Sept. 27-28 – Starting Out
A long day beginning in Darien, and ending in Prague. Flying, no matter how much time one sets aside for the experience is just plain not fun. The undressing and redressing as you go through security (where titanium knees wreak havoc on the machines and one must wait patiently to be patted down by a lady with a magic wand); the seemingly endless walks down long corridors offering up all manner of fast food, fast reads and fast solutions to a traveler’s problem; and then the gate sitting experience where everyone’s anxiety is on display as children go wild, travelers check for the nth time that they have the correct paperwork, and everyone has one ear glued to a phone.
There are a few solutions I could recommend: travel by ship, own your own airplane, or cut down on the volume of travelers by requiring everyone to dress up for the experience as they did in the 50’s.
Gay and I found each other at the gate, our Delta plane (after a 75 minute wait on the runway) flew effortlessly to Prague, and the food on board in 'animal class' wasn’t even half bad.
Having been greeted by our tour leader, Ingrid, and having done a preliminary 'scoping out' of our fellow Road Scholars, we piled into a mini-bus and headed for the Ibis Hotel located smack in the center of the old town.
First impressions: on the outskirts of the city one could be anywhere with MacDonalds, KFC and Burger King interspersed between lovely flower stalls and fruit stands. But it is the ugly, dull, stodgy apartment structures and government buildings left by the communists that remind one that this was once part of the SSR. The Czechs are rapidly transforming the city and there is obvious pride in both the new as well as the restoration of the old (which was totally ignored until 1986).
Our leader is a German-born American named Ingrid MacGillis from Western Massachusetts and our local city guide is Jana a young, very bright woman whose English is wonderful, and who is very proud of her city. We were given our room keys, and headed for naps before our 5:00 pm introductory meeting and dinner in the hotel dining room.
At the meeting we were provided tons of reading material, we walked through the schedule of the next five days, and were given hints and tips of what to do while in this wonderful city: watch out for pick-pockets, leave your passports at home, enjoy a vast array of lovely classical music in all manner of venues, enjoy the markets, explore the Mucha Museum, try the tram system, enjoy the town at night and remember that in a restaurant a bottle of water costs exactly the same as a bottle of beer. Now That’s A Grand Concept!
Sept. 29th – A Prague Introduction
What a day! Sunny, warm, and perfect. Our morning consisted of a four hour walk within the 'old' city stopping at all known and important sites from municipal buildings to churches to statues. This city reminds me of Dresden with its Baroque gilded buildings though, as we learned, there are all forms of architecture from early Romanesque to Functional Communist. Jana threw data at us so fast, that it will take days to review and understand so I’m not going to try. Since it is fall, the tour groups are either school groups or elderly groups. We tourists are in smaller proportion to the citizens who are busy going about their daily activities, and that is a pleasant change from summer when I’m told the tourists drown out the locals and make for a more crowded experience.
There are absolutely no straight streets, as far as I can tell, and since my Czech is non-existent trying to remember where we’ve been taken requires constant map reference. But I have quickly learned that all roads, lanes or alley ways lead to open magnificent squares where there will be a gilded church, an astrological magical clock, a gilded municipal building or a statue to mark where some important historic event has occurred.
For the Czech citizens the heart of their city, and their country, is St. Wenceslaus Square. It is here that citizens have gathered in the past in front of Russian tanks in 1968 and where with the rattling of their keys in 1989 they introduced the Velvet Revolution which signaled the beginning of the end of communism in the country. And the hatred for the Russians is expressed constantly: when our guide speaks of the ugly architecture, when another lecturer speaks in derogatory terms about a woman mopping a floor “she must be Russian, she doesn’t understand me”.
Our day ended with a wonderful boat ride down the Moldau River (aka the Danube) to see all the gilded buildings beautifully lit up in the warm evening. On one side the many churches and towers and on the other the Palace high on the hill with a mini-Eiffel Tower, a huge metronome structure and spires, spires, spires. Prague is known as 'the city of a hundred spires'.
A full day to be followed tomorrow by more.
