Prague is a beautiful city, no question. My work could take over my life
and devour it in one big gulp, no question. Last month, while I was home
in peaceful Tucson, I decided to try walking to work -- both as a way to
get to know more about Prague, and as a way to get more exercise than I (haven't)
been getting. Some days I'll walk directly; other days I'll take a tram or
the metro (subway) to someplace completely different, then walk from there.
I've had such good luck with the cheap digital camera I used to have that
I decided to spend actual money (!) to buy a nicer digital camera.
Today -- Sunday, June 9, a cloudy day threatening rain -- I started my plan. I left my flat at 6:30 a.m. and headed east. Not far from home is a narrow cobblestone street named Apolinarska. The start isn't too promising (and even a little eerie): an abandoned building, covered with graffiti, its doors and windows half-boarded up:
Soon, though, as the street winds up the hill, between walls on either
side, it feels cozy and (somehow) historic:
Looking back where I came from, I'm glad I came:
At the top of the hill, I'm back to the 21st century. There's a national election soon, and the signs are everywhere:
This part of Prague is called Vinohradska, a leafy and cool part of town with mostly well-to-do residents... and plenty of businesses. It's all Czech to me, folks:
Before the Communists left peacefully, 13 years ago, I'm not sure that
a restaurant like the one in the photo below could have survived. In those
days, I've heard, the government had a list of approved recipes that
restaurants could offer. People who lived here then have told me that restaurants
were boring and the service was worse. I get the feeling that this restaurant
(which is closed now, at 7 a.m.) wouldn't have been here:
Speaking of food: Even here in the Czech Republic (with its impenetrable
language full of consonants), there are signs of America... like the familiar
Cola-Cola sign below, starting with a Czech word that means "always":
The Czech language almost died out in the 1800's, to be replaced by German,
but that never quite happened. After two months in Prague, I can pronounce
the words, but I only know a few of them -- and I sure can't put a sentence
together! During the big problems in Bosnia, do you remember Click &
Clack (the "Car Talk" guys on National Public Radio in the US) and their
"Donate a vowel to Bosnia" campaign? They encouraged their listeners to give
up one of the vowels in their names -- my name would have gone from Peek
to Pek, for instance -- and the vowels would be air-dropped over Bosnia
to help poor families with unpronounceable names. It would have taken a lot
of vowels to help a vowel-starved Czech phrase like strc prst skrz krk
("stick your finger down your neck"... and no, I can't pronounce that!).
My walk ended on the quiet streets near my office, like this residential
street that's dotted with embassies. The Latvian embassy is huge; the Polish
embassy is modest; that house over there is falling down. This place feels
so peaceful that it's hard to imagine life under Communism being as difficult
as people say it was. Hmmm:
If you haven't seen my previous set of photos, click here. Otherwise, the next page is a tour outside of Prague to Cesky Krumlov, Pardubice, Hradec Kralove, and Telc. Or return to the tour beginning, or the other tours.
(These photographs are Copyright © 2002 by Jerry Peek. Much higher-resolution versions of most images, and many other images too, are available at Jerry Peek Photography. Photos are available at reduced prices, or free, for non-commercial use.)