Prague Castle

PRAGUE, Czech Republic- “I’m glad we did that so we don’t have to do it again,” my wife said as we were walking out of the Prague Castle tourism zone.

There is like a once per visit rule when it comes to a city’s main tourism attraction — you go to Beijing, you go for a walk along the Great Wall; you go to Cairo you go to the pyramids; you go to …

… I’ve been to Cairo twice but never visited the pyramids.

… I’ve been to Paris twice but never went to the Eiffel Tower.

So much for that argument.

When I first came to Prague in 2008 I went to the castle. When I returned in 2016 with my family I went to the castle. Yesterday, upon coming back to Prague once again, I went to the castle. You go there, pack yourself in with the crowds, say, ‘Yup, that’s pretty neat,’ and move on to other places that are actually interesting.

Like the Great Wall, the Prague castle area is a nice place to walk around in, the architecture is beautifully grotesque — truly something to admire. It’s full of tour groups, it’s crowded, it’s the antithesis of interesting. You’re not going to learn anything valuable out there — sure, some king preferred to bang tons of women instead of getting a wife and his family didn’t like it — but a visit to Prague would be a little lacking without seeing this side of the place.

But now that I saw it again I can go back to Prague 6 and drink my beer with the laobaixing and doing what I really like: asking people questions, collecting stories.