Prague
Prague has... history.
Well, if that isn't the most obvious thing I can say about Prague, I'm giving my Obvious Statement Engine a real workout. But the thing I meant to say is true. You walk around Prague, and you feel like this is a place which knows where it's been. The city's architecture itself tells a story, of sorts: generally, it tends toward the baroque if not the outright rococo (I'm not sure what those words mean, and I'm typing them without the benefit of the Internet. But I think they mean what I want them to mean. Think really ornate), but with occasional modern-looking buildings, as well as the banks of umbrellaed tables outside restaurants which I doubt you found very much in the squares of the 1700s. It's sort of like Fantasy Land. Only every vanishing point ends up at Cinderella's Castle.
Of course, it might be because we're tourists. I mean, when I go to New York I don't spend all my time at Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum (although I've been there. It's pretty neat, actually, if you've ever got time to kill); the percent of visits to Mystic which include a visit of the Seaport is vanishingly small. But it seems like Prague, perhaps by virtue of having more history than any city in the US, goes out of its way to make sure it's all accessible.
By comparison: China... Eh. It's different. China's history is... compartmentalized. You go through the walls, and you're in the Forbidden City; you're in the Temple of Heaven; you're in the Summer Palace. And outside the walls, you might as well be in Detroit with Chinese dubbing. The closest to Prague I saw in China was Pingyao, but there the history industry was, effectively, the only thing going on. It's not like that here.
You walk around Prague, and everything is history and artwork. Every street has a classically-styled statue and a building like a palace (even if it's now rundown apartments on the inside), as if by design. Those are statues that represent the lives ruined by the Soviet regime, that is a museum-cum-synagogue with the names of every Czech Jewish victim of the Shoah painted on the wall, this is a graveyard that predates the Hussite Wars. Which, incidentally, is now very high on my list of Topics to Ask a Reference Librarian About, a far more exclusive list than Topics to Look on Wikipedia About. I feel guilty (feeling guilty is my most highly developed, but least marketable ability) because I know plenty of Europe's history and almost nothing of the history of, say, India. But still, there is always something new (well, not new, by definition) and fascinating to study in Europe, even when you thought you had a handle on it all. (I also want to know more about the 30 Years War, and the English Civil War. Sectarian/political conflicts and the rise of gunpowder? Yes please!)
And yet, although the setting is exotic, the crowds themselves seem familiar. I realized it when I first stepped on the metro a week ago, very much lacking in sleep but aware that the entire crowd would look perfectly reasonable in the DC Metro. And the way people dress.... I didn't really notice at first (because I sort of glaze over whenever Time discusses fashion), but people here, by and large, dress very chic. I'd elaborate, but I honestly don't know a more specific way to establish it.
Also: If you've never seen Don Giovanni, as performed by marionettes, you've never seen Mozart the way he wanted it to be performed.
Well, that's a lie; he probably envisioned a performance of his darkest opera taking itself seriously. But I think he'd have approved.
If you do see it, though, either get a synopsis or else learn fluent Italian first, because I for one had no clue what's going on, except in a vague, "He just stabbed the other guy" way.