introduction
In search of stories of people who remain in the old city

1.
Bin, you're too perfect for me

Ringstrasse 'Dapjeongneo'
St. Stephen's Cathedral, a fossil of the Middle Ages
Great Wall
Pummerin, Graben, Vienna Coffee
Vienna style
The Rebirth of Vienna
A comparative experience of extremes: the Museum of Art History and the Secession
Museum of Applied Arts (MAK)
Mozart and Sissi
Schönbrunn and Belvedere
Food in Vienna, Sissi was right!
Votive Church, University of Vienna, City Hall, National Assembly Building
An unexpected discovery: Hundertwasser
A city without gaps

2.
Budapest, sad yet cheerful

The turbid waters of the Danube
Basilica of St. Stephen
Geopolitical misfortune
Pride and inferiority complex
List Memorial and House of Terror
Buda Castle District
Andrassy in the National Assembly building
Statue of Prime Minister Nagy
Shoes left on the riverbank
Zitterdeller on Gellert Hill
Memento Park
Ruin Bar in the Jewish Quarter
Goedele Palace, Sissi's summer residence
Budapest at night

3.
Prague, a place where anything seems okay

Humble Tyn Cathedral
The Birth of Prague
Jan Hus, the Righteous Man
The castle and the castle of the old city
Jewish Quarter, Josefov
Charles Bridge, Prague's hotspot
Bohemian food
Equestrian Statue of St. Wenceslas
Jan Palach in the square
Prague Castle
Kafka and Dalibor
Petrin Observation Tower
Dancing House, Cubism Museum
Vltava Jazz Boat

4.
Dresden, the miracle of resurrection

The perpetrator's wounds
Elbe Valley Road
Our Lady of Love Church
The epic of resurrection
Socialist architectural style
Medieval new town
Historic Old Town
August, the King of Vigor
Seongan New Town
Colorful Republic
Food in Dresden
A small but big city

Yoo Si-min's way of experiencing European cities
The city's past, present, and life

Not everyone in the various spaces of those cities has to feel the same way.
As with life, there is no right answer when it comes to traveling.
Everyone can do it their own way.

-p.7

Dozens of pairs of metal shoes of men, women, and children were placed on the riverbank.
The owners of those shoes were shot and thrown into the Danube River.
Even though I knew it was there, I still cried.
It was different from the terror house that was just scary.
I never knew such a small sculpture could evoke such powerful emotions.
Rainwater was clearly pooled inside the shoes, and beyond them the turbid waters of the Danube flowed wildly.
-p.142

When you face an insurmountable barrier of reality, you have two choices.
It is about escaping society or turning one's gaze inward.
The fall of Napoleon led to the return of monarchies, and European society entered a period when hope for progress disappeared.
The people of Germany and Austria, where the feudal class system and old privileges held sway, endured the times by ignoring reality and savoring the small but certain pleasures of everyday life.
Looking at the interior decorations, furniture, crafts, and paintings in the Biedermeier era exhibition hall, I tried to understand the minds of those who created them.
Nothing is eternal, everything passes.
-p.58

As darkness fell, the entire city changed its appearance in an instant.
The historic buildings of the Old Town, including the Tyn Cathedral, and the bridges over the Vltava River were illuminated at night, and cars and trams began to flash their headlights.
The lights of shops, restaurants, and cafes glowed brightly, and the streetlights also opened their eyes at once.
People came out from somewhere, filling the sunless squares and streets, and all kinds of sounds they made rose into the dark night sky.
Looking down from the bridge tower, the entire city seemed to slowly rise upwards and hang in the air.
Prague has been transformed into a giant night-time theme park.
Prague's landmark number one was neither Týn Cathedral nor Wenceslas Square.
It was Prague itself, just after the sun had set, as seen from the bridge tower.

-p.200

Everything made by humans has a story.
The largest, most beautiful, and oldest things humans have created are probably cities.
The city is steeped in vivid, dramatic, and unfamiliar stories of historical events and characters.
Especially in European cities, there are many places that have interesting histories not only in museums and palaces, but also in everyday spaces such as squares, buildings, cafes, and alleys.
The author allows us to hear the stories told by these European urban spaces, searching for the stories hidden beneath the city's surface and reflecting on the lives of the people the city holds, and encounters the glory and wounds, barbarism and tolerance, success and failure, disconnection and connection, frustration and achievement, life and death, etc., through his own perspective, until the city was born as it is today.


The urban spaces and stories contained within them, as told by the author, illuminate the present by showing the diverse faces of humanity, such as the process of human achievement and the beauty and ugliness, selfishness and altruism, despair and hope expressed along the way.
This makes us feel more three-dimensional and brings about unfamiliar thoughts and feelings that are different from the usual ones, forcing us to confront ourselves.
Perhaps this is why we travel through European cities, walking and walking along distant but unfamiliar streets.

In search of the stories of those who remain in the old city
-Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Dresden

That's probably not the only reason why empty people love poetry.
Although she became a 'power celebrity' by fate, Sisi pursued 'a life of her own.'
…I did not reject or overcome fate, but I was not trapped by it either.
While accepting my fate, I struggled and challenged myself to live a life that I felt had meaning.
-p.66

I experienced similar emotions while looking at the modern history of South Korea in Budapest.
Budapest was a sad yet cheerful city.
He exuded great confidence even though he didn't have much.
It was a city where expectations for tomorrow were greater than today's satisfaction.
I like that kind of person and that kind of city.
-p.163

Prague was beautiful.
The palace and the church, the streets and the river, the cafes and the museum, everything was so cute and pretty.
Nothing was particularly impressive, but Prague itself was.
Prague did not hide the wounds of its history, nor did it suffer because of them.
Let's leave the scars of the past behind and pursue today's joy.
To do so, we allow coexistence within the performance.

-p.239

Without knowing the tragedy of February 1945, it is impossible to understand why Dresden looks the way it does today.
…the 'Baroque city' of Dresden was then lost forever.
Although many buildings have been restored, the city cannot return to its former glory.
However, it cannot be said that today's Dresden is worse than it used to be.
Dresden has become a city unlike any other in the world.
A city that is ugly yet beautiful, sad yet peaceful, and somewhere out of place yet comfortable and sentimental.
I felt that way.

-p.249

Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Dresden are geographically close cities, making them great cities to travel to together.
The center of your city is Vienna.
Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg Empire for a long time, and when it comes to culture and arts, Vienna has a high level of quality and wealth comparable to Paris.
Especially travelers who love music and art cannot miss Vienna.
Budapest and Prague were deeply intertwined with Vienna in every way, as they were both under the influence of the Habsburg Empire.
But the cultural atmosphere of the city is very different.
Dresden was once completely destroyed, but through the process of rebuilding, it created its own Dresden-ness.
It's a great city to stop by when going to Prague.

Vienna, the author felt, was the most perfect and splendid city, Budapest was a sad but beautiful city, Prague was a city with a wide heart where anything seemed okay, and Dresden was a city that achieved the miracle of resurrection.
The author's encounters with the city's splendid moments, the things the city wants to reveal or hide, the things that ruined the city, what makes the city a city, the city's wounds and the process of overcoming them to move forward and create the city's present, resemble our lives, sometimes comforting and sometimes remaining in a corner of our hearts.
In this way, the four cities become attractive cities that you want to visit and that will remain in your memory for a long time, thanks to the vivid stories the author has found and collected, and the author's own unique feeling added to them.


Here, through the author's intellectual curiosity and humanistic thinking, we can experience the civilizational fragrance of the four cities more richly, view the cities from a more diverse perspective, and deepen our reflections on ourselves, life, and people.