Trip to Czech Republic

by John McCafferty

Trip to Czech Republic...






Trinity Church at Night Behind Town Hall and Astronomical Clock, Prague, Czech Republic

Photographic Print

Nebesky, Richard


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Our visit to Prague was a sad one. Our dear friend, Milan Horak, a retired chemistry professor at Charles University there, died two weeks before we arrived. His daughter, Stepanka, emailed us the news while we were communicating with her about lodging in Prague, and the news was crushing. We had loved that old guy, and had brought him about $20 worth of amusing American stamps, which he used to bargain in adding to the expensive and rare stamps he collected from around the world. Somehow, those stamps made me sadder.

While teaching in Prague in 1992-93, we had lived in the downstairs portion of Milan and Ruzhena's lovely home in the suburbs, where they and many friends had built imaginatively designed and attractive homes during the bad time of Soviet domination. The neighborhood, on a hill not far from Prague Castle, was a monument to free spirits and creativity.

We knew the address of the house, but didn't think we'd need a map. We were sort of right about that, but the city seemed to be somehow different from our stay there years ago. It seemed bigger to the point of vast, and it was shockingly crowded -- and a little dustier. The towering, centuries-old buildings downtown hadn't changed, of course, maybe been spruced up a bit, but - they looked different. It was probably we who were different. You can't go home again. You can, of course, but it will be somehow different.


Read more about trip to Czech Republic here.