Day TWENTY TWO
Aaand we are out of Germany!
With Tyler down again with a bad case of food poisoning - a German parting gift from a sandwich at the Berlin train station - Sebastian and I decided to leave him in bed and take a 'Prague alternative walking tour'. Now, being a born and raised West Coast American, Sebastian was attracted to the guided tour like a moth to a flame. Nothing wrong with that. I, however, had never been on a guided city tour, and had no desire to ever go on one.
I am so glad I went on this one.
I can't do it justice on here, but I can tell you that the tour is run by Prague Alternative Walking Tours, and covers Czech (youth) society after the fall of communism, the current street art scene and graffiti areas, other local art and art galleries, urban bio gardens, and a brief look at the (secret) headquarters of the Czech branch of the hackers group anonymous. I haven't included photos here, but the hacker HQ has an eco cafe on the first floor, where the only way to buy food or drink is to use bitcoin, or physical labour by form of washing up the dishes.
Our tour guide is one of the only female graffiti and street artists in the capital, a documentary maker and political thinker. She gave us insight into the 'illegal' punk scene before the revolution, contemporary hip hop and graffiti political jigsaw, the Prague grime and D&B scene, and she even showed us her old block of apartments, which were being demolished that very day, where her and other international artists lived and created. At the end of the tour she took us to the Cross Club, a steampunk style club with yet more interesting backstory.
Even though this tour is clearly aimed at foreign tourists, it has a feeling of originality and authenticity to it, which I feel is missing in many of these 'tourist activities' the world over. I think we have forgotten that we (the tourists) go to visit a location or landmark because it is unique, and it is a real thing that has both historical, political or cultural (and sometimes all three) importance to the place it belongs to. Far too often the 'attraction' has been engineered to fit the tourists' wants and needs, and a catch 22 ensues; are we here to look at something interesting, or has something interesting been engineered for us to look at? And pay money to do so? One of the reasons I have no interest at all in visiting Disneyland.
Our party included our bossy but strangely motherly Eastern European guide, Myself, Sebastian (loud American accent and giant camera in hand), a gay guy form our hostel who seemed shy of everyone else's extroverted personalities, and a gender-free American goth woman called Sybil, who was both a source of amusement, mainly for her humorous questions to our guide, and annoyance - again, because of her questions to our guide. A lively bunch in all.
We started in Prague 1, the most historic, affluent and touristy part of the city. We then went north west to Prague 6 and Prague 7 to see a different, more modest side of Prague, and I was able to imagine what life in the capital is actually like away from the buzz of the town centre.
^ Most of the churches in Prague were sold after the revolution to private foreign buyers with the only requirement being that they maintained the buildings. this has resulted in a lot of beautifully restored and well kept private churches which are not open for public services, but can be rented out for private functions, such as birthday parties.
^ The Prague TV tower, voted ugliest building in Europe, the black dots on the coloumns are actually sculptures of giant black babies with no faces, representing the fragile new Czech Republic and the unknown direction for their future.
The apartment block formally known as home to our tour guide
I thought I would include this last picture as I felt it was quite well juxtaposed to our interesting and alternative day. Sebastian's Netflix-ing was compromised. Never mind, Tyler was better in time to join us for beer and cards. Naturally.
And no. This is not an ad.
Find their website here:http://www.praguealternativetours.cz/prague-alternative-tour/
and our tour guide's HBO documentary on female graffiti gangs in Prague here: http://www.girlpowermovie.com/
next: Prague | Day 23
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