Prague

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Introduction

Czechs these days have success on their minds. It’s proving to be an idea that takes getting used to. It’s easy to look successful, of course – in fact the country’s top new magazine recently advised its readers that this is a great first step to actually becoming successful.

 

This Dale Carnegie-style thinking is decidedly not what Bohemians are used to (though a surprising number of them are into mysticism of many flavours and any stripe of it that’s useful in acquiring a BMW would surely be a hit in Prague). In fact, it’s good to check twice before venturing across the street in the city’s money-mad Nové Mêsto district, lest a freshly minted executive flatten you while enjoying the trappings of corporate life.

Pedestrianised Staré Mêsto is a safe bet, though. Feel free to crane your neck while walking around its blackened Gothic churches, pubs and townhouses. You’re at little risk of loss of life. The only thing likely to flatten you here is a pack of beautiful young things headed off for a night of clubbing. In few other places in the world, except possibly Russia, are the newly on-the-go so eager to snap up status items and then put them on public dispay. Invariably good for a laugh, you may swear you’ve just stumbled into a fashion shoot for Cosmopolitan or GQ when you run into one of these impossibly good-looking bon vivants.

 

Fortunately the city’s signature architecture isn’t yielding so quickly to the more livable and efficient glass and steel shopping malls and offices. They’re popping up, of course, but the old centre of town, with its timeless, even melancholy feel, will probably never surrender fully to the free market.

 

Or, as one hack recently put it (and it was one who actually produces books, rather than just tossing concepts about in pubs with the rest of us), the city’s not really so tragic. There are many that have suffered far worse fates from centuries of occupation in this part of Europe. Rather, Prague has ‘a gravity’. Readers of Kafka would certainly agree to that.

An odd quality in a place that’s so clearly on the move. Perhaps, for all the quantum leaps in efficiency, customer service, reliability, transparency, healthy living and democratic reforms, life in Prague manages to remain well grounded somehow. In times of such tectonic change, that’s a blessing indeed – and may be the only way to stay sane.

Whatever the case, in their race to be as Westernised as humanly possible, Czechs do generally manage to keep things wonderfully in perspective. No matter how demanding the new career, mortgage, shopping and dressing up (or down), there’s always time for a beer or five with a friend. And no job yet has caused anyone to stop flirting, joking or debating the latest cocktail.

 

So here’s your chance to get the scoop they’ve all been seeking – and no crushed ice, fresh mint or Cointreau is required. This killer intoxicant is simply known as Prague.

 

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