Seven Hours in Prague

It's the very same, of "Good King Wenceslaus" fame

In 2008, I got the chance to visit Prague. I was living in Israel at the time and decided to take a holiday vacation to Ireland. On my way back, I was given the option of a 1-hour or a 7-hour layover in the Czech Republic. Having never been to the Czech republic, I jumped at the opportunity. What better way to find out if a longer trip would be worth the trouble?

Getting to and from the city from the airport was a little bit complicated. You must take the bus to the subway and then the subway will take you into the center of town. It took me about an hour to get to Wenceslaus Square.

First, a very important side note: When you buy your ticket from the bus driver, it has NOT been validated yet. There are yellow boxes scattered on the bus and you must stamp your ticket with a time to be legal for travel. I was fortunate enough to figure this out on my way back, and watched an English woman and her daughter get detained by Czech police as the bus pulled into the airport. They never validated their ticket. Police do check and penalties are strict.

Wenceslaus Square held a powerful personal draw. In Spanish the name sounds (at least to my family) even goofier than it does in English and it was a common nickname that we would use to get someone’s attention if they were being a scatterbrain. The Square is named after Saint Wenceslaus, a Duke immortalized in the Christmas carol, “Good King Wenceslas”.

This is on the top of my list for my next visit

After taking a photo of the monument to share with my parents, I started my stroll down the boulevard towards the river Vlata. Turning the the corner I stumbled onto one of the most amazing views that I have seen. Prague castle was glowing on the hill, reflected in the Vlata like a cruise ship.

While I was wandering around in Prague, I decided to give myself a little bit of an explorer’s challenge: most of the places that I have traveled to have been to ones where I speak the language, or at least one that is sufficiently related to make myself understood.  Well, I don’t speak a lick of Czeck, and it was amazingly disorienting but also liberating to be making my way around town with a map and no help from anybody else.  I’m sure that I could have asked for directions and found an English, Spanish or German speaker.  In general, I’m also a big fan of engaging the people you run into.  But this time, because I had a strict deadline and couldn’t afford to get lost, limiting myself to a map and my eyes made me hyper-aware of all the sights, sounds and experiences around me.  There was no way I could go on autopilot, and I felt myself completed absorbed in the space.  I only ended up spending about 3.5 hours in the city itself—but those few hours are still among the most memorable that I have ever had.

From there, having been walking for a couple of hours, it was time for me to make my way back to the airport. Imagine the surprise that met me there!

I ended meeting a group of students that were visiting Prague and they were from my home town! Even more exciting, one of the girls had her fiddle with her and also played Irish music. The two of us quickly got our instruments out and began to share some tunes. Wouldn’t you know it, a third woman that was also travelling on that flight to Israel had come back from Ireland on the same flight as me and was a professional violinist. I wonder how many impromptu Irish sessions have happened at Prague airport?

Those seven hours were wonderfully well spent, and the only additional cost to me was a few dollars for transportation to and from the airport. It was enough to make me fall in love with Prague. More importantly, I was able to craft a real connection with otherwise strangers while I was in that airport playing some tunes. Would you believe that I am still in touch with those musicians today?