Masarykovo Nádraží

Train stations in the Czech Republic are relics of another era. It's beginning to change--Hlavní Nádraží, or Prague's Main Station, is being renovated by an Italian company, and it's first stage boasts a Burger King and plenty of coffee to go--but many other hubs, like Masarykovo, built 1845, where you can take a train east to one of the outlying villages, is like a collage of old and older. Little squalid Tabacconist windows advertise liquor and cigarettes, the men and woman inside watch tiny televisions, their hands yellow with smoke. A copper bust of Czechoslovakian founder Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk is pinned to a dark wall, where no one can see him, and the Vietnamese market bustles with bananas, pistachios and these overgrown grapefruits called Palmelos. You can buy a pastry for about 25 cents, and sit on a cold bench as the foggy winter light eases across dirty tiles, and watch as an old man drinks a beer at the station casino a few yards away. Wikipedia reports that the city would like to get rid of the place, and make a shopping mall instead, but right now it still services too many Prague commuters to close its doors.