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

Mucha's window

 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).
       Once I get past the turnstile, I learn a lot about the St. Vitus Cathedral by cribbing off of the tour guides I pass.  The nave is tall and long, but the main point of interest for me is the stained glass windows.  Especially the one designed by Mucha.  Its colors are much bolder than the others, more contrasting, and the detail is amazing.  Also there’s a more Slavic history touch to it than the other more strictly religious windows, a tone that goes along with Mucha’s Slav Epic works.  St. Cyril and St. Methodius become more national than Biblical figures in this representation.  Hidden in a chapel behind the altar is a wooden panel that shows how Prague looked at the start of the 17th century, and a view of the Charles Bridge as it was then.  The chapels are decorated with gilded coats of arms or stucco figurines.  In one a woman is painstakingly restoring the wall’s elaborate decoration under the eerie glow of a hidden spotlight.  Her back to us all, she’s silhouetted as she commands a tiny brush to bring out details the years have erased.  An intimate moment among the hordes marching by, and I’m caught up in the magic of it.

St. Vitus Tower

       Back out in the fresh air and still under resolutely grey skies, I cross the courtyard to the Royal Palace.  The second floor is easily missed, its side stairway discreetly hidden.  All the rooms are ornate, with flourishes added as the centuries passed.  One detail that struck me was a wide staircase with low, wide steps, that reminds me of Amboise in France’s Loire Valley; that staircase was built so that the knights could ride their horses up the steps, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the same here, although why they would want to bring their horses into a castle’s keep I can’t fathom.
       I find the entrance to St. Vitus Tower and climb the 288 narrow steps for a view out over Prague that you can probably get from nowhere else in the city.  Here we’re on the top of the hill overlooking the capital, and at the top of a tall tower, so the eye can see for miles and miles, out to the hills on the horizon.  The view is a sea of red tiles, with blotches of dark greenery scattered here and there, and through it winds the metallic reflection of the Vltava’s waters.  There are very few building cranes to be seen, just scaffolding on buildings being restored.  Prague is a city of history.

        On the way out, I walk along Golden Lane, named for the goldsmiths who once worked here.  It’s a whole other world within the Castle’s fortress.  Built into the north side of the fortress walls are the sole remnants of houses built in the late 15th century for the king’s 24 castle guards.  Restoration work is going on here as it was inside the Cathedral, with plasterers protecting the old walls.  The twenty tiny houses - one of which Kafka once lived in - have a grand view out over the Royal Gardens.  They’ve been furnished like a movie set to give an idea of life back then. At the end of the row is one house (No. 12) where famous Czech film historian Josef Kazda lived, and it’s filled with editing equipment and reels of old films stacked in a narrow stairway.  Kazda collected thousands of Czech films and documentaries the Nazis wanted destroyed and hid them, holding private screenings and trying to distribute these forbidden films. They were thought to have been lost forever, but were rediscovered when this part of the castle, which had become a slum, was cleared out in the 1950s,

It’s taken hours to see all that’s hidden inside the fortress walls, and I’m happy to walk down the steps leading to the river, which is busy with tour boats and Zodiacs filled with life preserver-festooned paddlers.  Across the bridge, I head back toward the Town Square, past the statue to Czech composer Anton Dvorak standing outside the Rudolfinum, the home of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.  And past my Paneria refuge of yesterday.  With a quick peek into St. Nicholas Church, yet another of Prague’s numerous nods to its once ultra-Roman Catholic past.
      My destination is the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, which was closed yesterday.  Inside, a soprano is rehearsing, accompanied by the organ in the loft.  The acoustics are excellent, and if I weren’t so tired, I’d be tempted to buy tickets for tonight’s performance.   Out front is the man I saw last night, when the church had just closed.  He recognizes me, pointing at the camera around my neck.  Ever curious, I ask him where he’s from, given his accent.  He says he’s Kabyle, and asks “Do you know what Kabyle is?”  To which I reply, “The ones who were there first.”  He smiles and says, “You know your history!” because Kabyles, Berbers from North Africa, are usually just called Arabs.
       No sooner am I back at the hotel but it starts to rain.  I’ve been lucky.  And rain is fine with me because I’ve reached my safe harbor, cozy and warm and dry.

About Golden Lane:  https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ghosts-of-pragues-historic-golden-lane-2299508.html