What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 11 November 2023.

No, we’re not escaping Germany just yet, as we’re close to both https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/08/prague-1-day-58-u-luzickeho-seminare/ and https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/09/prague-1-day-65-misenska/.

And saská is the adjective from Sasko, AKA Saxony. For those not living nearby, Saxony is the German state on the north-west border of the Czech Republic.

You may have been to its capital, Dresden (very popular with Czechs, at least prior to Prague getting its own branch of Primark in 2021).

I worked in this fascinating building in Dresden for a few days in 2017. It’s not a mosque and never was.

But I have a real soft spot for Saxony’s largest city, Leipzig, scene of supposedly Europe’s best train station, a lot of 1989-specific history, and excellent murals.

And another soft spot for hiking in Saxon Switzerland, digital detoxing and taking a grand total of one photo in eight days.

Let’s finish this not-actually-an-advert for the Saxon Tourist Board with a nice little Sorbian saying.

Zapłata dyrbi wjetša być hač dźěra literally translates as ’The patch has to be bigger than the hole’. In other words, for a solution to a problem to work, it can’t just solve a small section of it.

Alliance 90/The Greens made use of this in their election posters in 2019 (photo from DW).