What is it about Prague?

Since my return I’ve been pondering just why Prague has so captured my heart and my imagination during my two relatively short visits. It doesn’t have for me the special religious and spiritual attraction of Assisi, though I have found worshipping at Saint Clement’s deeply satisfying.  Neither does it have the profound personal significance of Oxford, where I studied and grew up and fell in love.

Yet Prague shares many of the characteristics which make both Oxford and Assisi so unforgettable. It is ancient and historic and quite extraordinarily beautiful. Its most significant buildings have somehow survived the ravages of time, natural disaster and human conflict and neglect and today, skilfully preserved or restored, they provide a memorable illustration of a thousand years of architectural innovation and genius.

St George's Basilica - C12th Romanesque

Tiny side-street church in the New Town

The Old-New Synagogue - C12th Gothic

Modernist house on the Baba Model Housing Estate 1932

Like Assisi and Oxford, Prague has an importance which stretches far beyond national boundaries, as is shown by the visitors from every part of the world who throng its historic streets.  However, unlike them Prague is a capital city, the seat of government for a nation now making its way in the modern world after the isolation and stagnation of almost half a century of communist rule.

Government building, Prague Castle

Embassy in the Little Quarter

Though its beauty and sense of history are a big part of what fascinates me about Prague, another factor is that it is a city on a human scale. Despite being far larger than Assisi or even Oxford, its historic centre still lends itself to being explored comfortably and pleasurably on foot and alone. It divides very neatly into four main areas – the Old Town, the New Town, the Jewish Quarter and, across the Charles Bridge, the Little Quarter (Mala Strana) and Prague Castle. Each of these has its own distinct personality and a plethora of sites to visit and admire.



Old Town Square



Crowded gravestones in the old Jewish Cemetery

Architecture and trees in the New Town

The ubiquitous tram

In addition, if you want to venture beyond the main tourist haunts, Prague makes it easy by being the proud possessor of an extremely efficient and cheap integrated public transport system. Even a country bumpkin like me had no difficulty whatever in hopping on and off the very regular and frequent trams, buses and metro trains to get to wherever I wanted to go. With their aid and armed with comfortable shoes and a good city guide and map, the whole of Prague is your easily opened oyster.

But Prague is more than simply its historic buildings, however beautiful and numerous they are. It is also a wonderfully green city, full of tree-lined streets and squares, and with a wide variety of lovely parks and public gardens, large and small. This makes it surprisingly easy to move from bustling, crowded streets to find oneself almost or even totally alone in a green space or a tiny, winding lane.

Kampa Park, Little Quarter

The village in the city

C14th Michle Madonna - St Agnes Convent

And when you are tired of discovering the streets and buildings or strolling through the parks, you can explore the superb art-galleries and museums, or go to one of the many concerts which are such a feature of Prague life, or simply sit with a coffee or some great (and cheap) Czech beer and watch the world go by.

Anyone who reads my blog is likely to have spotted that I am a country girl at heart.  I have visited a fair number of cities and lived in a couple for short periods when I was young, but I could never imagine myself actually living happily in a city until I visited Prague. If any city could change this country mouse into a town mouse, it would be Prague. I don’t think it will happen, but it’s interesting to realise that the little nugget of potential is there.