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.