I am not a Paris guy; I am not a Vienna guy, I am not a Dubai guy, and I am not a Prague guy…. Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but I am glad we only spent 4 nights here. It is three things that I don’t like in a city – busy, fancy, and not cheap. Yes, we still go to lots of places that are those 3 things, but our traveling tastes are becoming more defined, We keep saying we are going to spend less time in these places.. But, I can’t say too many bad things about the fantastic architecture and attractions that are in Prague. If you can ignore the crowds, the city is very impressive.
I understand that the title, and the content of this blog post can seem that I’m complaining about one of the best cities in Europe. I acknowledge that we are privileged and very fortunate to live this traveling lifestyle. We are very happy with our retirement decisions and what it brings us. But, I don’t need to be absolutely positive on everything we come across. I tend to be happy with most places we travel like most Bloggers and Vloggers, and try to talk about the good things we see in each place. That doesn’t create totally honest content. I want to say what I really feel and hopefully be helpful for someone deciding what they want to see in Europe.
Meg visited here without me a few years ago and really wanted me to experience Prague with her. I had also heard so much about it, that I was excited to see it as well. But, we knew it was over-touristed and still had huge crowds in late September so we decided to just stay here 4 nights and 3 sight seeing days. This was the right call. We spent the first day on a fantastic “free” walking tour and the second day touring the enormous Prague castle on the hill. We were worn out from walking and fighting the crowds, so the next day we had a slow day of hanging out in the park. Our friends recommended a beer garden away from the hullabaloo and we had a pleasant afternoon admiring the city from afar. We then headed back to our apart-hotel to do some travel planning.
The Big Event this weekend in Prague was our 34th wedding anniversary. We celebrated our successful years ignoring our budget in a fancy Michelin restaurant that served a tasting menu with multiple small courses. It was a huge departure from the heavy Central European food we have been having the last few weeks. It was tasty and fun but the best part was reminiscing about the past and planning the future with my lovely wife and travel partner. 34 more years?!!!
We have spent the last few weeks in many cities in the Baltics and Poland that had a lot of beautiful buildings and classic town squares. Prague had all that but it was just way bigger. The 18th and 19th century buildings just kept going…. The amount of tourists (including us) seemed to multiply with the number of elegant streets and gothic churches. We realized we get the same amount of enjoyment sitting in the big square in Tallin, Estonia than sitting in Prague. It is just more difficult to find a seat in a sidewalk cafe in the bigger city and the beer will be twice as expensive.
The other part that I dislike about these top tier cities is just how fancy everything is. I am impressed when I have visited the palaces of Europe but I am also a bit distressed that so much money was spent on opulence when most of the country was living in poverty. The palace of Versailles just puts me in a bad mood after visiting. I remember seeing the silver, ceramics and jewelry in museums in Vienna that just made me upset about those farmers and peasants that paid for this over indulgence. I can appreciate beauty but it doesn’t always give me a good feeling like it does for some tourists. Even the huge gothic churches (which I think are really cool!) were made on the backs of medieval slavery.
But that doesn’t mean that I need to skip these type of attractions. We still want to see the whole world and part of that is seeing the top attractions in Europe. I am glad I have seen the best art museums in Madrid, Florence and Paris. I am happy that braved the crazy over tourism to see Porto, Rome, Venice and Barcelona. We still need to see Berlin and Milan and I know we are going to run into the same type of crowds, fanciness, and prices that we just experienced in Prague. We’ll get there one day. For now…. we are going to take a break from the crowds and spend a few weeks in some very small towns with not big ticket attractions. The smaller locations mean we will not be seeing much of our nomad friends but sometimes we just need a break from being tourists and just spend some time on the beach. Next stop is the Mediterranean town of Port Vendres, France – population 4018. We are going to be recharging in Catalunya near the border of France and Spain with our 2 euro bottles of wine.