There are cities whose spirit of place grabs hold of you – envelops you from the moment you touch down – and refuses to let go, following you everywhere you turn. No matter where you are or how trivial the street scene, or the object in front of you, everything is endowed with extra mystique. Paris and Prague are the classic ones in this category, as are most Northern Italian cities from Rome up.
- Most cities, are devoid of this charm. In fact, even for the top cultural heavy hitters and iconic architectural capitals like Barcelona or London – surely they are super-impressive, once you apply the effort, attach some thought, process and reflect on them – it is hard to live up to that spirit of place.
- Paris or Prague – very different in every other respect – are united by the effect they almost instantly produce on the visitor, almost automatically. Layers of successive master plans and uncompromising attention to detail in execution have combined to produce a truly total work of art, unifying everything in that metropolis into that singular spirit of place.
- This intensity of visual stimulation of the highest level is usually what it takes (extreme uniformity of refined surroundings to make Paris, extreme stylistic variety and jaw dropping river views to make Prague).
Prague is exceptional both at close range and at wide angle. In harmony of lines and near-perfection of compact enclosed spaces no other European city comes close.
- Its exceedingly well-proportioned facades and impeccably executed detail spontaneously open onto mind-blowing perspectives of endless, richly articulated skyline, when you least expect it. Old Jewish Quarter opening onto namesti Palacha, an open square framed by three edifices of palatial proportions – Rudolfinum on the right, Academy of Arts and Design opposite, a Charles University building behind, Vltava across the open space of the square – is one. And there is considerably more.
- With its unmatched variety of architectural styles, influences, nuances, and perspectives, this city is a feast for your eyes: colorful, saturated, harmonious, holistic, coherent. Here, buildings conflict less with the cobbles pavements than elsewhere, and everything, every detail, simply belongs. Just as intended.
- This city is clearly not a case of ‘less is more’ – this is ‘too much is not enough’.
Europe’s most beautiful city – it is, hands down – is first and foremost about pervasive, world-class architecture and street furniture.
- You generally know perfection when you see it, it is when the slightest change, revision, or modification, no matter how well intended, is bound to produce a net negative result: the object of study is already optimized and maximized. That’s Prague’s built environment, perhaps the best preserved in the Greco-Roman world.
- This city, in its entirety, is a work of art. A total work of art. As if chiseled by a renaissance man of many talents that transcend modern day’s narrow fields of professional specialization.
- Everything here is taken to a near-perfect harmony. From sgraffito frescos on the glittering 16th century guild houses to graffiti along the Lennon Wall on the other end of the Charles Bridge. From a worn-out knob on a weathered backyard door on a residential block in off-center Nove Mesto or Vynohrady to the finest monumental buildings, to the sea of rooftops and bell towers of dazzling beauty that open up time and again.
- This place will tempt you to consider giving up your partnership prospects at Goldman and becoming a blogger there. Or just about – at least, that’s a thought I like to entertain at the moment. During rare hours w/o tourists – they will stalk you on every street corner, multiple mindless, guided tour groups, half of them Russian – this place is at its most inspiring.
Prague is made for walking, aimless, directionless, as much and as often as possible.
- Go after the macro – views, panoramas, bridges, embankments, squares – and the micro – leaving no courtyard, no hotel lobby, and no nook and cranny behind, open yourself to infinite possibilities for a genuine positive surprise.
- This place is especially rewarding for those the persistence and stamina to keep walking, head up high and on the lookout for a yet undiscovered detail, a new turn, a familiar space in a new light.
- And if you are like me – favorite pastime? figuring out whether to go down this street or that block next, whether to turn left here or cross the street first, deciding which corner will present you with the most inspiring view and the least expected coffee options – Prague is truly a wonderful place to be. The place to be.
Especially if you value walking over being stuck inside museums – luckily there aren’t any museums worth a visit:
- Most of Prague’s collections are now in Vienna, its former capital – notably from the Habsburgs, especially Rudolph II – mixed in with, and forming an impressive core of, the Imperial and princely collections.
- Prague instead is a city that wears most of its goodies on public, outward display – observable from the street – pack some comfortable shoes and enjoy.
- And, please, limit don’t limit yourself to the obvious and touristy circuit – Hradcany and Sv Mikulace to Staromestske namesti via Karluv Most – go deeper. Na Prikope, Dlouha, Celetna, Wenceslas Sq, and the are great but there is so much more! – no street is too small here, no nook and cranny, no courtyard, no passage too insignificant – if you decide not to take the small streets, the through ways, not to venture farther afield, you will be stealing from yourself. And how are you supposed to find absolute gems like Uhelny trh, a beautiful little square past the grand facade of Staromestske Trznice on Rytirska, if you stay glued to the beaten path?
- The streets parallel to the opposite bank of Vltava in Smichov and the maze of sloping streets and squares of Mala Strana are a must. And any of the bridges make for a great access point. Once there, the completeness of perspectives, the consistency and refinement of detail will match those of Stare Mesto but with their own distinct character.
- Don’t overlook the beautiful palatial estates on the other side of the Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral, they are not visible other than from the top of the St Vitus and are not often mentioned but worth a detour.
- Vysehrad Gardens in far Nove Mesto is a great vantage point – very peaceful, local, barely touched by the traveler, and at a significant elevation – offering amazing panoramic views, both up and across ∫ to Smichov, Mala Strana, and Hradcany, and down the river towards Prague’s picturesque outskirts. The hill is located by Zeleznicni Most, three bridges South of the Karluv Most, in case you happen to be in the area.
The combination of monumental scale and meticulous detail here is unrivaled by any city in Europe, as is its architectonic and stylistic variety.
- Prague was not an Imperial capital of a major post Napoleonic power, simply a crownland capital.
- However, its prolific legacy as the seat of one of the Prince Electors then of the capital of the Holy Roman Empire under Charles IV (before the Habsburgs nearly monopolized that title for rest of the Empire’s existence) and later as the archduke court, Imperial residence, and the center of once of the richest and most advanced hereditary land of the Habsburgs after 1527 is felt at every step.
- Every period left an imprint on its very large center more impressive than the last, and – Prague is well preserved, it was never destroyed, enjoying only periods of beautification and renovation – all are present at the same time throughout the city, to a maximum cumulative effect.
Its significant spatial and linear dimensions are filled with mind numbing nuance, which makes every segment of the city complete and user friendly.
- Ranks probably above Rome, Paris and Vienna in coziness and Instagram worthiness factor, and prettier – the best sense of the word – than most European capitals.
- Prague is devastatingly picturesque, its streets and roofscape are full of color, you find yourself surrounded by the most stunning panoramic views – just look and make sure you turn your head and pay attention: the chance of missing something jaw dropping in pretty large here.
- The waterfront makes the city here perhaps to a greater extent than elsewhere. Unlike Budapest or Vienna where the Danube is a side show, in Prague both banks of Vltava are impressive, they host fully developed, large urban centers worthy of exploration on foot.
Unlike other post Habsburg lands, excellence in design did not fizzle out with the fall of the dynasty and the Empire: the Czechs continued the development of their capital in the most enviable way during the interwar period.
- Not content to simply sit on Europe’s finest installed base of the Late Gothic, the Renaissance, and the High Baroque, the Bohemian capital embraced every Neo-style of the eclectic historicism of the late 1800’s, the Art Nouveau, and the Secession as if it had something to prove, redressing and upgrading its existing lower rise building stock along its main streets, and not only. Vienna’s influence is unmistakable, in the handsome rows of apartment hotels, especially across the river, in the glittering Neo-Renaissance works buildings – those of Narodni Divadlo, the Rudolfinum, the Academy of Arts, and the Museum of Decorative Arts – that still define Prague’s skyline.
- Not content still after the Great War, the newly minted national capital embraced the Art Deco, the Rondo-Cubism, the Functionalism, and every other -ism the interwar period brought along. And often planted on the same city blocks in Prague I and II.
- The replenishment came with virtually no reset in quality or ambition that are so often felt in post WWI vintage structures throughout Europe. Significant stock of massive facades and courtyards in the new styles, built to the highest functionality and quality, added to what had already been Europe’s most visually holistic, integrated, and pluralistic landscape of periods and styles.
- Prague retains and conveys the spirit of old Europe better than most cities of Europe, including Central Europe, let alone Western – a remarkable feat given the takeover by hordes of tourists from the East and West, the adventurous wanderer and bohemian loner of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s replaced by regimented mass tourist groups on a guided mission – and does it with more ease and elegance than most.
This holistic evolution of Prague’s built environment and impressive continuity of its development post WWI were not random, and – deserving as Prague’s industrious denizens may be – were predetermined, in part, by the Habsburg policies of the past.
- Still more significant and complete than Budapest by the mid 1800’s, Prague was quickly surpassed by the Hungarian capital after 1867. It became the third city of the Dual Monarchy but a distant third: tied in population with Trieste and Lvov, two other crownland capitals of the Empire, the great capital of the kingdom of Bohemia was barely a quarter of Budapest’s population of almost 1 million.
- Then immediately after WWI, the city proceeded to integrate, with uncommon ease and harmony, its former suburbs and satellite towns. Instantly tripling in size, from a quarter million to three-quarters of a million inhabitants.
- Prague became the biggest net beneficiary of the ignorant and ill-conceived dismantlement of the Empire: the most industrialized of its former crown lands that concentrated the bulk of the Empire’s heavy and precision manufacturing, it also had an uncompromising advantage of proximity to NW Europe – you can’t argue with geography.
- Bohemia was able to simply keep the great industrial base underwritten, funded, and secured by all of Austria-Hungary, without having to pay for much of it. The successor states to the multinational Habsburg realm dumped the nearly worthless currency of no longer existing Monarchy on Vienna, triggering the vicious cycle of hyperinflation in Austria, and walked away with all the wealth the Monarchy deployed on their lands, debt free as the currency in which the debt was denominated got debased to the point of no return.
- The Versailles peace settlement – want to talk about a ‘peace dividend’? – excused Bohemia’s entire liability, free and clear, and at no cost, and allowed it to keep the wealth of entire industrial base, formerly sized for Europe’s largest Empire. Not a bad trade.
For Europe’s most breathtaking views head to Masaryk embankment and the Jewish ghetto around Parizska street – Paris outdone? Possibly, judging by the architectonics of the stunning facades, the multitude of shapes, the perspectives and viewing angles presented – these two out of consensus stretches of Central Prague will leave a lasting impression.
- The embankment, from Narodny Divadlo down to Frank Ghery’s Ginger & Fred building, will blow you away – every time, with no exception – whether you walk along its stretch, view it from the nearby Slovansky Ostrov, or approach it from either Legii or Jiraskuv bridge, and especially from the viewing balcony at the top of Ghery’s Dancing Building.
- The former Jewish district along and around Parizska street, as in Budapest, is now one of the happening spots for the young people, it is trendy, but it is also luxurious, framed – reframed in the early 1900’s – by some of Europe’s most jaw dropping architecture. you will keep coming back here for breakfast, coffee, and an occasional meal. The old Jewish quarter here – significantly redressed and assimilated into modernist city planing of the early 1900’s – stands both smaller and far more posh and impressive than in the Magyar capital. Prague’s synagogues host amazing classical music concerts, do not shy away.
- But go deeper into the Jewish district, and past it, into the 18th century core of the old town, reach beyond the Art Nouveau Smetana Hall, where Namesti Republiky square ends and the city’s main pedestrian street, Na Prikope, starts: cross the square to where the Christmas and Easter market usually stands, in front of Cacao, the cafe, and next to the Palladium, the city’s largest and most Western shopping mall. Turn back – from here, looking at the Hotel King’s Court, Hotel Pariz, and at the surrounding regular triangular blocks of handsome buildings – nothing regular here, except for Belle Epoque Paris, maybe? – the view of Prague’s skyline features is a rewarding as it is unusual.
Back in Prague after many years – the period of time after the fall of the Berlin Wall as of my last visit has now doubled – I am witnessing what the passage of time can do to a city that finds itself at the epicenter of European artistic heritage and global tourism.
- We are talking enough time to raise an entire new generation of service people and entrepreneurs.
- The insanely beautiful city has gone from being a little rough around the edges and seriously lacking in UX/UI – thanks to post-Soviet full employment and a general feeling that it’s enough to take credit and harvest the fruits of ancestors’ labor, tourists will come anyway – to a well oiled machine. Confidently churning visitors, batched up and individual, traveling on business and pleasure, of all tongues and origins.
- It is not exactly new news that Prague has graduated from stag parties, hipsters, and faded historic eateries with linoleum floors that were equal parts Soviet factory canteen and Habsburg coffeehouse revival.
- The Stone Age days of late 1990’s and early 2000’s when the city catered to an occasional cultural traveler and when all restaurants tasted the same and presented a hazard for any vegetarian or healthy diet minded visitor seem gone. Or at least in the rear view mirror and getting smaller.
- The long period of Prague’s gestation as a mainstream tourism hotspot has yielded an Il Mulino, has teleported an enoteca wine cellar and a patisserie with an open pastry chef’s kitchen into the basement of the jaw-droppingly beautiful Cafe Savoy, and has made the brunch sort of a thing. The years that elapsed have produced impressive indigenous restaurateur groups, gourmet coffee shops that toast on premises, and joints that specialize in designer duck and goat cheese, pumpkin aioli and tofu burgers.
- The city has evolved from a complete and total lack of edible vegetarian options to specialty foods, to supporting the plant-based and the dairy-free, to homemade gelato and fully gluten free restaurants off the tourist path – the city now hosts chic places that traffic in goji berry coconut milk smoothies and açaí bowls. Evolved apparently enough to embrace as a concept the authentic N Italian wine-and-cheese-bar-cum-fresh-bakery.
- It seems now that Prague has made a pivot from milking its installed base with indifference and peddling local amber jewelry and baroque music CDs to mesmerized tourists, all with a healthy dose of national pride and complete lack of customer service, to serving and investing.
- I doubt that the locals have fully embraced fads like tofu and coconut milk but the changes are not only for the visitors, and rising living standards and the EU membership have no doubt helped. Many places recognize they need natives to survive – there are such things as off-season months and zones outside the old town’s most frequented streets and squares – the trendy ones depend on the local folk to the tune of half to two thirds of their clientele. Some lean on top bloggers to mobilize local following, others rely on well-heeled parent companies with entrenched presence often via a group of unrelated sister restaurants.
The world’s most beautiful and photogenic – and most visited and touristy – city is now more cosmopolitan, more culturally aware, more polished.
- It has become more service oriented, even though that is a low bar, directlionally it could only improve: Prague was user unfriendly in the extreme, notorious for its Soviet style indifference to customer experience – why bother when you have full employment and the city’s historic legacy practically sells itself?
- It has become a bit more rounded, a little more food and drink centric, and in certain places has gone even gourmet. It has allowed itself to modernize, its ground floor retail tenants brought up to date, and yes, it has become even more commercial, if that was still possible.
- The atmosphere that envelopes you from the moment you enter the outskirts of the city by car or its railroad stations when arriving by train is still there, still intact, not a trivial fact given all the outward and upward development and the commercial pressures to squeeze out new and creative ways to monetize the stunning beauty of the built environment left by earlier generations.
Generational divide among customer facing people is still felt.
- The younger ones uniformly friendlier and more attentive, the older ones – nothing will erase decades of Soviet style entitlement and arrogance – still acting more like apparatchiks ready to direct and penalize than customer service professionals, or any kind of professionals, in any kind of service.
- And typically bad, post-Soviet service tends to concentrate along the tourist routes, where it doesn’t matter, the customer doesn’t come twice, and – jaw on the floor – they are not here for the service anyway.
- To test my theory, try a goji smoothie at Cacao, try it more than once, see if they are paying attention, if the girl after taking your order adds ‘sir, excuse me, my colleague tells me you like it with almond milk instead of regular’. Maybe you are still the only one in Prague who orders a goji smoothie. But it is possible that the level of service has indeed improved to the point where a waitress not directly engaged in the transaction remembers your order down to ingredient from 5 days earlier, as if you were a regular, even if you forget it yourself.
Enjoy a well-deserved culinary or caffeine infused break at one of my simple recommendations below.
- Breakfast at Cafe Imperial for old world service and over the top – but somehow coherent and almost restrained – Art Deco detail
- If you think you could do without obligatory eggs and all for breakfast, try a number of cafes and bakeries in Stare Mesto, preferably in the old Jewish Quarter around the place I call the Five Corners, where Dlouha bends, meeting three other sleepy streets – Masna, V Kolkovne, and Kozi -forming an especially vivid impression of a bustling metropolis, and there is more there than the Bakeshop and Au Gourmand
- Farther afield, on the edge of Nove Mesto, Prague’s 2nd district, try Mysak Cukrarna
- A late afternoon meal or even dinner at La Bottega Di Finestra, an authentic Italian enoteca also serving breakfast and pastry – even better if you strike a personal conversation with the Italian waiter eager to brag about the latest vintage and the recently procured meat cut – this is a product of Prague’s transformation that started a dozen years ago, and now there are several locations with slightly different names. This one on your way to Staromestski namesti from the river, between Manesuv most and Karluv most, is better for dinner
- A reservation for a serious meal at Kampa, a free standing house with an upscale gourmet menu set in an eponymous park on the opposite bank in Mala Strana (views spectacular as expected but the meal was the best I had had in Prague),
- Dinner at La Finestra in Cucina, a more grown up establishment – exposed brick, high ceilings, low light, wine racks, awesomeness throughout – next to La Bottega Di Finestra, or George Prime Steak, also down the street
- For a beer garden, try Letná Zahradni in the eponymous gardens N and E of Josefov, the Old Jewish Quarter, take Stefanikuv Most across the river
- If you are so inclined, pay homage to Prague’s uncharacteristically large Vietnamese community and try one of their restaurants, people do
- For a coffee or lunch, you can try Cafe Louvre, one of Prague’s historic institutions, Viennese coffeehouse style with a full menu, on your way to the embankment near Narodni Divadlo
- But I wouldn’t settle for anything less than Cafe Savoy for at least two late morning or mid afternoon stops – a spectacular place, with dazzling Neo-Renaissance interior, Ringstrasse style, especially if you go to the mezzanine or the wine bottle lined side wing, this place is as exceptionally tasty as it beautiful
- Best coffee with a view – try the cafe at the top of the Dancing Building. Ask the waiter to peel you off the window glass after 15 minutes or so, even if you think you may resist the view. Step outside onto the circular balcony – the view is truly the best in town and, therefore, in Europe. walk around, walk on Jiraskuv bridge across Vltava, stop half way, then at the end, and look back, left and right, the view is still additive, even if you have been up and down Masarykovo nabrezi, gazed at it from the island, and contemplated it from the top.
- Informal coffee shops, of hole in the wall variety, are worth checking out – for this, try an unguided walk, pick a corner of the Old Town you haven’t seen yet, and it will present plenty of funky hipster java counters.
- Try Liberske Lahudky, a basic bread counter – Prague is not too shabby in the bakery department, their baked goods are better than in Budapest – at a local deli in Prague’s Nove Mesto, on the relatively plain Vodickova street. Go for their Zavin Tvarohovy s Visni, the sour cherry cheese strudel, or Makovec, the poppy seed pie. These may be the best substitute to fresh delicacies you get at Prague’s Holiday markets when in season, and the best street food option in town.
