Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION TOPRAGUE
With almost a thousand years of architecture virtually untouched by natural disaster or
war, few other cities anywhere in Europe truly compare to Prague. Straddling the slow-
moving River Vltava, with a steep wooded hill to one side, the city retains much of its
medieval layout and the street facades remain smothered in a rich mantle of Baroque,
Rococo and Art Nouveau, all of which successfully escaped the vanities and excesses of
twentieth-century redevelopment.
For forty years the city lay hidden behind the Iron Curtain, seldom visited by Westerners and
preserved in the formaldehyde of Communist inertia. All that changed with the end of to-
talitarian rule in 1989, and now Prague is one of the most popular city-break destinations in
Europe, with a highly developed tourist industry and a list of attractions many other cities in
central and Eastern Europe can only envy from afar. Its emergence as one of Europe's leading
cities has come as a surprise to some - but not the Czechs themselves. After all, Prague was at
the forefront of the European avant-garde for much of the twentieth century, boasting a Cubist
movement second only to the one in Paris, and, between the wars, a modernist architectural
flowering to rival Germany's Bauhaus.
Today Prague is back at the heart of Europe where it has always felt it belonged - no longer
an Eastern Bloc city but a cultured Western-leaning metropolis. It is more than a quarter of a
centurysincethefallofCommunism,andanentiregenerationhasgrownupfeelingverymuch
part of a wider, united continent. The Czech capital has changed in recent years, and mostly
forthebetter-boastingmoreandbetterrestaurants,newhotelsandimprovedroads-butwith
the Czech crown riding (too) high and prices rising across the board it is no longer quite the
budget destination it once was. The stag and hen parties of the 1990s may have moved on to
pastures new - to the relief of many - but one thing you can be sure of is that the beer is still
cheaper, and better, in this beautiful old city than anywhere else in Europe.
