Prague: Go There

A month after returning from Vienna we received our first visitors in Slovakia as a married couple. On May 19th my aunt Margot, uncle Mark and cousin Courtney Pickett arrived at the Bratislava train station from Vienna. You might remember that Margot and Mark performed our wedding ceremony in Indiana. On Friday we feasted in Pezinok courtesy of Milan's mom. On Saturday we toured Pezinok and Grinava and then headed to Prague with five of us and about 600 lbs of luggage in our little Renault, but we made the three and a half hour journey without incident.


In Prague they do things a little differently than in the rest of the world. We stayed in two apartments in the heart of the old city. I was really pleased with our place. Milan is such a smooth operator. Prague is a really gorgeous city. It's really a miracle with all of its westerness surrounded by all this easterness. They even had cheese cake. I really had fun eating all those things you can't get in Slovakia. Quite possibly, it was even more western than Vienna. Although, that may have something to do with the fact that we were traveling with Americans. Honestly, it would have never occured to us to stop at an Italian restaurant or a French restaurant in Prague, but it was such a welcome pleasure!

Short aside: We had lunch the other day with a guy from Milan's bank visiting from Italy. He was dutifully eating some special Slovak recipe with pork and ham and cheese, but he revealed that in Italy, he pretty much only eats Italian food. I thought that was interesting and I told him that Slovak people are the same way. They really don't care about trying food from different cultures. Both Milan and Vincenzo agreed that it's because both countries have the best food in the world. They just couldn't decide which country's food is better. I can guarantee that he would disapprove of the Slovak method of making spagetti by overboiling the noodles and then squirting them with ketchup. No al dente here, boy. I just couldn't understand. Milan explained that there has always been tomato sauce in Slovakia, but Ketchup is something new, as of the revolution. To Slovak people, ketchup is something special. If you ask me, it's just something cheaper. If there's one thing Slovak people like as much as pork, it's cheap stuff. This, I found out clashes severely with my German blood. Germans are known for their high standard of quality. You just don't get that here very often. When you do, it's like a breath of fresh air, and you have to wonder what they're doing that's illegal.


Anyway, Prague, we plan to go back soon. But even besides the westerness in Prague (which is really only attractive to someone like me who's jones-ing for a creme brulee or a genuine margarita), Prague is a truly stunning city. We didn't see half of what there is to see. It's so full of old churches and towers and bridges and cool stuff that you have to go everywhere and they must be spending a fortune to restore it all. So, here's my little commercial for Prague: go there, spend money and help them pay for all the cool shit they have to restore.

Here's a link to plan your trip:
http://www.pragueexperience.com/sightseeing/sights_attractions.asp


Is it a coincidence that I married a man who is Slovak and moved to Slovakia which is right next to Czech from which my favorite artist comes? Milan will always wonder if it was him or Alfonse Mucha that lured me to the east. We didn't go to the Mucha museum while in Prague, but we did go to the Mucha gift shop, and we bought a big print for our bedroom. I can't wait to get that sucker on the wall. There was so much Mucha there. I've included a copy of "Dance" from his series I think is called "The Four Arts" and also an example of a kind of stained glass window he did for Saint Vitus Cathedral. I could write a whole email about what an amazing commercial artist he was. I wish I could be like him. I was in heaven. Much-a-Town, they should call it, not Prague...


I could also write a whole message about St. Vitus, provided that I had Margot's Fodor's from the municipal library in Raleigh-Durham (to which we are greatly indebted). It's a really cool old church that took about a thousand years to build.


I particularly dig this statue of the Pope or someone like good old King Wenceslas beating the crap out of some unfortunate Catholic, probably a woman. Come on, you've all seen DaVinci Code by now. But this particular chamber shown below was unique to me, which is rare after having visited almost every church in Paris, maybe 10 others in Europe and, of course, Second Presbyterian Church on North Meridian Street in Indianapolis.



Finally, Karolove most, Charles Bridge. There's no way to avoid it. It's beautiful at dusk. It's full of peddlers during the day. You'll see it twenty times if you go there; I know we did. Go to Prague. I know it seems really far away. I waited ten years longer than I should have. Go to Prague. It's more beautiful than ... Amsterdam, but then Amsterdam has other things to recommend it, doesn't it?