Ever since Budapest became the new Prague, I've been wondering where the new Budapest (or, perhaps, new new Prague) would be. The answer turns out to be Krakow. This, in turn, is sort of too bad because I'm pretty sure that in the past I've pretended to have visited Krakow and if more Westerners start going, that's going to be hard to pull off plausibly.
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Krakow
27 May 2007 11:03 am
Comments (32)
"Ever since Budapest became the new Prague, I've been wondering where the new Budapest (or, perhaps, new new Prague) would be. The answer turns out to be Krakow."
That's a no-brainer. You could see Poland coming from a mile away.
"This, in turn, is sort of too bad because I'm pretty sure that in the past I've pretended to have visited Krakow and if more Westerners start going, that's going to be hard to pull off plausibly."
Pretend to have visited Vladivostock instead. That place ain't going to become hip before we're old 'n' grey.
Oddly enough, Petey and I had the exact same thought regarding Vladivostok.
If you need a way to sneer at people who are into Krakow, try Gdansk. It's small and dark and has a lot of history (including Walesa).
That is one of the strangest things to pretend. Maybe you'll have to go there and pretend to be going back for a second visit. Then you could talk at cocktail parties about how much it's changed.
I second the Gdansk suggestion, though it's rebuilt old city is often sneered at for being both Disneyland-like (by Gunther Grass, who hails from there, among other people).
A quick lexis nexis (using the year 2005) search reveals these cities as "new Prague" contenders (and these are just chosen from the IHT):
Kiev, Ukraine;
Krakow, Poland;
Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Tallinn, Estonia;
Riga, Latvia
and Vilnius, Lithuania
I can attest that Krakow, Gdansk, and Ljubljana are excellent choices...especially Ljubljana.
I'm pretty sure that in the past I've pretended to have visited Krakow
I agree that this is a pretty funny thing to pretend; it says a good deal about the circle of acquaintances one would like to impress. Harmless, though, I guess.
Krakow is way cooler than Prague. Wawel Castle, Cloth Square and the Wielecka Salt mines, supposedly the longest continuously running commercial enterprise. The miners sculpted scenes from Polish history in the salt. They even sculpted a life sized statue of Pope John Paul (former Archbishop of Krakow) in a cathedral completely made of salt, including the working chandeliers. Have a kielbasa and a beer hundreds of meters underground at the cafe. And check out the cellar bars around Cloth Square, the largest city plaza west of Minsk. I went into one on a saturday night and it was full of Poles dressed in traditional garb doing polkas. It wasn't a show for tourists - its how Poles spend their Saturday night. Whats not to love? Maybe Auchwitz, about an hour trainride down the rail.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Described when I was there as 'Prague without the tourists'.
You might also try Kotor in Montenegro: now that Montenegro is free of Serbia a definitely up and coming hotspot. Last year, NO tourists were there other than my group.
The Archbishop himself gave us a tour of the Cathedral. Now, that's hospitality and unspoiled
turf!
Riga is very pretty and quite interesting. Prices are likely to not be that low for much longer, though, if they could even be thought to be low now. (I was there 7 year ago and it was already much more expensive than Russia.) Vladivostok is reported to be beautiful in nature and a hell-hole in the man-made parts. It's very expensive to get to for the most part, or at least was when I considered it. Flights from outside of Russia were rare and expensive as were boats. Too bad. Probably the best way to go is to take the full 7 day Trans Siberian and then fly back to Moscow. Russia in general is great to visit but makes it extremely difficult for visitors and quite hard especially for 'backpackers' since you need to keep getting yoru visa registered, outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg you'll have a hard time if you don't know Russian or have a guide, etc.
Petey and Brian U. --
Don't be so hasty about Vladivostok. It's already creeping up one crucially important metric of hip: getting mentioned in Canadian indie rocks songs. (So indie, apparently, that the amazon page is the only thing I can find to link to: http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Other-Rogue-States-Doucet/dp/B000B5S920)
As long as we're on the subject, another up-and-coming hotspot is Tbilisi. Its tourism among the under-30 set grew dramatically between 2005 and 2006, and observers expect another huge increase this summer lasting through about mid-October.
It's gotta be Tallinn.
Why not just trump them and skip a couple of levels in striving for hipness and say that you had considered returning to Vladivostok, but had decided that this year there was too much going on in Orlando or Little Rock for you to ignore.
Also, this post echoes some of the same shedding of faux sophistication as the Starbucks music post. I sense an internal struggle coming.
Ljubljana, Slovenia is definitely a contender for the spot: a beautiful castle, lovely restaurants by the river, etc. Though it is perhaps too consciously vying for this position. My vote is for Zagreb, Croatia, which has far fewer tourists than Ljubljana, but still very nice features and services. The disadvantage to the low tourist population is that there are fewer interesting restaurant, but there are lots of bars where the local population hang out. Sarajevo is also a good choice for the 'somehwat off the beaten track' tourist.
"Also, this post echoes some of the same shedding of faux sophistication as the Starbucks music post. I sense an internal struggle coming."
I'd recommend American Psycho as an excellent distillation of the pitfalls of the "Hip To Be Square" ethos.
Real sophistication is certainly better than faux sophistication. But faux sophistication is better than unsophistication. It at least demonstrates that you're trying.
The skiing around Skopje is quite nice if you are a Byzantine enthusiast.
Posts like this reaffirm my desire to never raise children in New York.
yeah to Ljubljana, Tallinn, etc.; also Dubrovnik, I hear.
It'll be a while before Belgrade gets there, I suspect.
but: when did Budapest become "the new Prague"? I musta missed that. I was both there and in Prague a couple years back and the difference was quite clear. Prague was absolutely choked with tourists walking around videotaping everything; Budapest wasn't.
Definitely Tallinn. Then Tartu.
Seems to me Americans travel abroad far less than other people in the developed world. Does anyone know why?
(I mean, is this discussion for real? Why on earth would visiting East European cities with cute town centers be considered cutting edge? There are other continents, you know)
There's more to Hungary than Budapest; Szeged and Pecs are cool too but I even like Miskolc (the mineral baths in the caves, the cheesy bath and beergarden complex, the lillefured spa (and mountain sightseeing train).
While I'm here, I live in Poland and like Cracow, but the spelling Krakow in English as opposed to Kraków is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen (surpassed only by Kyiv)
If anybody calls you on it, you can justs say, "Oh, Krakaw, I thought you said crackhouse.
Problem solved.
My experience in both Talin and Riga is several years old now and so probably out of date. I also spend a fairly short time in each. But of the two I liked Riga better. The "old city" in Talin is very nice but a bit artificial in a way. The rest of it seemed like it might as well be any Soviet city of modest size. The only real advantage over Riga, it seemed, was the boats to Finland that were common and not too expensive. I found larger parts of Riga to be attractive and the coast to be prettier. Riga also seemed less set up to be a tourist place than Talin did. That said, both were nice but I'd vote for Riga over Talin.
I vote for Vientiane. The coffee and baquettes are much cheaper and the weather is better.
Anywhere with an Ikea less than two years old will do.
Last year I had an "open jaw ticket", and I was flying to Prague, and then I visited Krakow, Zakopane (near Krakow in very nice mountains), Warsaw, Orsha, St. Petersburg and Helsinki (and the flight back to the ever exiting New Jersey).
Orsha should rank very highly on the index of un-hipness. My sleeping car from Warsaw to St. Petersburg was detached from Warsaw-Moscow train and waited 3 hours for Odessa-St. Petersburg train, giving ample time to sample the delights of the 19-century train station and the immediate vicinity.
A big plaque proudly stated that the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union gave the station name of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for something something during WWII. The main hall had a huge painting of Lenin exhorting masses. The restaurant upstairs offered decent dishes of Belorussian and international cousine, and likewise selection of beers. Kiosk on the platform had a variety of snacks and drinks, mostly Belorussian.
Once we departed from Orsha to the north, the landscape changed. Both forests and pastures were much bigger, very few people in sight. The eery twighlights of the "white night" made them look rather melancholic.
By comparison, St. Petersburg is very conventional. Buildings in the center are ca. 100 years old, there are also palaces, museums, fortresses, boat rides on the canals that criss-cross the city, restaurants, fast food both international and Russian (recommended, try blini and kvas). Hotel was a bit expensive (or quite a bit), but I was on a conference.
Getting Russian visa is an adventure all by itself. As a bonus, you do not need a transit visa for Belorus. Trains are very inexpensive compared with Western Europe, you get good linen and a nice pillow, samovar provides you with an unlimited amount of hot water (you can also buy tea, coffee, and soft drinks). Learn some Russian (e.g. from a booklet for tourists) to enjoy it better.
A little detail: there is no "Cloth Square" in Krakow. The main square is called "Rynek" (which basically means "central market place"), and in the middle there are two buildings: "Ratusz" or City Hall (compare with German "Rathaus") and "Sukiennice", a long one-level building not unlike a bazaar, filled with stores.
"Sukiennice" is an old word, but it had to mean that there were trading cloth ("sukno") and/or dresses ("suknie") in that building.
Little details like that will allow you to pretend to be an actual visitor.
"Seems to me Americans travel abroad far less than other people in the developed world. Does anyone know why?"
Maybe because Americans are about 5,000 miles farther away from the Eastern European places we're talking about. I bet Americans visit Canada and Mexico more than other people in the "developed world" do.
As long as the trains through Mitteleurope demand bolted doors to protect you at night, and they do, I'd rather visit Scranton.
Matt, your situation can be easily remedied by going to Kraków, of course. It's worth the effort as it lives up to the hype (I was there last fall). As a bonus, you can get a half-day trip to Auschwitz (1 and a half hour bus trip, plus guided tour) for $100. I know a beautiful tall blonde with high cheek bones in Kraków who can fix you up with an appartment.
I was in Riga a couple of months ago and I didn't like it as much. It doesn't actually have its own cafes. Next door to the hostel where I stayed was a Belgian beer cafe, on the corner there was a Dutch cafe, around the corner there were two or three Irish cafes. Plus stakehouses, coffee chains, casinos, lots and lots of stag parties, etcetera. The Latvian people have become model capitalists.
Comments closed June 10, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Not that this is anything more than tenuously related, but some of my friends, after their return from one guy's brother's bachelor party in Las Vegas, said that we should all go to Vegas at some point next spring as a house. That sounds great, but, assuming I have the money and the vacation time, I was thinking that I'd go on vacation myself. I usually don't like going on vacations, but the thought of going somewhere a little bit exotic, for lack of a better word, had me interested. But where? Russia? London? Brazil? Greece? I really don't know.
Posted by Brian | May 27, 2007 11:24 AM