Is Paris Prague?

A couple years ago I went to Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest. Prague, after having been [over]hyped for a couple decades, was fun and pretty, but did not feel like a living city. So much of it seemed to have been given over to the service industry and tourism... as if I were visiting the Museum of Prague rather than a real city.

Bratislava, although much smaller, was an exciting discovery. It was youthful, evolving, tremendously pretty and also shockingly ugly in parts, and filled with an energy that Prague lacked. Real people lived in the old town. Restaurants there were populated by both tourists and locals. Back alleys led to local bars with live music pouring out the stone-framed windows.  New infrastructure was being built, including physical and conceptual linking of neighborhoods stretching from the university to the river. It was great fun.

I was not surprised that I loved Budapest. Now here was a city Prague's size (bigger, actually) but one that was clearly living a city's life. It was dynamic and humming and varied and the kind of place you could envision living rather than touring. Everything I'd hoped it would be, right down to the live carp in the market basement.

More recently I visited Paris. I'd spent a few weeks in Paris in 1984 and 1987, but only passed through very rarely since then. I had a proper visit in Paris last weekend. I didn't feel any kind of creative tension or buzz about it. I'm hoping it's still there and I simply was not looking in the right places, but I am worried it's turned into the Museum of Paris. I do realize that I've changed in the past 21 years, and that the Paris I remember from the 80s is as much about me then as Paris, but still.... I hope I'm wrong and definitely will need to return in an effort to be proven so.