Mexico City, Prague, Paris - Cultural Breaks

THE BEST OF TRAVEL
Our writers pick the top destinations for every vacation need and prove the world still holds surprises

Globe and Mail, Saturday, August 11, 2007

CULTURAL BREAKS

Mexico City
Mexico City's cultural breadth often gets forgotten in all the talk of traffic, smog and size. But this former Aztec capital has been a cultural centre for 3,000 years and has the sites to prove it: from the largest Spanish colonial cathedral in Latin America to the Modernist campus of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Art runs the gamut from Mesoamerican gods in the Museo de Antropologia to the contemporary scene, which flourishes in the Zonas Roma and Condesa. And this year the city is feting its artistic offspring, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, whose art dots the city.
For more information, visit www.visitmexico.com.

Prague
There are few cities so naturally cultural as Prague. It is the capital of a country that elects a playwright as president, lets a contemporary artist put a gigantesque chair in the middle of the Vltava River (Magdalena Jetelova's Chair) and has a birthday party for a medieval bridge (Charles Bridge, which turned 650 this year). With something of architectural note at every turn and museums and galleries as prevalent as pivovars (brewery pubs), you'd be hard pressed not to do something cultural in Prague. This summer alone, visitors can see exhibitions on Rembrandt, Neo Rausch, the art of Korea and Czech cubist Emil Filla, as well as the 3rd Prague Biennale of contemporary art (www.praguebiennale.org). Add to that superb local theatre, ballet, opera and, of course, music – including the renowned Prague Spring classical music festival – and you begin to understand Prague's Bohemian soul.
For more information, see www.czechtourism.com.

Paris
Duh. How could a city with the Louvre, Notre Dame and more than 100 Monets not be one of the world's top cultural destinations? The City of Light has shone its inspiration on everyone from François Truffaut to Leonardo da Vinci to architect Shigeru Ban (who is currently designing the Pompidou Centre's new satellite museum in Metz from his “Paper Tube Studio” attached high on the Pompidou's façade). Culture is part of “a vie Parisienne”: You can see a play at the Comedie Française for $7 or hear symphonies at the Maison de Radio France “gratuit”. History overlaps on every corner: Gallo-Roman baths lie near the cafés favoured by de Beauvoir and Sartre and edgy art galleries fill 17th-century mansions.
For more information, visit www.parisinfo.com.

DEANNA MacDONALD - Deanna MacDonald has a PhD in art history and is the author of The Essential Guide to Viewing Art in Prague.