walki-talki.com Travel Blog

Footsteps: Milan Kundera’s Prague - Trumping the Unbearable Darkness of History | Travel | New York Times

The summer travel season is ushered in every year by a bevy of articles on the top travel destinations. The above cited article in the New York Times is no exception, but it is noteworthy for its style and its subject. It is a beautifully complex essay on one of the most complex cities in Europe. 

Nicholas Kulish uses perhaps the greatest contemporary novel on Prague to put the recently opened museum of communism in Prague in its proper perspective. This great Novel is Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and, according to Kulish, the diminutive size and status of the new Museum of Communism clearly demonstrate how the Czech spirit has triumphed thoroughly. 

Kundera’s brilliant novel paints a beautiful portrait of Bohemian spirits that bend under the crushing weight of the Soviet Union but fail to break. Kundera’s masterpiece imparts to the reader a remarkably deep appreciation of how free spirited people (literally Bohemians in this case) suffered and perished under the Soviet yoke and of how the Czech spirit survived, nevertheless.  

As Kulish recounts, the Czechs have triumphed thoroughly over communism, and they have elected to give communism its proper place in Czech history: a small chapter, an afterthought, an insignificant episode in the 1300-year history of Prague. While other cities like Berlin and Warsaw have erected more significant monuments to this ugly chapter in their histories, the residents of Prague have elected to dedicate a tiny space to their communist chapter to leave no doubt about how much they care about the communist era.

Prague has no shortage of attractions, but if you want to learn of Prague’s communist past, the Museum of Communism is located in the center of the city near the Mustek. The Mustek is stop number four on the walki-talki.com self guided mp3 audio walking tour of Prague. 

You should go to Prague!

Payam

La Biennale di Venezia: Dance. June 14-30, 2007

La Biennale is perhaps the greatest art exhibit on the planet. It is now well under way in Venice, and you have until the 30th of June to partake in the dance portion of La Biennale. You really should partake in this event because there are no bonehead judges of the sort in the “reality” television series. It is the highest form of the art, performed on stage for your enjoyment and intellectual enrichment, should you choose to take a break from your vacation.

So, grab a copy of the walki-talki.com mp3 walking tour of Venice, and enjoy La Biennale.

Many more events remain in La Biennale, which officially lasts through November. We will bring you updates as they draw closer.

Blackfriars bridge is stop number 5 on the walki-talki.com tour of London. In 1982, it was the site of a ghastly death. This week, five men accused of the murder were cleared of the crime in Rome. The court found insufficient evidence to convict the accused. Surprisingly, the first inquest in the UK concluded that Mr. Roberto Calvi, a troubled Banker living in Canada, had decided to commit suicide by hanging himself from Blackfriars Bridge one early morning.

Well, whatever the truth may be, as you wander about Blackfriars Bridge, feel free to wonder whether this was a suicide or a murder. Or whether the Mafia is reality or entirely the figment of the active imagination of people like Mario Puzzo and Francis Ford Copola.

Payam

Photo by Bruno Girin.