaning underfoot as I moved forward into the room. I tried to step softly to minimize the noise, but to little avail. One of the English boys sleeping in the room stirred, rolled over, and let out a long unconscious sigh. It wasn't long before I heard his breathing become shallow and regular again, and I knew he had fallen back asleep.
The light from the predawn sky crept in through the open window, casting a soft blue glow onto rough plaster walls. I navigated carefully past beds and backpacks, around a small wooden table littered with scraps of tobacco and an assortment of empty bottles of beer, towards the sight of the morning about to arrive. I paused for a moment, standing motionless in the receding darkness of the room, listening to the silence and finding myself utterly appreciative of the rare delightful stillness to which I was being treated.
I reached the window and, leaning my hands on its dirty sill, I extended my head outward to view the awakening city. The sky to the west was awash with deep blues and grays, the east aflame with bright pinks and reds. A solitary strip of glistening orange began to creep up along the horizon, projecting vivid colors across the somber fog that lay lifeless over the brilliant red rooftops of central Prague. I was awestruck by the sheer serenity of the scene that lay before me in such stark contrast to the chaotic environment with which I had become acquainted over the past several days. The familiar roar of the city had been reduced to barely a whisper, and in the early morning hour, the joyful chirping of birds had become the dominant sound.
With my eyes I could detect not a single shred of movement across the wide urban expanse which was visible before me. The cool, moist air of the calm morning flowed refreshingly across my bare chest, providing relief to my head from some of the cloudiness that persisted from the foamy glasses of Czech Pilsner which I had consumed earlier. My evening had been enjoyable and, as the clock neared five, I felt practically euphoric to be ending it with a moment so full of peace and quiet satisfaction. This rare, lonely, beautiful feeling which I was experiencing finally confirmed for me what I had begun to silently suspect over the past few days - that Prague is one of the most enjoyable and extraordinary cities to visit in all of Europe.
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We arrived in Prague from Krakow on another one of our favorite night trains, coincidentally getting bunked with the exact same three British lads that we'd been bunked with on our train into Krakow two days prior. The trip was fun but uneventful, exactly how I've begun to like it. The train dropped us off a little before 7am, and we wandered around a sleepy and overcast Prague for about half an hour before we located our lodgings and found a place to nap.
Meandering through Prague is a bit like walking through Paris, in that there are plenty of fancy museums and famous monuments to visit, but simply taking a stroll along the river on a sunny afternoon can be just as enjoyable, and for me much more scenic. This is exactly how we chose to spend our days in Prague. Rather than touring the Museum of Communism and paying to walk around inside the Prague Castle with all the tourists, we found other things to do.
We ate sandwiches and watched the locals play with their children and walk their dogs in a park near the river. We layed there for hours, laughing at the hyperactive canines who would try and occasionally succeed in stealing frisbees from guys tossing them around. We chuckled at naked toddlers grinning wildly while chasing after soccer balls. We studied the clouds drifting by and marveled at how late the sun went down. We traversed every bridge in central Prague, each time stopping to take pictures of the same vistas. They were just that captivating.
Strolling along the Vltava river conjures up similar images of walking along the sunny Arno in Florence, but in my opinion with a nicer and much less tourist-choked city on either bank. We climbed a hill and found a giant metronome in a park full of skateboarding teenagers. We found an entire flea market filled with Chinese people selling knockoff clothing, brass knuckles, and ninja stars. We skipped the touristy bar in our hostel and listened to ridiculously intense Czech rock music played by locals on a jukebox in a bar in our neighborhood.
We even found our way to the John Lennon Wall, an ordinary concrete wall which became famous in the 80s for being the favorite location for anticommunist graffiti. Consequently, it became a serious offense to be caught decorating the wall and many were detained while trying to scrawl messages of love and peace on it. Today, it is aglow with paint of every color, two decades of messages layered on top of one another. It's an impressive sight, and we of course did our part to help out with the decorating!
Prague is just such a cool place. Nobody doesn't like it. Young people come from all around to get sloshed in the bars and sleep in the mega-hostels. Families gaze at the sooty stone castles atop Prague's hills. Tour groups filled with retired people don their fanny-packs and mill about the old Jewish Quarter in the afternoons and the Opera House in the evenings. Rumor has it the city was largely spared from aerial attacks during World War II because even Hitler had a hankering for Prague's architecture. To quote an overused phrase, this city has something for everybody, but in this case is really does. It has beauty, and who among us doesn't like that? I know I'll definitely be back for more. |
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| 1 Comments: |
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ahhh i love this blog and i love you and i loveeeee prague!! its amazing! I'm so jealous. Let's go back together sometime shall we?
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ahhh i love this blog and i love you and i loveeeee prague!! its amazing! I'm so jealous. Let's go back together sometime shall we?