Prague Part III: Easter Delights

Fearing the notion of wandering a city in which everything was closed, I at first thought it was unfortunate that the time I had off to visit Prague would be over Easter. I was delightfully mistaken. Easter in Prague means Easter markets and Easter markets mean kraslice (above). These decorative eggs tempted me at every turn. They were the perfect souvenir: small, pretty, handmade, and cheap enough that I could afford them (but not so cheap that I felt like I was buying kitsch). I bought a few and then lurked around several stands photographing them, probably much to the annoyance of the craftspeople manning the stands. I have now started brainstorming ways to safely transport hollow eggshells across the Atlantic.

The other souvenir I bought was a pomlázka, or "woman-hitting stick." (note: That translation is one that I made up. "Braided switch" is the one Czech tourism sites are pushing). I first heard about the tradition associated with this item when a Slovak student on the IES program was encouraging others to go to Bratislava, but not over Easter, because that's when "we hit women with sticks." I thought he was joking for quite some time. He wasn't. And the Czechs do it too. I particularly enjoyed watching a Czech toddler turn the tables by chasing her father and gleefully hitting him with the stick he'd bought at the market.

Part three of the Czech-Easter-tradition triad was particularly magical because I stumbled across it accidentally. When, on Easter morning, I got up at 5:00 am to walk across Charles Bridge at sunrise, I was surprised to find that the 5:30 tram was rather full of Czech people and that many of them were carrying Easter baskets. They differed from American Easter baskets both in their appearance (brown and undecorated, but often covered by a piece of lace fabric) and their contents (no candy; decorated but also undecorated eggs, sausage, lamb-shaped bread/pastry). When the tram stopped, the people all walked off towards a nearby church while I headed for the bridge. As I crossed the bridge, I encountered more groups of Czechs with baskets and as I walked around the nearly-deserted city afterward, I saw others clustered outside the doors of churches, chatting with baskets hanging from their arms.

Since American Easter baskets rarely if ever leave the house, I became a little curious. I did a bit of online research when I got home and discovered that Catholics in the Czech Republic often have the contents of their Easter baskets blessed by a priest before taking them back home to be eaten later. Those early-morning hours, alone in Prague's Altstadt with the Czechs and their Easter baskets, are among the most memorable of my time in Prague. I fear this evidence supports much of what my mother has told me about the benefits of getting up earlier than, say, noon, but I share it anyway and suggest that it makes up for the fact that I spent most of Easter on a train.

Prague Part II: More Hotels than Streets

One of the drawbacks of Prague's legendary beauty (and there are few) is that it is... well... legendary. Other people know about it and they want to see it too! Downtown Prague famously has more hotels than streets, a fact not hard for me to believe as I walked down some of those streets and heard more English, German, and Spanish than I did Czech. At times this had its advantages, considering how woefully terrible I am at Czech. Mostly, though, it kind of killed the mood. At times I started to forget I was in Prague at all and wonder how I'd arrived in Disneyland's "Fairy Tale Europe" park.*

Fortunately, my fellow tourists were easy to avoid. Here are the measures I took to do so.


1. I stuck to side streets. They run parallel to their foreigner-flooded counterparts and are just as beautiful. I would even go so far as to claim that they're more beautiful because they're a) nearly empty, b) narrower and more winding, and c) more likely to contain cafés and restaurants than shops selling plastic beer steins that say "I <3 Prague" on them.

2. I got up early. This was not something that was easy for me to do, but it was completely worth it. The Charles Bridge is simply not visible in the daytime. Yes, you can walk across it in direct sunlight, but all you will likely see is the baseball cap of the guy in front of you. Okay, I'm exaggerating a tad, but while the hustle and bustle of tourists and street vendors on the bridge is a sight in its own right, it detracts significantly from the majesty bridge itself. The solution: dragging myself out of bed before dawn Easter morning, boarding a tram full of Easter-basket-toting Czechs, and walking across the bridge at sunrise. Corny? Yes. Unforgettable? Absolutely. As an extra bonus, the rest of the city was also nearly deserted after sunrise, so I had an entire breathtaking Eastern European capital to myself for an hour.


3. I read my guidebook. It seemed counter-intuitive to seek out advice on avoiding tourists from a source dedicated to telling tourists where to go, but there's a very large self-loathing (and by that I mean each-other-loathing) demographic among tourists, and Lonely Planet--in their Prague book at least--is wise enough to cater to it. The first big success in this category was the self-guided "Hidden Gardens" walking tour in the sight-seeing section. Gardens aren't really my thing, but the "hidden" part appealed to me. Since spring isn't totally in full-swing yet, the gardens themselves were less than impressive, but as they were out of the way, the tour took me through some lovely areas that, while central, I would not have otherwise known to visit. Another success was a café called Literání Kavárna Řetĕsovă (highly recommended!!!) where the smoke-filled air chased the tourists away and I got to enjoy a cup of coffee and feel very much like a savvy and adventurous expat.

My conclusion: There are, in fact, still parts of Prague where you won't see some unfortunate Czech college student with bills to pay dressed up like a medieval castle guard, and and these parts are (thankfully) really quite easy to locate.

*(which does not, to the best of my knowledge, exist)

Prague Part I: Buttercream Icing

Berlin doesn't seem to be conducive to me completing blog entries. This situation calls for me to play catch-up, but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to start off again with Prague.

Prague is like buttercream icing. Stick with me here; I'll make sense in a moment. Having met a friend of a friend studying there the weekend before going to Prague, it was hard not to experience study-abroad-envy as I walked around the Altstadt after checking into my hostel. Considering its enormous reputation as one of Europe's most gorgeous cities, I find it rather impressive that Prague doesn't disappoint. Stretching in all directions as far as I happened to walk, are streets lined with one historical architectural treat after another. The city is the 3-D visual equivalent of buttercream icing: rich in history yet refreshingly "sweet." It literally envelops you as you wander down its narrow streets and soon you taste nothing but buttercream. And you think to yourself that buttercream icing may just be the best thing you have ever tasted.

Fortunately for my mental health, my study-abroad-envy didn't last. After you take in one metaphorical spatula after another of narrow streets, idyllically winding their way through the city, you begin imagine a point at which you might think to yourself, "Hmm. I feel a little sick. Perhaps I should lay off the buttercream icing for today. " I'm not saying I reached that point, but I definitely saw it off on the spire-dotted horizon.

Berlin isn't like that. Berlin is like a great German bread. You can eat it day after day, and with something different on top each time. Prague has earned itself a place in my heart and will likely see me again, but it's a city to visit. Berlin, on the other hand, is a city to live in. Good thing I do!