Whereabouts Actor Ben Kingsley fi nds comfort in Prague’s history.

whereabouts

The Places I Go: Ben Kingsley

“I’M NOT GOOD AT SIMPLY GOING ON HOLIDAY. I don’t enjoy being told what I’m looking at by a guide, however well-intentioned, and I can’t just stand and look at the beach. I have to be part of the landscape. I have to be engaged. I’ve done three fi lms in Prague, and I fi nd it very sustaining. It’s not like New York or L.A.—there’s so much history. The fi rst time I went, it was to visit a friend who was working on a movie. I went for a long weekend and stayed right on the Vltava River. We were pretty high up, and I remember looking out over all those copper roofs that have turned green. A few years later, I went back to do a miniseries about Anne Frank. It was really something to come off the set and fi nd myself still surrounded by all that history. My most recent holiday there was with my darling wife for New Year’s Eve, which is also my birthday, and we watched the fi reworks over the Vltava. “There’s a restaurant called the Alchymist that I always go to. Even if it’s been three or four years since my last visit, they’re very welcoming. I love Czech food, and the service is lovely. It’s a beautiful place in a wizardy way. I also really like U Patrona, near the Charles Bridge. You must go in the fall so you can walk across the Charles very slowly; in summer, it's too crowded.”