Photo: Barbora Navrátilová, Radio Prague International
Prague was recently featured on the New York Times travel guide 36 Hours – where journalists give their best recommendations for local gems and places that tourists may not find in their guide book. I caught up with writer Evan Rail to talk about the process of putting his Prague guide together.
When you sat down to make the 36 Hours in Prague guide, how did you strike a balance between the “must-see” sites of the city and the other more local areas like Holešovice and Karlín?
“The premise of 36 Hours in Prague and the New York Times column itself is not to replace a guide book. In general, we think that the reader has a guide book or a list of important historical sites. So what we try to do instead is touch on some of those historical sites, but in a way that shows a different way of getting there then you might have gotten in a guide book.
“For example, we say, yea go to Prague Castle, but you might get overwhelmed by the crowds, so if you do – go to the Deer Moat, it’s really beautiful and quiet, and most people don’t know about it. It’s recently been reopened, and it’s probably not listed in your guide book. The southern garden of the Castle is also a little bit hard to find, but if you do get in there, you have wonderful views over the Old Town and Malá strana and you’re also away from the crowds.
“So it’s not so much about hitting all of those historic sites, it assumes that the reader knows about them, but it tells them about other sites they can see that aren’t common knowledge.”
See the rest here.
Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt