Prague and Berlin

I'm behind on the blog a bit since I try to write while we drive and not while we're at each location. Don't be deceived into thinking that we're spending this precious time exploring each undiscovered city morning till night, rather, I just don't want to waste valuable time on the internet when it's available. Which, of course, is not to say that we don't get out and about in each place we visit – that would be silly – but we tend to spend mornings and evenings at the hotel, often even being productive and booking upcoming destinations, searching for attractions we would like to patronize, and communicating with friends and family. It keeps us going and keeps us sane so that we can continue the adventure day to day.

Ok, so, last week we left Jon in Krakow and Kane and I continued on to Prague in the Czech Republic. I did not actually know much of anything about Prague except that it's very popular nowadays and supposed to be very pretty. Good enough for me. When I say Czech Republic to people at home, they may envision a filthy communist country ravaged by war and entrenched in cultural crisis. Many people still think of Czechoslovakia as one country and don't know a whole lot about the two separate countries, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Granted, I don't know much either, but country-splitting does seem like there still may be some political instability present. Which may be true, I have no idea, because you can't tell from being in Prague. I will say this: Prague is the best city I have seen on this trip so far, and maybe ever.

Prague is a huge city with an expansive city center. Most of the city has been rebuilt since WWII but somehow they managed to do this as gracefully as I have yet seen. This is the Europe I was longing for. Screw Paris. Cobble stone plazas, open cafes, gorgeous parks, museums, bridges, vistas; a truly decent city. We were there 2 full days (3 nights) and, as often happens to us, we didn't have a lot to do. We're trying to travel cheap, which rules out majorly expensive attractions, we're pretty lazy so we don't usually hike around for the entire day, and we're a bit lame so we don't drink at night. So...what do we do over here? Well, we walk around until I start to complain, eat in nice (hopefully cheaper) cafes, play cards, ogle the pastries (me), take pictures, and generally just try to get a feel for each city. Prague is perfect for this. You could walk for days through scenic passages to rolling hilltops. There are millions of cafes, zillions of tourist shops, around every turn is a stunning river vista, antique building or inviting plaza. The food: good. The people: nice. The language: Czech, but since none of the tourists speak Czech, everyone speaks excellent English.
The weather was warm, we found a cafe with free soda refills (perhaps the only one in Europe...no amount of cobbled streets can beat the American out of me), we meandered through the enormous castle grounds. I could have done this for days. A truly inspiring, relaxing, and beautiful city. If you're heading this way and you're anything like me, pencil Prague into your itinerary no matter what you think you know (or don't know) about the Czech Republic.

From Prague, we moved to Berlin. Which was a totally different experience. While Berlin was also mostly destroyed in WWII, it's been rebuilt in a far less inviting, personal way. Instead of feeling like another person in the family of residents and visitors in the town, Berlin felt (to me) like I was a tiny ant thrown into a huge maze. The scale of the city is such that I rarely knew where I was, except that I was always surrounded by enormous museums and monuments. The arrangement of the sites doesn't have a proper flow to it and, though we went on a walking tour, I never really felt like I knew where to go next.
It's a city with a profoundly interesting and important history, but being there was like watching 40 seconds of Lord of the Rings and trying to discern why it's such a good movie. It almost seems like you could learn to appreciate the location more if you weren't in it. It needs a step back, some perspective. And because of this, I had an ok time in Berlin, but it wasn't my favorite place. Some of the sights were certainly cool: Holocaust memorial (see pic to the left), Berlin Wall, the Nazi architecture that still remains. The history is so much more interesting and tangible than the city itself that seeing the city is sort of a mash of confusion: on one street there is a beautiful pre-war concert hall across the street from a gigantic Nazi building (now the German tax office – ha) next to the Berlin wall. The tour guide described this as a great example of the layered history of Berlin, which it was, but really it just seemed to me like a city that has been destroyed so many times that it hardly has an identity anymore.

Don't get me wrong - I don't really dislike the place as much as I feel like I didn't much experience it in 2 days. I just don't feel like that's possible to do in such a short amount of time, and, frankly, you'd probably need to live there or know someone who does to get the real experience. That's just my two cents on the matter.

After Berlin we headed to Amsterdam where we spent two days. This blog entry will follow, but for now, have a look at some pics from Prague, North Germany (Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg – we were only in Dresden and Hamburg on the way to/from Berlin), and Amsterdam.