On the road again

This past weekend, we were in Prague for the Christmas markets. As usual, we took loads of pictures. Mostly, we wandered into churches and around the markets drinking mulled wine. While wandering around Prague, I realized that I am getting a bit used to European architecture. A lot of it doesn't impress me as much as it used to. Instead, I find myself comparing cities.

As we walked down Wenceslas Square, we noticed that we could have been in just about any major city. Many cities seem to have this major "shopping street." It was a wide boulevard with major shops on either side of the street. I noticed many of the major European shops. There was Marks and Spencer, Tesco, and I believe a Debenhams! Then there were other chain stores whose names escape me at the moment. As we walked down the street, we were struck by the structural similarity of this "square" to Las Ramblas in Barcelona, the main street in Paris (the name escapes me), 5th Avenue in New York, the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. Change the stores around a bit and we could have been walking down any of these streets.

Later, we wandered into a shopping mall. As we looked down on the glass escalators and open spaces from the top floor, we again realized that we could have been almost anywhere in the world. There was nothing really indicating that we were in Prague. Most signs were symbols rather than language. The shops were international. The restaurants had chain names or English names. The only hint we got that we weren't at "home" was that the menus on the restaurants were written in Czech.