July 18

New City, New Impressions, New Dichotomies.......OR From Jewish Ghettos to Gourmet Pork

The wonder of travel, as opposed to living in a place, is seeing a city for the first time, with few pre-conceived notions or even expectations, and viscerally feeling the impressions of place and time. Small towns may be charming and countryside bucolic, but cities are powerful with distinct personalities created by their architecture, history, pace and dichotomies. 

Walking and looking down, Prague's  cobblestoned streets and mosaic sidewalks evoke memories of Lisbon. Look up and see the magnificent facades of the 19th century houses, the 12th century bridges, the 10th century castle. 

Look again and see the remnants of Stalinesque buildings, modernist statuary and and hulking decaying stadiums built as symbols of Communist power. 

  

(This is Strahov Staduim, the LARGEST stadium in the WORLD - Holds 220,000 people....!!!!! )

• The longest escalator in Prague, and in European Union, is at the Náměstí Míru station at 285 feet (87 m) long and 142.5 feet (43.4 m) high.
• This took us almost 3 minutes to get from top to bottom...!

Look harder and see modern edgy design and Frank Gehry off kilter towers.

And sometimes, see all this in a single place or just one click of the camera's lens.

Yesterday was our day to visit the Jewish Quarter as it is marked on the map, but really the old Jewish ghetto, where Jews lived for hundreds and hundreds of years sometimes under better conditions and sometimes under terrible ones but always still marginalized to a degree, dependent only on the temperament of the resident of the Castle or the winner of a battle or the alliance of a marriage.

Prague is unique in that the Nazis did not destroy it.  And though I am not very knowledgable on my Euro history, it seems that they simply spread over the Czech lands like rolling waves, changing the shape of everything sans a physical battle and battle scars. And so many of the buildings of the ghetto survived including the famous cemetery with thousands of bodies buried on top of each other, enough to raise the terra firma ten feet in some places. 

                        

     

The headstones are worn, some smooth beyond identification, as they lean side to side and back and forth, in a jumbled spookiness a la Tim Burton. 

Only one of the surviving synagogues is still used, the remainder now museums housing Jewish artifacts or more movingly, nothing but walls lined with the names of the 80,000 dead. 

 At the Old-New Synagogue, we had a wonderful impromptu tour and history lesson and at the Spanish Synagogue a surprise at discovering the Moorish architecture and decorative painting. But there are no remaining walls to this ghetto if ever there really were any, as that was not clear. And in between the synagogues are souvenirs shops, and around the corner is Prada and Louis Vuitton,  and the sign asks you to put 5CZK (Divide by 20 to get dollars and you will see how silly the request is) in the box to use and then return the paper yarmelke you have to wear to enter,and although Jews all over want the world 'never to forget...so it can never happen again', there are no photos allowed and the entrance fee is more than the MOMA. 

So from the ghetto, we stopped and sat on what felt like Prague's 5th Ave for a pivo (beer, after all it is the Czech Republic) for Steve and an espresso macchiato for me before we strolled and shopped and stopped again for another pivo and a prosecco before heading to Sansho for dinner.

Some Chowhound postings read months ago were impressive enough to jot a note in my travel book to try this place. The chef is British in Prague doing Asian fusion six course, no you can't pick what you eat, tasting menus for around 900 CZK a person plus wine and tip. 

Ambling up to the small square with tables outside it looked anything but Asian. Inside was spare and light, some bistro tables for two or four, some communal table for sharing. We started with a surprisingly good Czech white while we waited for the courses to come.

*Salmon sashimi with ginger was buttery and bathed in some delicious combination of soy or ponzu and oil and citrus??? I meant to ask the chef but I was too busy scooping up every last drop with my spoon.

*Softshell sliders were small but juicy and meaty, perfectly crispy crabs on a traditional-ish Chinese bun (think pork buns) with wasabi sauce. We could have eaten at least two more each.

*Cold dried aged beef salad with herbs and rice powder, think Thai flavors

*Organic pork belly and watermelon salad. The pork belly was rich and seared and the watermelon a refreshingly crunchy and sweet contrast.

*Baby clams and beef tendons in broth with butter-grilled homemade bread. The bread made to sop up all of the salty broth was delicious but for us the clams and beef tendons were the 'miss' of the night. 

*Main course. Bowl of rice, sauteed veggies, and twelve hour beef. The beef was tender and delicious, the accompaniments not much elevated beyond a Chinese place at home. The Czech red we drank with the last couple of courses was another good recommendation. 

We thanked the chef for a lovely meal, exchanged cards and recommendations - Ours to read our blog about our dinner ; his to get to the large Vietnamese neighborhood in Prague for dinner one night. Vietnamese in Prague and lots of Vietnamese??? Turns out that when this country was Communist, there was a lot of immigration from Vietnam............. North Vietnam!!! Makes sense but seemed so odd to us. 

We left for our walk to the metro, one excellent leftover from Communism. 

Along the way we encountered a couple who appeared to be confused about which metro to take. I have no idea why Steve stopped thinking HE could help them with his limited Prague metro experience and non existent Czech, and he couldn't.......but his ear caught the sound of Spanish, so I jumped in and easily explained.....Va a metro linea verde, Qual es la direccion quieres ir?  Va aqui. Not great grammer but they clearly understood.  And since they were from Northern Spain, the heartily agreed with me when I to.d them how much we loved San Sebastian and how wonderful the food was there.  It is so easy to pay it forward when you are traveling, even when you have prayers and pork in the same day.