I won't lie. A few years ago I used to keep seeing posts from this place literally everywhere. From social media pages of tourism to our beloved blockchain where other people discovered The Dancing House before me.
Back then, I was only saying that it's such a beautiful looking building that almost looks unreal. Not even daring to dream about the day when I'll explore Prague on my own. Since then, 3 years passed and my dream came true, along with finally starting to travel outside Romania and get to explore one new country yearly. I know it's not much, but for me, it means a lot. And who knows? Maybe with the passage of time that number will increase more.
But until then, today I have the great pleasure to reveal one more place I explored with my friends, during our stay in Prague from September, 2023.
I know this might seem like a contradiction with what I usually say that I am here to promote less known parts of the world, and especially my home country which has a lot more to offer to tourists than what they expect.
But while my activity keeps focusing on that field, it would be a loss not to stop by those spots that made a city or country more famous in one way or another.
In the end, they earned their popularity with a reason, and no doubt these deserve all the fame in most of the cases.
I'm saying most of the cases because I did meet before some situations where a place was so famous that made the owners pay less attention to maintaining and improving it but more on profits. Which obvisouly, it doesn't deserve the same level of fame they had a while ago. It's just a personal thought.
Anyway, this is not the case for The Dancing House which even if it's a quite recent construction that was finalized in 1996, it did manage to follow a futuristic design that looks very modern even for 2023.
I know there are plenty of buildings out there which come with a design that demotes all the laws of architecture and projection in general, but happily, the world is in a constant change, and the evolution can be felt on all fields, including the buildings architecture which I always enjoyed no matter the century they were part of.
Despite what people would think on a first look, the building is mainly a hotel and a place where conferences are held. So the whole beauty can only be admired from the outside unless you book a night for a proper experience or drink a coffee on the restaurant placed on the 7th floor.
We weren't hungry but rather exhausted after a long day exploring the town, so we satisfied our curiosity only by taking pictures from the outside, as well as trying to get creative while seeming as we push or squeeze the building.
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I've never been expressive in pictures as I'm quite an introvert, so while my pictures ended up as a slighty fail, it was really cool looking at all the people who were taking pictures in this place and which obviously had a lot more creativity than me at that point.
Just imagine how would it be to have a room rented in this hotel and every time you were looking outside the window there would be crowds of people taking pictures of you or posing in weird postures. I think it's really funny.
Along with all the fun around the building, there is also a sad story, as history did leave its scratches over Prague too. That's how, The Dancing House is set on a property that was very important a few decades ago until 1495 when U.S. army bombed Prague and ruined the building.
It took a few years until two creative minds mixed their ideas and set up the project to build The Dancing House that at first was supposed to represent ying and yang that would show the transition from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy.
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The communist buildings that resisted with the passage of time can be seen all around The Dancing House, but the style this one ended up using is known as deconstructivist ("new-baroque" to the designers) architecture due to its unusual shape.
The current shape also became more suggestive representing a couple dancing in the streets rather than the original idea the project had. Hence why the name was supposed to be Fred and Ginger representing these, but as people would remember easier a building under a more suggestive name, they kept "Fred and Ginger" as the actual name of the restaurant that can be found within The Dancing House.
As we've seen both pictures during the day and night shared from The Dancing House before, we couldn't figure out when it's best to admire its beauty so we ended up returning here the next day when we also had some extra energy to rediscover Prague by night.
It was also the idea of my sister who's a freelance photographer and wanted to try some long exposure shots with the traffic around the building, but everyone agreed that it's a good idea to spend some extra time around The Dancing House which, in the end, is not something that you see everyday.
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The memories are rather blurry since we had a stop on a floating terrace before rediscovering The Dancing House, where I had some Becherovka since I was interested in trying some of the traditional brews of Czech Republic.
Obviously, I'm joking as I only had one shot of this, but it was really a strong one which felt even more powerful for my fatigue at the end of the day along with not being a fan of alcohol but only when it's a special ocasion, like someone's birthday or celebrating the new year eve.
That's also the main reason why I mostly focused taking pictures rather than being taken shots of me, but I promise to return with a separate post sharing more thoughts from this experience, as well as what else we tried from the traditional food and drinks of Czech Republic.
The complete address of The Dancing House of Prague is Jiráskovo nám. 1981/6, 120 00 Nové Město, Czechia, and it can be easily accessed from more parts of the city either by bus or tram. There is also the option of renting a taxi which would cost 500 Kč - 650 Kč from Prague Airport to it, taking around 19 minutes depending on the traffic.
Other places I've seen during my stay in Prague:
- The "John Lennon" Wall
- The Nustle Bridge also known as "The Suicide Bridge" of Prague
- Street Art in Prague
- The Dancing House
more coming soon...
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.
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