Oh Prague… I think my whole group came away with mixed feelings, and not just because of a certain lost passport. On one hand, Prague has a well deserved reputation for being one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Thankfully the Prague metro area was never targeted by Allied bombing raids, and escaped the worst of the damage that most of central Europe suffered. They also made a larger effort than most capitals to preserve their old town, making most of it into pedestrian-only streets. Of course, that reputation has not remained a secret and we saw crowds unlike those in any other city we visited here. And these were crowds so dense that there were times that it was hard to walk around the parts of the old town, and attractions that filled up so that we were unable to visit. While this put a damper on the logistics of our trip, we were able to enjoy the more limited scope of things we could do. 

Our first night after dinner, we decided to cross the Charles bridge into old town and take some photos. Traffic was light on the bridge and we got lots of time to take our photos, but it was frigid cold. Further into the old town, we spotted another Christmas market and a very large tree. It was wonderful getting these unobstructed nighttime shots. But I was exhausted from an early wakeup in Budapest and the flight to Prague, and ended up sleeping over 10 hours that night.

The next morning we got off to a late start, due to me and another friend sleeping much later than normal. We got a late breakfast which turned into lunch at Den Noc, and it wasn’t until nearly 2 p.m. that we mdae our way outta there. At my insistence, we stopped by the John Lennon wall, which was a very quick stop and gawk spot. We walked over to the Prague castle complex next, hoping to get tickets into St. Vittus cathedral and some other palace buildings. However, the ticket office told me that they were sold out for the day. Since we were due to leave on a 5:30 a.m. bus to Nuremberg the next morning, we were left to just wander around the castle grounds and take photographs from the outside. We also got some mulled wine at a Christmas market there, and a drink called Grog which is a disgusting water-rum-sugar mixture. Heading out from there to the castle ramparts, we were met with a blessing in disguise. The sun was low, casting golden-hour lighting all over the old town and riverbank. We each positioned ourselves at a “window” of the rampart, and spent something like a half hour just admiring the changing of colors over the city. One by one, the golden light of the sun was replaced with that of lights that flickered on as the day’s light continued to fade. We were all so glad to get this opportunity to observe the city in peace, and each reflect to ourselves before joining back with the throngs of tourists.

The rest of that night was dedicated to getting paperwork ready for our friend who had lost his passport. Our two other friends pushed ahead with the 5:30 a.m. bus to Nuremberg to meet our other two friends, who were taking an early train down from Berlin. I volunteered to stay behind and vouch at the American Embassy in case my friend needed backup to get his emergency passport. Waking up at 8 a.m. for this task was a godsend compared to that earlier bus ride. After we were done filing the paperwork, we were told that the agency would need time and that we should come back in the afternoon. After checking out of the AirBnB and dropping luggage temporarily at the Prague bus terminal, we had a bit of time to kill. Despite our earlier struggles at Den Noc, the pancakes were good enough that we decided to go back. We followed that up with a visit to the Jewish quarter and synagogue, partially because we hoped the entrance fee would reduce the crowd size (which it did). The synagogue itself was intricately decorated and stunning, but it still had a more homely feel to me than most churches do. Geometric patterning was the focus of the decor, which I really admired. The stained glass was especially captivating, too. I personally thought it was really meaningful that a place could convey its holiness by just the shapes that appear in mathematics and nature. The rest of our visit led us through a graveyard, and texts from the Holocaust which had hit then-Czechoslovakia very hard. After we finished our somber reflections there, my friend went back to the American embassy to check on his passport, while I continued to wander around and take photos nearby. It was a good thing he went to inquire, because they told him that their computer had malfunctioned and they hadn’t been able to make the passport yet. He prompted them to try restarting the system, which worked and allowed them to process his passport right away. Once he had it in hand, he texted me to come back to meet him and share an Uber back to the bus terminal. We ended up making it on a 3:30 p.m. bus to Nuremberg, with a new emergency passport and relief that we would see our study abroad friends after all!

Let me spend one last paragraph addressing the crowds we experience in Prague, and how they affected our visit. My stance here and in other places is that crowds shouldn’t be a major deterrence to visiting a place unless it becomes impossible to navigate or plan around them. Although they had bought up all tickets into the Prague Castle buildings, we could have prevented that by planning ahead and buying our tickets that morning, or online. Despite not having them, we still managed to enter the castle and enjoy a lovely sunset. We managed to avoid lengthy waits for restaurants by going to ones off the beaten path near our AirBnB, or eating at off hours (almost 10 p.m. for dinner our second night). Crowds dissipated in the paid area of the Jewish quarter and synagogue, so it was possible to get a reprieve that way. During the daylight hours, crowds on the Charles Bridge across the Vlatta river did get thick enough that we had to slow down our walking pace to that of the traffic flow. But the crowd still moved, and although unpleasant the delay was at most something like 5 minutes. So I personally didn’t find the crowds here to be a reason to avoid visiting. They would have to swell to the level of Venice or Dubrovnik in the summer, volumes where traffic at chokepoints is so thick that you’re left unable to move for several minutes, for me to reconsider a visit. Like with most places, these crowds are seasonal and can be circumvented by visiting Prague in say, January through March or Venice and Dubrovnik in the winter season. So Prague certainly wasn’t too crowded for me to have a good time, and for those of you who are more bothered by crowds, I hope the data points I gave will help you gauge for yourself if these crowd levels are acceptable enough for a visit.