The Urban Traveler
We all know the feeling: winter blues are getting you down, but outstanding warrants make international travel problematic! What to do? Throw a few things in your backpack and head for:
PRAGUE 2!
Start your visit at Paleckeho namesti. Or Karlovo namesti. Or somewhere around that big church with the crypt where Hitler shot himself. I really don’t care. Just start. Wait, I know, start your visit in the Karlovo namesti metro station. Take a few moments to shop – buy a new mobile phone cover, a pastry, some metro tickets (call them ‘fahrkarten!’ Say they’re all the rage in Berlin!).
Upon exiting, you’ll find Prague 2 pretty much everywhere you look. Check out Karlovo namesti itself. It’s one of the biggest squares in the city and I think it may be one of the biggest in Central Europe and if it’s not it should be.
Watch out for that dog crap!
Catch a tram, if the spirit moves you, but keep in mind you’ll soon be out of Prague 2 and this article will be useless.
Go down by the river. Have a look at the Dancing Building, designed by an internationally-renowned architect whose name escapes me now but who did a real bang-up job. Feed the swans. Fish for carp. Stand on a bridge and spit on the tourists on the decks of the river boats. Live it up.
And when you’re done, go home.
2 comments:
i have often thought that karlovo namesti ought to be the biggest square in all of europe, and that the czech republic's failure to achieve this coureageous hugeness is one of its greatest shames. thus, i strongly back the initiative by prague mayor pavel bem to enlarge karlovo namesti by demolishing the rest of prague 2 and making it one massive square. just think of the prestige of having a grassy/tree-filled square that stretches from the river in the west to namesti jiriho z podebrad (which would be renamed karlovo namesti quadrant 3) in the east and from smokey zitna in the north to badd-ass nusle in the south. the square would of course be packed with police security cameras that would prevent murders and rapes, but would turn a blind eye to good-natured (and healthy!) doggy humping and teen drug consumption.
this is the sort of visionary urban planning for which tokyo sexwale has long been known.
the only thing i would add would be that it might be nice to reintroduce some wildlife to the square -- wolves, or wild boar, or celtic druids.
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