Behind this Prague wall is a private club and across the street is the French Embassy. These two symbols of freedom sparked young people to cover the wall with anticommunist graffiti while the uptight communists kept repainting it white. When John Lennon died in 1980, the wall became a symbol of peace and humanity, and ever since, including the subsequent nine years before the iron curtain melted, the Lennon Wall has thrived.
Prague is the capital of the Czech Rebublic, one of two countries created from the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, a result of the Velvet Revolution. I took the 4 hour train ride from the Central Train station in Vienna to Prague, the second stop on my trip, and rolled into the beautiful platforms in Prague.
My Airbnb was a fifteen minute walk south in a residential area near IP Pavlova metro station. This neighborhood is off the tourist track, and I enjoyed staying here. There were a couple of very good restaurants less than 100 yards down my relatively quiet side street. It was a one minute walk to catch the tram that delivered me anywhere in the city, and before I ventured to the city center, I explored this area a bit.
The nearby tram stop included some thought-provoking artwork, at least I hope it was artwork, that also prompted riders to stay on the curb. A couple stops away to the east is a district called Stare Vrsovice, a lovely quiet neighborhood with restaurants and coffee shops and streets that make for pleasant strolling.
The Restaurant Plevel is a great example of a small, bright, delicious cafe that happened to be very quiet at the moment I stopped in for lunch. I had Thai Panang Curry which is not exactly a Czech dish but was yummy nevertheless.
On another evening, I went to the Cafe V Lese in the same area. The bohemian coffee shop on the street level hides a gritty nightclub in the basement. The musician, Emma Smetana, was unknown to me, but the place was packed and I later learned that she is a popular actress from Prague.
I also caught the tram to central Prague and walked a circuitous route from the incorrect tram stop to Lokal, a popular and expansive bar and restaurant. This former Czech Beer hall has a menu that changes daily to feature various Bohemian dishes.
I got, what turned out to be, a private tour of Prague that started and ended near the St Charles Bridge. I signed up on Airbnb, and I was the only one so me and Ondra spent a few hours together one afternoon. In a nutshell, we took a tram up to the Prague Castle and gradually made our way down, strolling past tons of historical and government sites, stopping for beer along the way, and admiring the surrounding landscape.
The beautiful red roofs stretch out to the edges of Prague where the medieval meets the multistory information age. Near the same spot, Starbucks weaseled a coffee shop into the landscape and made it look like it’s been there since the Austro-Hungarian war. I was shocked to see it among UNESCO heritage sites but it actually looks pretty good there!
The walk back down from the castle was a couple miles and quite peaceful, much of it along narrow residential streets that wind somewhat treacherously along the edge of the bluff. As dusk was approaching, we stopped at a statue showing two men peeing on Czech’s two main cities, Prague and Brno. It seemed like a critical depiction of something but my guide offered no explanation and I was left to interpret it myself.
As darkness fell, I ended my last day there by saying good bye to my guide and walking across the shadowy Charles Bridge.
The next morning, I hopped a train to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia which is the other country to arise from Czechoslovakia’s demise. The train station in Prague was full of moving people while a lonely piano sat quietly on a balcony …
…and these bronze people waited patiently with me for the next train.
