Prague: Day Two, Part Two: Prague Castle: How to get there... and back!

Now I'm on the west (or left, if you will) bank of the Vltava River.  (The Czechs seem to be overly fond of consonants, to the detriment of vowels.)  This district is called the Little Quarter, or Mala Strana.  In search of the John Lennon Wall, I turn to the left and see a big red Maltese cross high up on a massive building at the end of the narrow street.  I’m surprised to learn that this, the oldest church (12th c) in the Little Quarter, was given by King Vladislav II to the Knights of St. John, the order which later became known as the Knights of Malta.  It once stood in the center of the Knights’ heavily fortified monastery that guarded the approach to the old Judith Bridge.  All this links me to my days on the island of Malta and ties the two trips together in a way I wasn’t ever expecting.

       Around the next corner is another emotional link, this one to my life in Paris:  the French Embassy, with a very impressive Gallic-looking door knocker indeed.  The embassy stands opposite the John Lennon Wall.  As this wall is the only place in Prague that people can legally graffiti-up buildings, and vent their spleen, and as the French are known for being outspoken and spleen-ful, it all seems to fit together nicely.  And I’m sure the French staff avail themselves of the John Lennon Pub just around another corner, along with the vast greenery of the park that takes up two-thirds of this little island of Kampa, where I pause to watch a young boy throw fallen chestnuts into the river.  I hand him one, and he looks surprised, looks at his father, then smiles and tosses it in the Vltava.

       The beauty of Kampa’s park, even with love locks anywhere they can be attached, takes me farther upstream than I’d planned.  So now I have to head back north toward my goal:  the Castle/Cathedral.  That takes me down wider, more bourgeois streets than those across the river.
       I’ve been told Czechs, or at least those in Prague, are not very religious, and yet there are churches everywhere.  Big, important ones.  Along this major street, with trams zipping up and down, is one of them:  the Church of Our Lady Victorious.  Inside, a service is going on in English for a huge group of Southeast Asians, probably Phillippinos.  But are they tourists or residents here, perhaps workers?  It doesn’t seem to be a tour group.

       There are several ways to get to the top of the hill and Prague Castle.  One will take me past the American Embassy, and I’m curious to see it, if only because it’s in what used to be the Schönborn Palace.  And besides, I’ve already seen the French Embassy.  But as I turn into that section of Vlasska Street, all the cars are being stopped and searched diligently by the police: engine hoods and trunks opened, mirrors patrolling under car bodies, sniffer dogs circling vehicles.  There’s probably another blockade at the other end.  And yet I’m able to walk right past it without being questioned.  I cross the street and head up a narrow lane winding upward.  Just before reaching the corner, I look back one last time at my Embassy.  It’s so sad that the world has come to this:  terrorism and the resulting police state.  America is seen as the new colonial power, and so a target.  France, once - with England - the colonial powers whose holdings circled the globe, are no longer targets. Sometimes the Fall from Glory has its good side.

After quite a climb, I reach the huge square in front of Prague Castle.  It’s almost noon, so without planning it, I’ve got a front row view of the Changing of the Guard, complete with brass band.  There’s a bit of goose-stepping and quite a bit of regalia as the “teams” change sides.  Ultimately, those relieved march off across the square and disappear around a corner that I will discover in a few days.

       The castle itself is an organizational disaster.  First of all, for the same reasons as around the American Embassy - security - there is a huge line to get through the maze of metal detectors.  I shouldn’t have watched the changing of the guard, because now all those spectators want to clamor into Prague Castle at the same time.  The Czech soldiers - one with an English-sounding name tag - are forbiddingly serious in their duties.  After all, this is not only a historic castle and the gateway to the Cathedral, but also the seat of government, so security is at the maximum.  (It’s curious to see that, in spite of their pocketbooks and handbags, the women don’t set off the metal detector nearly as much as the men.)

       Once through the security maze, the population density thins out a bit, but there’s still a line to get into St. Vitus Cathedral, and it’s not a short one.  Luckily it moves at a slow but steady pace... until I reach the entry point inside and a woman asks for my ticket.  Which I don’t have.  She shooshes me back toward the door and points vaguely out into the courtyard.
       After asking several people - thank God people speak English and understand “Ticket?” - I find the offices across the large courtyard.  I stand in another line and when I get up to the counter, the man asks me what ticket I want.  When I ask what kinds of tickets there are, he tells me to go look at a large poster on the wall and moves on to the person behind me.  Rather rude, but effective.  So I go look at the poster, choose a type of ticket and get in a new line.

Finally armed with the paper Keys to the Kingdom, I head back out into the courtyard and again get in a long line to enter the Cathedral.  (I suggest at one point that signs would be a good idea - “Tickets Here”, for instance - but I’m told that this entire complex is a historic district and so signs are forbidden, a concept I’m familiar with from Paris.  Still, be prepared for rude, sullen or at best cold personnel... and only rare places to sit while you wait.  The price to pay for being a tourist.)  It helps to be zen here and be able to faire le vide autour de soi (disconnect from your surroundings).

Prague: Day Two, Part One: Prague Castle: How to get there... and back!

It’s a very good thing there are no dog droppings on the streets of Prague, because the way I’m craning my neck at all the buildings and their decorations, my shoes would be coated in brown by now.
       And today’s long walk will confirm that.  By the time evening comes, this will go down in the annals as The Day of Steps, both horizontal and vertical.

Male Nam Square

I start off early, back toward the river via the Old Town Square, with a quick look into the Old Town Hall where a class trip is obviously scheduled for a visit.  The streets are all very interesting in and of themselves because pedestrian traffic is heavy and Prague-ites appear to be zippy drivers.  So a paving distinction is made, with sidewalks tiled in small granite black-and-white squares and the streets paved in black bricks, with elongated black shale separating the two.  (And that shale is a good place to walk, because it’s flat and easier on the feet... provided your balance is up to snuff.)

       By 9 a.m. I’ve reached Karlova Street and pass an American couple, judging by their accent.  Nothing too surprising in that, you say, except that she’s wearing a floor-length evening dress and he’s in a tuxedo.  I guess Prague is not only a city of amazing architecture but of elegant all-night parties as well.

My first sight of the Charles Bridge is under resolutely grey skies.  As I walk to the edge of the river to take a photo of the Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral on the opposite hill, I can’t help but notice lots of what has become known as “love locks”, the kind that caused a section of the cast-iron railing of the Pont des Arts in Paris to collapse into the Seine under their weight.  As I walk through this other European capital, I’ll find them all over the place, on both banks of the river, anywhere they can be attached.

       It’s early and very few merchants have set up their stands yet.  But the swans have already congregated in the river below.  Partway across the bridge sits a man with a small dachshund in his lap, his hat upturned in front of him.  He lets me pet the dog, and watches as an Oriental couple poses in their wedding finery for a photo.  Just like that garden gnome who sent Amélie Poulain photos from his trip around the world, such couples - probably Japanese - now seem to roam the Earth on their respective honeymoons, schlepping wedding dresses and tuxedos from one capital to the next and having their photo taken in each.  I’ll see them over and over again throughout my five days here.  (Not the same ones; different ones - probably a dozen in all.)

       Charles Bridge has 30 statues, 15 to a side (if I counted right).  Some are the originals, some have been restored, others replaced by copies.  Some are lone saints, others in twos, still others are groupings of threes with either Christ or the Madonna.  Most are made of stone darkened by the years, but some have gilded or bronze highlights that stand out because legend says that touching a particular part of the statue will bring you luck.  One that's touched a lot is actually made of bronze:  St. John Nepomuk (a new one on me, but then again I’m neither Catholic nor Czech).  He was thrown off the bridge by King Wenceslas IV and left to drown, so I’m not really sure he’s a good candidate for bringing you luck, but there you are - it’s legend.  And also the oldest statue on the bridge, which had none when built in the 14th century.  Most of them came along four centuries later.  I touch the plaque on the right, and then the one with the little dog on the left.  You can never have enough good luck.  And besides, I like dogs.

At the west end of the bridge stands the Lesser Town Tower.  It seems like a good idea to climb up to the top and see the bridge from above, along with a different view of the castle.  For those of you who are thinking of doing it, there are 145 steps, the last ones very steep (like the steps on a ship).  It’s not for the tall either, given the limited headroom in places.  And it’s definitely not for those suffering from acrophobia (the fear of heights).

       The view is magnificent, even without much sunshine.  You get a better feel for the width of the bridge, and all those tourists are just colored scatterings.  As for St. Vitus Cathedral and the walls of the castle, they seem to float on a sea of red-tiled roofs from which steeples jut out here and there.

On the way back down, I ask the young man at the upper-but-not-top level how many people can fit up there at one time, because it seemed a bit crowded on the very narrow walkway.  As happens often here in spite of many people speaking excellent English, he replies to a question other than the one I asked, telling me that about 150 people climb up every day, which isn’t a lot given the number of tourists in Prague.  So count me as one of the crazies.

Prague: Day One, Part Two

Next stop after the Mucha Museum, the Jewish Cemetery.  The walk takes me through backstreets of the Old Town - Stare Mesto - and up to its border with the Jewish Ghetto.  But it starts to rain a bit, so I duck into a little corner café called Paneria where I indulge in a cup of tea, a beverage that takes a backseat to coffee in the eyes of the Czechs, it would seem.  I spot something they have labeled “apple pie”, but when I ask for it, the young man behind the counter asks if I mean “apple strudel”.  “Well, to me, it’s strudel, but your sign says ‘pie’,” I reply.  Whichever you call it, it’s delicious, the pastry very flaky.

       Soon a weak sun comes out.  Or rather I should say that the sky isn’t quite as dark.  So it’s out the door and literally around the corner to the cemetery, something I’ve heard a lot about.  But nothing can prepare you for all those massed gravestones.  12,000 of them - three centuries worth - with the last burial in 1787.  It’s remained as tiny as it was in medieval days, and people had to be buried twelve layers deep.  The graves of some of the most famous bear name tags; the rest are just anonymous. 
       I get distracted by a lovely blue-winged bird hopping from gravestone to gravestone, looking for good things that might have fallen from the tall trees above.  The walkway routes you back and forth through the chaos of the graves, and I notice weather-worn carvings on some of them:  a star, grapes to indicate abundance, hands uplifted in blessing.  This is a mossy, quiet, thought-provoking place well worth seeing.  A remnant of a world that no longer exists, for many reasons.

Parizska Street

After the graveyard, winding my way past several different synagogues, I come out onto the mosaic-tiled sidewalks along Parizska Street, - Parisian Street.  (There seems to be a love of that city here, and it’s true that Paris and Prague are both architecturally breath-taking.)  It’s apparently the most exclusive, expensive street in all of Prague, as could be guessed by the brand-name shops.  Hordes of Asian tourists are trudging back and forth from their rooms at the Intercontinental Hotel a few blocks away, along the river.  Parizska Street empties them - and me - into the Old Town Square.

Our Lady Before Tyn

     The Town Hall is hidden by scaffolding, and my heart drops as I realize I won’t see the legendary clock with its animated saints parading by on the hour.  My bad luck seems to be on a roll as I arrive at the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn only to find that it’s just closed.  I’m told by a man with fluent, almost accent-less English to come back tomorrow, then hear him speaking French, with a North African accent, to another tourist.

Powder Tower

     Oh well, off to the hotel.  It was a very early start this morning, and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Hurricane Maria plunged my son into a state of incommunicado a week ago.  So I head back up yet another lovely street, distracted for a moment by a street performer blowing clouds of tiny bubbles with his string contraption, much to the joy of little children and my own self.  Almost every building I see is richly decorated, the ornamentation of each vying in beauty with the last.  After a few blocks, I reach the Powder Tower. 
       Around the back is my hotel.  And a plate of the best risotto I’ve ever had, complete with mushroom bits, crème fraîche and truffle butter, all washed down by a glass of Czech pinot noir, which isn’t half bad either.  Then a shower... and bed.
       The Sandman doesn’t even have to bother.  I’m asleep well before he arrives.

Prague: Day One - Arrival

The flight to Prague is only one hour twenty minutes.  Enough time for a nap to catch up for a week of worry about a son missing in Dominica after Hurricane Maria.  The call that he was safe came in the night, after six very long days.
       No passport control in Prague.  The Czech Republic is part of the European Union now (has been since 2004), so in a way I haven’t crossed any borders.
       The hotel has sent a driver and I see my name on a card.  It makes things easier when you don’t speak the language.  He speaks English much better than he understands it, so I stop asking questions after a while.  He’s decided to drive into town on small country roads, a wonderful decision because it gives me the only look at the Czech countryside that I will get.  And it teaches me that Prague, like Paris, is snuggled in a river basin with higher ground all around it.

The Hotel Paris (no, I didn't do it on purpose) is a bit like me:  a touch of class, a bit bohemian and not quite new any more.  I chose it for its Art Nouveau décor.  There are touches of it everywhere, starting with the mosaics around the curved entrance.
       As it's lunchtime, I slip into the hotel bar for something light before heading out.  The menu offers a triangle sandwich on traditional multi-grain breat - with warm ham, sliced dill pickle and a side salad (with dressing just a touch sweeter than I expected but well within gastronomic limits).  Washed down with a glass of Czech pinto gris that's quite acceptable.
       Then it's off to foray into a new culture.

Alphons Mucha

First stop:  the Mucha Museum.  (And here that’s pronounced moo-ha - with the “ha” part just the slightest bit guttural, as if it were Arabic).  Alphons Mucha (1860-1939) was one of Europe’s great Art Nouveau illustrators, more or less of the same generation as Gustav Klimt from Vienna but a bit more understated, using pastels instead of bold colors.  As a young man, he moved to Paris, where he designed jewelry for Fouquet and was chosen by famous stage actress Sarah Bernhardt to be her one and only illustrator.  Overnight he was the toast of the town, and became even more so after his work on the Universal Exhibition in Paris.  After four years in the U.S., he returned to Prague and started to decorate about anything that could be decorated:  the Theater of Fine Arts, the mayor’s office, the Municipal Hall...  His last major work was the Slav Epic, a sort of glorified history of the Slavic people in twenty huge paintings.  Then came World War II, and the Nazis invaded his country.  Given his Slavic nationalism, Jewish roots and membership as a Free Mason, he was among the first to be arrested by the Gestapo.  Due to the prison conditions and multiple interrogations, Mucha soon contracted pneumonia.  Not wanted to be accused of killing such an artistic genius, the Nazis released him, but the damage was done and he died shortly thereafter.
       This museum is only a short walk from the hotel... Well, actually almost anything in Prague is a short walk, because there’s so much concentrated in the center of the city.  But this is literally just a few blocks away.  There are a good many of Mucha’s works on the walls of the seven rooms, with explanatory cards in Czech and English.  There are also posters - many of Sarah Bernhardt - and decorative panels, some furniture from his Paris apartment, plus a huge oil painting among his most famous:  The Woman in the Wilderness (also known as The Star), dedicated to the suffering of the Russian people after the Bolshevik Revolution.  In the end room loops a video on Mucha’s life and works.  On the way out, you can drop by the gift shop for a souvenir; they have quite a selection.
       I think my favorite memory will be the photo of good friend Gauguin playing the organ in Mucha's parlor, dressed in a suitcoat, his shirtails out and his bare legs on the pedals.  Quite the photo, and it says a lot about the wildness of the Paris Years of both artists.  (One year later, I'll see that very same photo in a Mucha exhibit in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris.)