Czech chilling
By Nancy Shute, U.S.News
January 20. 2003

The Charles Bridge was beautiful, its stone arches looping their way gracefully across Prague’s Vlata River. But instead of T-shirt-clad backpackers peering up at the statues of saints and martyrs lining the 14th-century bridge, there were schoolchildren bundled in parkas and bright scarves. And the two young women playing classical guitar midway down the span were wearing half-fingered-gloves. The women smiled, despite the fact that their breath was white in the December air, and I was happy to stop and listen, leaning over the parapet to see the towers of Old Town glowing in the soft winter sun.

Europe in winter offers ample compensation for the lack of outdoor cafes. Better prices, for sure. This year, cashstarved airlines are practically begging people to fly, dangling London for just over $ 300 round trip (plus two nights‘ free hotel), Prague for $ 400. And many cultural highlights – be they opera in Prague or cassoulet in Lyon – are soley winter treats. There’s also a subtle sense that in the off-season, the great cities of Europa are more truly themselves. Twilight falls at 5 p.m.; the people in the neighborhood bar are likely to be neighbors.

Even before I arrived in Prague I was feeling good about the trip, thanks to the $ 125 rate I’d snagged on the Internet for the new Hotel Josef, in a city where hotels are notoriously spendy. This 110-room boutique hotel is sleek and bright, tucked along a crooked street right in the midst of Old Town. I delighted in my modish room, with its chrome-and-glass desk and DVD player, and the the view of the medieval towers of the Church of Our Lady of Tyn, which wouldn’t look out of place in The Lord of the Rings.

Cold comfort. I felt even better after lunch at Kolkovna, a light-filled, cheery Old Town pub where I feasted on terrific beef goulash, potato pancakes, and Czech dumplings, washed down with plenty of Pilsner Urquell on tap, all for $ 6.

It was a pleasure to walk the unfamiliar streets, coming by chance across the city’s wild contrasts. Europe’s oldest synagogue, the 13th-century Old-New Synagogue, stands not far from where Franz Kafka grew up – and just around the corner from chic Parizska Street, with its Polo Ralph Lauren shop. The Gothic Powder Gate stands shoulder to shoulder with the art nouveau exuberance of the Municipal House. You can eat wild boar with mushrooms at U Modre Kachnicky or Thai ginger-curry cod at Pravda. There’s the peaceful park on Kampa Island and the bustle of the grand boulevard of Wenceslas Square, where Czech families shop and stroll on Saturdays and where 250,000 people gathered to cheer the end of communism in 1989. Every now and again the chill air drove me into one of the city’s glorious cafes – cool, modern Square or the bookstore Globe – to warm up with a cappuccino while listening to Russians at the next table talk art or handsome Canadian teach English to a pretty Czech blond.

Winter is the time for classical music in Europe’s great halls, whether it’s Rome’s new Parco della Musica or Paris’s Opera Bastille. Music-loving Prague is no exception. Any winter night boasts dozens of performances, from three full-time opera theaters to multiple chamber groups and solo recitals. Tickets are a bargain by U.S. standards ($ 20 for a good first-balcony seat), as long as you stay away from the overpriced chamber groups sawing through The Four Seasons for the tourist trade. I indulged in two operas in three days, the first La Traviata at the State Opera, a plush hall awash in red velvet and cherubs that was opened in 1888 by Prague’s prosperous German community. And I couldn’t resist The Magic Flute at the Theatre of the Estates, where Mozart himself directed the premiere of Don Giovanni in 1787. The endearingly threadbare little blue-and-white box was so small that the young, ardent singers seemed close enough to touch. Walking back to the hotel, flitting down the dark and narrow lane with their violin cases – fitting guides for a Prague winter night.