Oohing and Aahing…in the Capitals of Central Europe

After leaving Germany (we’re going back there in a week!), Jessica and I went to visit two countries we’d never been to before, the Czech Republic and Austria, specifically spending time in Prague and Vienna. Both were amazing, though we only barely scratched the surface of what these two capital cities held. For better or worse, we spent quite a bit of time in both cities working. You see, Jessica is on sabbatical, and part of our excuse for being in Europe is for her to do a series of interviews with key informants here, so as we approach those first interviews, she needed a bunch of time to read, write, and prepare. I used that time to study math–I’m working towards taking the test necessary to add yet another subject to my repertoire. So, while we absolutely loved both cities, we didn’t get quite as much touristy-ness in as usual, and when we did get out of the house, we spent a lot of time just walking, walking, walking to overcome the sedentary nature of the mornings.

Prague was our first destination, and arriving there from Germany was a bit of a shock. We thought we were lost and confused in Germany because we couldn’t read or understand anything, but it turns out German is a heck of a lot closer to English than Czech is. Luckily, no one in Prague expects tourists to understand Czech, so there are tons of signs in English (as opposed to Germany or Austria, where there are lots of German-speaking tourists, so English signage is a bit more rare).

Once we got past that stumbling block, we mostly spent our five+ days there oohing and aahing at the architecture, the streets, the parks, the river, etc. It’s a truly beautiful city. Lots of classic four and five story buildings with shops below and apartments above, and some great art nouveau and art deco stylings in places. But, unlike Vienna (see below), there’s a fair amount of crumbly bits and grit and soot and such, so there’s a feeling of past power, whereas Vienna looks like it’s held on to some of its grandeur a bit more successfully.

Of course, there were also some oddities and interesting buildings that didn’t quite fit in…

One of the constant joys of walking around Prague was the sidewalks. For several miles radiating out from the center, nearly all of the sidewalks are made from small, regularly cut, square stones. But every block or so, the patterns in the sidewalk shifted. I got a little obsessed with noticing the different patterns. They didn’t always make for the most even walking experience–especially where there were tree roots growing underneath–but that was just part of the crumbly charm of the city. Here’s some of what they looked like…

We also really enjoyed the food in Prague. We had everything ranging from classic Czech cuisine to Vietnamese (there’s a ton there owing to the history of Communist student exchange programs among other things). While we were there, Jess signed us up for a foodie tour of Prague, and the tour came with a huge book of restaurants, bars, and more to check out, so it kept us busy eating some of the best food in the city. Among other things, we had…

• Amazing desserts on our food tour. The chocolate cake thing in the back of the photo was amazing, but the caramel choux pastry was out of this world.
• Fancy drinks in a fun setting at “Manifesto,” an outdoor food court (like food trucks, but more permanent). We each got different dinners there. Mine was barbecue made by two African Americans and one white Czech guy. It was fun listening to them banter.
• Also, a crazy drink with a bubble of vapor on it at Kro Kitchen. This was a great restaurant with tasty chicken and amazing side dishes of veggies and potato pancakes. The only problem was that we went there twice…by accident! We went once on our own, and then the next night it was part of the food tour. Whoops. Still delicious.
• The crazy sandwiches you see are from a butcher shop with all local products. They’re meatloaf. One of the words most likely to make me feel physically ill. But they were so incredibly delicious. I haven’t changed my image of meatloaf, but I at least know there’s something around the edges of that definition that’s definitely worth trying.
• On the food tour we also spent some time at Lokal, a popular local bar where we had all sorts of interesting snacks, including some pickled herring that was reminiscent of ceviche. You’ll note in the picture how long it is–evidently a classic form of bar architecture in Prague.
• Potatoes cooked in the ashes of a fire and covered in some sort of delicious cream sauce.
• Toast with two different pestos at a farmer’s market.
• And…there were so many amazing baked goods in Prague. It was hard to resist, from those available at markets, to the gorgeous desserts at a cafe run by the International Prague Pastry Academy.

One of the coolest buildings we saw was the National Museum. It’s gorgeous on the outside, situated at the end of St. Wenceslas Square, as well as on the inside, while also holding a variety of interesting exhibits ranging from a walk through changes in Czech life over the past century, to a fascinating mineral collection and a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Czech volleyball. (There was also an unexplained, but awesome feminist poster.)

We also enjoyed the small, but lovely, museum of Alphonse Mucha’s art nouveau works. You may not recognize the artist himself, but the style is definitely one you’ve seen. It was interesting to see how much of his work was actually focused on celebrating Czech culture, particular in terms of fighting back against previous eras of “Germanification.”

We also spent some time at the Prague Castle which contains the St. Vitus Cathedral as well as the St. George Basillica. The Cathedral was quite gorgeous, as were the other many buildings and gardens of the sprawling hilltop palace. One particularly interesting bit was the Golden Lane, where there are a series of preserved medieval-style homes for merchants and such. Each has a little exhibit inside with typical decor of a cobbler or a fortune teller or whatever. But, the oddest and most interesting, was a home that had belonged to a film collector who was singlehandedly responsible for preserving many early Czech films, especially during World War II when the Nazis destroyed many Czech cultural artifacts. Most of these are pictures of St. Vitus, which was really quite stunning from all sides, but there’s also a few others…

A few other favorite bits of Prague…

• There is an excellent statue dedicated to Franz Kafka. I saw it and thought, “that’s Kafkaesque” and then saw that it was a statue with his name on it.
• I loved the streetcars. Not because that’s anything unique–I mean, I always love public transportation in all forms–but because they came in such a wide variety of contrasting styles from quite old to brand-spankin’ new.
• Jessica particularly liked the artistry of the street signs.
• There’s a free expression space that began with the posting of John Lennon lyrics as an anti-Communist protest.
• The Astronomical Clock was quite cool. It tracks time of day, day of the year, month, star sign, phases of the moon, and more. Of course, it also has a brief “show” every hour where Death celebrates the passing of time and a number of mortals shake their heads. However, this show, according to our walking tour guide, won the distinction of being the “second most dissapointing” tourist attraction in Europe, so I won’t bore you with it. Anyone care to guess what’s the most disappointing tourist attraction in Europe?
• And I found a store that two-thirds of me apparently runs when I’m not paying attention.

And…sadly, I did not get to ride the paternoster elevator, a type of elevator that just continuously moves while people hop on and off. When we found one in a local government building, the security guard said the offices upstairs were closed and shooed us out. But, it looks like this…

Anyhow…after a little over five days in Prague, we headed off to Vienna. We lost a bit of time due to several train delays, but we arrived to find that (A) German is sooooo much easier than Czech, and (B) Vienna shared many of Prague’s beautiful architectural features, but on an even grander scale and with shinier upkeep. We kept thinking about how to describe the feeling of the city and it’s architecture and we kept coming up with words like “stately,” “elegant,” and “regal.” It felt like there was a palace on every corner in the center of the city (and occasionally we’d look at a sign on a building to find that it had once been a palace for some cousion or nephew of the emperor during some period).

Again, we spent quite a bit of time at home working, and only a little time “seeing sites” compared to quite a bit of time just walking all over the place. To start with, here’s a bit of what city looks like: beautiful buildings, palaces on every corner, gardens, parks, and more. If you look closely in these photos you will see homes where Mozart, Beethoven, and Freud all lived at one point or another…

One of the standout buildings was the Cathedral, Stephansdom, right in the center of the old town. However, it was, oddly, topped with a light up “ladder to heaven” or something that pretty much ruined the look at night. We also spent some time inside one night, attending a lovely rendition of Mozart’s Requiem by the Vienna University Philharmonic.

One of the sites we did visit was the Hofburg Palace. This is just one of several major palaces that the Habsburg family built (and continously expanded) over their 500+ year reign over much of Europe. It was conveniently about two blocks from the apartment we rented. There we were treated to…

• The completely ridiculous silver collection of the palace. We learned all sorts of absurd things about the number of different items that were required for a formal dinner. Evidently dinner was often only about 45 minutes long, but featured about a dozen courses. Everyone had to eat at basically the same pace as the Emperor, because as soon as he indicated he was done with a dish, it would be cleared from everyone’s places. There were giant napkins to fold into animal shapes, porcelain so fine that it was too brittle to use, so only was useful for display, and just an enormous amount of expensive junk.
• There was a whole section dedicated to the life and mythology around the Empress Sisi. We learned about her ankle-length hair (which she cared for with a special combination of egg yolks and cognac), we read much of her melodramatic poetry, and we discerned that she had some serious mental health issues.
• Finally, we toured through Emperor Franz Joseph’s apartments. Unlike some of the other palaces we’ve visited along the way, we found his chambers simple and elegant. They tended to have somewhat sparser decor, rather than being cluttered and they mostly had red and gold wallpaper, instead of being covered in a riot of frescoes or cluttered with a million paintings.
• Unfortunately, no photos were allowed beyond the silver collection…so, enjoy some of that and a bit from the outside.

We also took a short tour of the State Opera House. We weren’t able to attend the opera, but we were quite impressed with the beautiful building.

One of the best art museums I’ve visited was the MUMOK, a contemporary art museum located in Vienna’s “Museums Quartier” where there are about a dozen museums all located around one huge courtyard. To be clear, we went to this one museum. There were about a hundred others in the city. I think we mostly skipped them all because it was just too overwhelming to pick amongst the rest. Regardless, it was an awesome museum. Here’s my favorite piece there (for its sheer goofiness in appearance), and a shot of what the center of the Museums Quartier looks like.

The best thing we saw there was a 20-minute-or-so video by Yto Barrada called “Tree identification for Beginners.” While it showed video of moving objects often used in Montessori education settings, it was overlayed with audio of the artist’s mother’s descriptions of her journey to the US from Morocco in the 1960s. She was part of a cultural exchange with other African youth, but she is explicit about going to see the US to examine the heart of the evil capitalist empire. The most hilarious bit was when she complained that they had promised the delegation air travel all around the US, but then downgraded them to Greyhound buses. She refused to continue the trip until they booked her on the airlines again. When the rest of her group caught on, they all protested too. Eventually, there’s a hilarious letter from a State Department representative to the group stating they would be flying again, but that it definitely had nothing to do with the fact that they had staged a collective action to oppose their treatment. Jess and I were cracking up. Another reminder that direct action gets the goods. I can’t find the whole video, but if you log onto vimeo, you can watch the first few minutes here: https://vimeo.com/264448812#

Another bit of fun was had when we wandered through Prater Vienna, a huge amusement park not far from the center of the city. It’s always fun to watch people having fun, and we enjoyed deciding which rides would make Jess most sick. We didn’t ride anything, though…just wandered around.

While we did see a memorial for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and other artworks speaking to the problematic Nazi past, we also saw this: a monument to a Nazi propagandist. Why the f*** is the city supporting the preservation of this? Read below if you can make it big enough. We did laugh about the “unauthorized artistic intervention.”

Also in the questionable category was this stained glass window in the Votivkirche (which I don’t know the story behind at all)…

Other favorite sites included…

• A column dedicated to victims of the plague. (I mean, I get it, but it’s an odd thing to have such a celebratory-looking monument for…)
• A visit to the Naschmarkt, where there were a million lovely looking things to chow down on. We saw at least one pigeon doing just that.
• A many-blocks-long street market in the Neubau district. Everything from antiques to high fashion was on sale there. There were also a number of street musicians, including a couple dressed as pirates who were getting little kids to sing along with their rendition of Pink Floyd.
• A number of awesome neighborhood parks. I really love seeing playgrounds and such in different countries. Particularly in Austria and Germany, there seems to be a ton of freedom allowed to kids and some really creative stuff for them to play with.
• And, speaking of kids, we came across a display that was clearly referring to children’s rights (which is what Jessica studies) and we spent a long time staring at it trying to puzzle out what each phrase in German (right side of the photo) meant in English. But, when we were working through like our fifth or sixth one, a voice piped up and said, “It means the right to a good life.” It turns out we were standing right in front of a car whose driver had been listening to us–and silently laughing at us, I assume.

We also scheduled our trip to Vienna so that we could see Laura and Radek, two friends we met during Jessica’s last sabbatical. We’ve always thought of them as our sort of stereotype of what European families are like–she’s Estonian, he’s Czech, they live in German-speaking Vienna, and mostly communicate with each other in English. Their kids are at least partly quadrilingual. In 2013, we ended up trekking with them for several days around Torres del Paine in Chile. We chatted a ton then, but we’ve only barely stayed in touch over the past 8 years. Despite that, it was really lovely to see them both again. However, it was a bit awkward…we learned just as we arrived that they were in the process of splitting up, so we ended up seeing them separately. We had a lovely dinner and dessert with Laura, featuring a hilarious owner of her favorite Swiss fondue place, and we took an epic hike with Radek, who showed us just how close the Alps are to Vienna and took us up a mini via ferrata among a gorgeous set of peaks.

Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Prague and Vienna. They’re both incredibly lovely cities. They definitely bear some similarities to one another, but also the divergence of their histories in the second half of the twentieth century definitely left a mark. I just wish we’d had time to see them more fully. But, I feel that way about everywhere. In fact, our rush through Southern France (next blog post! coming soon!) has similarly left me desperate for more.

Until next time…