While waiting to be served at a Cardiff Restaurant last week, I couldn’t help overhearing the large party on the adjacent table, discussing the merits of European cities they had visited. They were talking loudly, probably because they wanted the rest of the group to hear. One woman said “I did Prague”. The expression grated with me.
Charles Bridge, Prague
Prague is a wonderful city. It deserves more than to be “done”. Hearing this made me ponder why I travelled there in 2003.
It was a period of my life when everything seemed to be going wrong. I went because it had all but beckoned me through books, films and even pop videos. The experience was truly therapeutic.
I stayed in a cheap hostel with Soviet Era plumbing in the communal wash room. I walked, took the metro and trams all over the city. I ate with locals at cafés in the suburbs avoiding the tourist restaurants in the Old Town and city centre. I had many conversations with Czech locals and Russian Ex pats living in Prague. I even went to the Opera twice.
But did I do Prague?
My week in the city gave me a very small idea of what life was about in the city. The Museum of Communism gave another another insight. Inside in a display case were little lumps of lead and other heavy metals. The explanatory caption explained that the quantities shown were the average amounts breathed in over a year by a Czech inhabitant.
Shocking!
But is it any more shocking than flying out to Prague for a drunken Hen / Stag Party or flying there just to be able to say; “I did Prague”?
