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).