Reflections regarding Sunday September 15, 2024 in Prague, Czechia
When planning our adventure, everyone from family to strangers who heard about our itinerary would ask me, “Why three weeks in Prague?” Typically, when people think of Prague, they think it is a two-to-three-day visit. Plenty to see, but not enough for more than a few days. Maybe a week at most. Here is why I thought it made sense to stay in Prague for three weeks:
1) It was much more budget friendly than the rest of Europe. Our accommodation was well below budget, public transportation is cheap (kids ride free!), tourist sites were either free or relatively cheap, and daily living costs such as food were much lower.
2) Prague is clean, calm, serene, with far less crime. Elementary age children take public transportation on their own to school without much worry.
3) Educationally, it was going to be a great city to learn about history and Jewish history. The city has all of the great aspects of being in the European Union and feeling part of the “Western” world while serving as a gateway to Eastern Europe. Czechia uses its own currency and its language is a Slavic language, not Latin based. I imagined that we would feel far more foreign in Prague than other places we were visiting – an experience I wanted us to have because I thought it would help us get comfortable with being a little more uncomfortable as we moved further east. This proved very helpful before going to Naples and Athens, where even fewer people speak English and the cultural vibes and physical spaces are completely different than to what we are accustomed.
4) Prague’s Jewish community buildings managed to escape the devastation the Nazi regime brought upon the rest of European Jewry. The Nazis had wanted to preserve the Jewish Ghetto for a future Jewish Museum after all the Jews were gone. They lost. We would be able to witness 800 years of continuous Jewish history preserved in Prague. Simply unheard of elsewhere in Europe.
I must admit, I was nervous about my choice, but after three weeks there, I highly recommend a much slower paced visit to Prague for future travelers. In addition to the breathtaking views, we had opportunities to enjoy ourselves in the parks, visit areas tourists normally don’t go, and, overall, have time to process all that we were seeing and experiencing. It was the perfect place to start the school year. Most days we spent half the day doing “formal” schooling and then we took a field trip somewhere, either a park or into town for kosher food or a museum visit. With such excellent public transportation, we never had to think twice about whether going out made sense. There were also days where we took a full day field trip to explore something special in the city, like the Prague Zoo. We never would have made it there had we not spent as much time in Prague. For a brief moment we considered taking day trips outside of Prague. However, we gave this up pretty quickly when we realized there was so much to enjoy in Prague still.
The boys absolutely loved Prague. Part of the reason they loved the city so much is because we finally slowed down our travel pace. Another reason is that they thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere. They could tell that I was much more relaxed in Prague and willing to let them roam further away from me. They were the first to notice that kids seemed to be much more independent in Prague, traveling solo on buses and trains, and walking around town. As Amichai said, “It’s just a different vibe. Like a good vibe.” Even though our flat had no oven, only one couch, six chairs, all of the boys had to sleep in the same room, and it was a sauna without AC for most of our stay, our children had grown fond of our “home” in Prague and fell in love with the city itself. As we were leaving our flat for the last time, each boy made a point of saying goodbye to every single item in the flat before exiting. We were all sad to leave such a welcoming, safe, and charming city rich with history and so much to do.