Prague is popular because it had the good fortune of not being bombed during the War. Due to its enviable strategic superfluous-ness, and consequent architectural survival, the city center is transformed every summer into a tourist-jammed medieval theme park and art deco shopping mall. It is a beautiful city and everywhere you turn you are greeted with a photo-op, but be prepared for crowds of tourists all vying to take the same picture you are. Walking across the Charles River Bridge on a very hot summer's afternoon was slightly reminiscent of riding the Tokyo subway at rush hour, but hotter.

Prague is filled with great hotels, restaurants, shops, unique private venues, and world-class landmarks, so if you are looking for something different, something that will attract attendees or motivate your salespeople and customers, it is a good choice. It's not a big city, so for a longer incentive a two-city split is recommended combining Prague with cities like Vienna, Budapest, or Munich. Looking for a new place for that regional meeting? Prague is good.

We were graciously hosted by our Destination Management Company partner, Columbus Welcome Management - Prague and were in the care of its Managing Director, Roman Rohwasser. He was with us throughout and proved to be the perfect host. Roman arranged for us to stay at the Kempinski Hotel, and we visited most of the other luxury hotels and several beautiful private venues during our two and a half days in town. A whirlwind, for sure, but that's why we were there.

When we checked into the Kempinski some of our group were put in rooms so small that it was impossible even to dream about someone else without having to leave the room (ba-da-boom) . We thought, uh-oh, this will never do, but were greatly relieved to find out that although they have twelve postage stamps they call rooms, almost all of the rooms in the hotel are good-sized and beautifully appointed suites (like the one I had (heh-heh)). The staff was great too, as was the location... on a quiet street just a short distance from the Old Town. 

The Intercontinental Hotel was built in 1974, under the Communists, and was one of the first western hotel chains to operate in the country. It was a very popular place for Party Bosses and their girlfriends to mingle with the Mafia and their girlfriends, as well as to keep an eye on the Westerners in town. That's history now, but the place is still happening, especially the roof-top terrace outside their excellent restaurant. Talk about something to see your first night... the entire city laid out in front of us on a beautiful starry night under the sliver of a moon, with views of the Castle of Charles IV, the river, the Old Town... the whole "wow" thing. Even if your group is not staying in the hotel, have an opening reception there.

Except... while we were there we learned that Intercontinental will no longer be managing the hotel. It is being taken over by Regent. No one knows what the plans are, what that will mean, will it be closed for renovation? So although I am sure everything will be fine, its immediate future is unclear.

There are three other higher-end hotels worth noting. The Four Seasons can never be excluded from such a list. As in most cities, it has one of the coolest buildings, best locations, greatest views, highest levels of service, and is probably the most expensive in town. Reviewing Four Seasons is more like a cut and paste job. They are all fantastic (and pricey). You get what you pay for, of course. 

The Radisson Blu Hotel has a positioning problem in the American market because we associate the brand name with airport hotels and, well, with Radisson. The Radisson Blu Brand, located throughout Europe, is very, very different. They are upscale Five Star properties, unique in design according to their location. The one in Prague is no exception.

Originally built in 1932, the hotel was a monument to Art Deco. Using original plans and photographs, it has been meticulously restored to its former glory. I kept on thinking, geez, the people back then were cool. It also gave me a much greater appreciation for my aunts and uncles whose apartments had that way-out-of-style art deco look when I used to visit them in the early sixties. Now, I will probably have to re-decorate mine.

So... great hotel, located closer to the business district than the tourist areas, beautiful rooms and public space, great details. They have one large ballroom that has a glass roof that can be darkened, and several nice boardrooms. Unfortunately the rest of their meeting space is just OK. But... if you just need the one big room and a few breakouts, I definitely recommend this place for a meeting. Not incentives, but meetings.

If I was still a meeting/incentive planner my first choice for an incentive or board meeting is the Mandarin Oriental Prague. It is in "lesser Town" (really should be "Small Town") on the quieter Castle side of the river. It was, like so many other hotels in Europe seem to have been, a 13th century monastery. Completely re-done, and with some newer additions, it has been transformed into a fantastic boutique 99-room property. I can't say enough about how great a job they did with this hotel. And as far as which side of the river to be on... the Old Town is bustling with tourists, the adjacent New Town is the business part of the city. Lesser Town is quieter, and as the name implies, smaller. It is a few minutes walk over the Charles Bridge from one town to the other, or a quick tram ride. Enough said.

Prague is rich in off-property venues. The most impressive is the Strahov Monastery with a library, available for groups, which will blow you away. The Troja Chateau, about twenty minutes from the Old Town, is also a wow. Cocktails in the old stables or in the garden, dinner in, well... I can't describe it, but trust me on this one. The Municipal House has some great rooms, and also houses a lavishly decorated French Restaurant that can be privatized. You will not run out of choices in Prague.

There were a couple of things I learned that struck me. One is that the Prague Castle is the largest in the world. Whenever I hear a statement like this I wonder; who is measuring these things, and what do they mean by Castle. I didn't want to press our guide with the kind of questions that are always bouncing around inside my head, so I just expressed my surprise that the largest Castle would be there. Her reaction... she shrugged and said,  "We were important once."

For those of you who don't want to talk about religion, stop here. Hope you enjoyed this blog. Go to Prague and see for yourself.

According to several Czechs I met, the next conventional wisdom factoid I learned is that the Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in the world. Eighty per cent of Czechs identify themselves as atheists. The strange flip-side of this is that right next door, 80% of Slovakians identify themselves as religious and go to church at least once a week. Up until recently Czechoslovakia was one country. Now they are two countries. Hmmm. My mind starts to work. OK guys... get ready for the inside of my head. It's not pretty.

Were the religious 20% on the Czech side just ethnic Slovaks who settled generations ago on the wrong side of the border, and vice-a-versa for the atheists in Slovakia? Had anyone asked this question? If it was so, perhaps we have discovered some genetic pre-disposition to both religion and the lack thereof. This definitely warrants further study.

The next question is more complicated. When pressed, are the Czech atheists really pure atheists, as in the universe is just random molecules slamming together in infinite space and time, and due to the laws of physics and probability have temporarily combined in a random natural selection process to create a bio-chemical creating the illusion of self? And when this illusory self "dies" it is merely the uncoupling of these molecules as the illusion merely ceases to be, each molecule spinning off on its random and uncertain journey; fade to black? I wonder.

Or are the majority (of the majority) of Czechs really agnostics calling themselves atheists? Perhaps they believe that the existence of the ultimate cause (let's call it God) and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable by the human mind, and that human knowledge is limited to its own experience. Was this even a choice in the survey? Do Czechs know the difference between the two? Does anyone here know that? Should tour guides be allowed to make such sweeping statements?

Taking it one step further... Would most so-called atheist Czechs, given the choice, identify themselves as "spiritual", but not religious. This semantically esoteric nuance is popular in the West, but might not have worked its way East after the collapse of Communism.

I am not sure what the difference is either, but I have a feeling that religious means you believe the world is organized according to the interpretations of a particular book, and you accept some voice of authority and its interpretations as, well... Gospel. Here's the truth, it says so in this book. Dis-believe at your own peril.

Spiritual, on the other hand, is harder to define and I wager that if you asked twelve "spiritual" people the question you would get thirteen different answers. Perhaps it means that each individual accepts that the universe is organized according to the interpretations of reality by several authors in several books, and these authors have accepted and slightly modified what other authors have interpreted before them in some sort of giant feed-back loop. "Hey," they say, " all of these books say the same thing, it must be true."

This stuff doesn't bother me. I think someone needs to re-take that survey. I'm just sayin'.

Those were just some of the things I learned in Prague. The last thing is that Prague has a lot of attractive women.

On to Burning Man!

For more pictures of my trip to Prague, please visit my Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/TheCramerCollection.