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Posted on by Rick Steves

Prague Trumps Rothenburg

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is Prague, Czech Republic.

I’m currently on a Central European swing, updating my guidebooks: Budapest, Prague, Vienna, Munich. Being back in Prague reminds me of how that city first broke down the Iron Curtain in my guidebooks many years ago.

On a research trip back in the 1990s, I was on a train heading to Rothenburg to update the ultimate medieval town in Germany, as I did nearly every year. For a decade, I’d been diligently visiting to check the woodcarvings, walk the old wall, visit the toy museum and the medieval crime-and-punishment museum, and check in with old friends who run the hotels and restaurants that serve the town’s hordes of tourists. The work was almost mechanical. Socially, it was a happy homecoming. The ramparts and cute lanes were filled with my readers, who cheered me on. I loved going to Rothenburg.

This was just a couple of years after the end of the Cold War. The obvious new frontier of European tourism was the mysterious East. The former Warsaw Pact countries were now wide open and eager to welcome Western travelers. I knew that sooner or later, I’d tackle the region and expand my guidebook coverage there. But it was overwhelming, and, psychologically, it was easy to just keep redoing the Rothenburgs of Western Europe. I was daunted by the job — a bit lazy…dreading the unavoidable truth that if I was to cover Europe, I would now need to stretch east.

I was rattling down the tracks in the direction of Rothenburg, when I realized the very train I was on would end its run in Prague. I started comparing the value of spending the next three days in Rothenburg versus doing a groundbreaking research stint in Prague. I stayed on that train and didn’t get off until the Golden City of a Hundred Spires. I jumbled my itinerary a bit to accommodate the new job, and what followed was one of the most exciting and rewarding weeks of research I can remember. I left with Prague now in the realm of what we covered.

That first Prague chapter needed a home, and the only home we had for it was splicing it into our existing Germany, Austria & Switzerland guidebook. What was called “GAS” in my office would now be “GASP.” (Over the years, GASP became GAS, then GA…until finally there were separate guidebooks for each of the four destinations, including Prague.)

With the beautiful co-author partnership of Honza Vihan (our good friend and super guide from Prague), Prague joined the elite league of cities that merited their own Rick Steves guidebook (along with London, Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome). Cameron Hewitt took this Czech nucleus and expanded into another five countries (which I termed the “Louisiana Purchase” of Europe) — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia — co-authoring my Eastern Europe guidebook, and then two others (on Croatia & Slovenia and Budapest). Today Eastern Europe is fully integrated into our Europe-wide program, with four different guidebooks and six different bus tour itineraries.

And it all started in that year when Rothenburg went unresearched and a seed was planted in Prague.

Comments

10 Replies to “Prague Trumps Rothenburg”

  1. That must’ve been an exhilarating adventure! It’s a lesson to all travelers: as nice as it is to be in familiar environs, nothing beats coming across a new and exciting location for the first time (as I just found out in my first trip to Brazil just a few weeks ago!). RS guides cover most of Europe now … but I hope you continue to expand into new places and to unearth new “back doors” for yourself and your loyal fans. Keep up the good work!

  2. I agree and can see how it happens, every year when we talk about our next trip I would like to go to Eastern Europe, but Italy and other places just get in the way! Anyone that I know that have visited Poland Hungary Czech have really enjoyed it. The year we went to Praque, it was on a trip through Rothenberg!

  5. I agree with thinker and stay on topic. Both have a valid point of view. For the rest of us who might want to be aware of what’s going on in the world, I recommend Pulitzer Prize winning author Nicholas Kristof’s book “Halfway To The Sky” It will shock, open your eyes, provide insights to places you might not want to support with your travel dollars and help you value women who, as a Chinese parable acknowledges, “hold up half the sky”

  6. Rick, It’s always interesting to read your Blog and insights into European destinations. I haven’t been to Prague yet but it’s on my list, and I’ll probably see it for the first time on one of your tours. Although I know the group wants to “stay on topic”, I just returned from two months in Europe, which included your Greece tour and as always the information in your Guidebooks provided me with an awesome and problem-free trip. Keep up the great work!

  7. Nice post! By the way, if you have any intentions of visiting Red Light District, you should check out The Amsterdam Red Light Guide

  8. Loved Prag when my husband and I visited the Tschek Republic and my birthplace Brünn. You never mentioned Brünn or Brno as they now call it just as you did not mention the accomplishments of German speaking people who lived and worked there. My great grand father, Edwin Filipek born 1845 for instance ,came from Switzerland. I would really like to hear you add some of this history to your next update.

  10. Hi Rick- Just returned from a quick 2 week trip to Prague/Budapest/London. Thank you so much for your insights. If not for you we would have missed a delightful day in Cesky Krumlov(lunch on the river as suggested) Your suggestions regarding both Prague and Budapest were spot on, beautiful cities. Although we couldn't work up the courage to bathe at the Szechenyi baths(Gellert instead)

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