Prague: Day Four, Part One - National Holiday

Old Town Square

Today is the Czech Republic’s national holiday - Czech Statehood Day - and the sky, at last, is blue.
       A bit of background:  On September 28, in 935 A.D., Czech Prince Wenceslas was murdered in a plot orchestrated by his treacherous brother Boleslav in a bid for power.  Entire families of Wenceslas’s supporters were murdered.  Granted, a few years later Boleslav had his brother’s remains transported to Prague, and pushed for his brother’s canonization as a saint... and the cult of St. Wenceslas began to spread (complete with our Christmas carol about Good King Wenceselas).  Which is why September 28th was chosen in the year 2000 as a state holiday:  the day of Czech statehood.
       It may be a holiday, but the sidewalk tilers and the sewer crew are working.  So are the street sweepers.
       On my way to Old Town Hall, I take some of the back streets I haven’t tried as yet.  It’s easy to find the right direction because the twin spiked steeples of Our Lady of Tyn are visible high above the other roofs.

       Old Town Hall was built in 1338; New Town Hall already existed then.  So it isn’t a question of being newer, but of being the town hall of Prague’s old district (Stare Mesto) or the new one (Nove Mesto).  The reason the old one interests me is its astronomical clock, which I’ve learned is not hidden by the renovation work, as I’d feared.  However, it only works on the hour, which it is not.  As for the tower, once the highest structure in Prague and a prime viewing point, it is closed for renovation.  So I decide to while away the time until the clock does its thing by going inside Old Town Hall to see the interior decoration.
       Of which there is much.  And as of the front door.  Everywhere you look.  The walls.  The ceiling.  The tiled floor.  Everywhere.
       In the Chapel of Virgin Mary, where mass was said before council meetings, for prisoners or for convicts before execution, a panel describes one figure as “Ste Anne, Jesus’s grandmother”.  Although this is true, it’s the first time in my long life that I’ve ever heard her called that; usually she’s just Mary’s mother, and the celestial link stops there.

       Up a few steps are displayed the innards of the original astronomical clock from 1410.  It affords an “up close and personal” view of the apostles.  The one with the serpent is St. John, the one with the spear is St. Andrew.  They’re mounted on rotating horizontal wheels, six to a wheel, with a second mechanism that rotates them so they face ahead as they appear at one of the two small windows, then pivot outward to face the spectators below.  The clock tower was built especially for them on the south side of the building... or rather the cluster of buildings, because Old Town Hall was actually a gradual amalgam of five individual burgher’s homes into a single unit as the years went by.
       In May of 1945, a large part of the town hall was completely destroyed by the Nazis during the Prague Uprising and has been lovingly rebuilt over the decades.  Right down to the amazingly intricate gilt-hinged door and beamed ceiling of the Old Council Hall.

Today the show on Charles Bridge as I cross isn’t the statues, or even yet another Oriental couple getting their honeymoon photos taken in full regalia.  The show is on the river below.  On the rapids just upriver from the bridge, several groups of kayakers and canoeists are practicing their white water skills under the watchful eye of rescuers ready to dive from two boats moored nearby.  It’s a free show watched from above.  Except for a few fishermen who seem to be more hopeful than successful.  I wonder what they catch in this river... and whether they eat it.
       There’s that same rumpled man sitting on the bridge, a dachshund in his arms, his hat upturned in front of him.  I ask if I can pet her, in English of course, holding out my hand, and he nods yes.  “Naïa,” he tells me, and nods at her.  I wonder what this man’s back story is.  Is he homeless?  Or just poor?  His age denotes that most of his life was spent under the Communist regime, and Communist pensions are frugal at best, as I saw in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Prague: Day Three, Part Two - The Market, the Woods and a New Friend

Cafe Slavia

Back at the hotel, I barely have time for a sit-down before the front desk calls to tell me my guest has arrived.

       Christopher suggests lunch at Café Slavia... which just happens to be on my To-Do List.  Very auspicious for our friendship.  We walk down streets that are beginning to feel familiar, toward the river.  Slavia is across from the National Theater, and was a great favorite for breaks during rehearsals, including for Vaclav Havel.  The restaurant is upstairs, all dark wood and windows overlooking the Vltava, waiters in crisp white shirts.  I decide to stay regional and order the beef broth with noodles and “dumplings” (which turn out to be meatballs, albeit delicious ones), and for dessert an apple strudel, to compare it with Paneria’s on my first day.  (Slavia lost; I should have tried their renowned chocolate instead.)

The Dancing House

       After lunch, Christopher walks us down the tree-lined riverbank, the river flowing on one side, wealthy-looking apartment buildings standing tall on the other.  We pass the Dancing House, also called “Fred and Ginger”, a quirky building whose architectural lines seem to dip and wave.  It was designed in 1992 by Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić with some cooperation from Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry.  Past that is the home where playwright and former president Vaclav Havel grew up.  And as we walk, our conversation continues non-stop.

View from Vysehrad

Finally we reach a gateway in a fortress wall.  This is Vysehrad, which means “castle on the heights”.  It was once a fortified castle outside Prague; now the castle is gone, except for some of the walls.  But the vast park includes the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the mysterious Devil’s Column, said to be left by the devil after he lost a bet with a priest.  There’s also a national cemetery, with the much-flowered graves of Dvorak and Smetana, as well as Mucha.  We sit and talk for hours, then walk the ramparts for a great view of the city from yet another angle.
       Soon it’s time for Christopher to return to his wife and his writings.  He walks me downhill through a neighborhood of Cubist houses, one of which he used to live in.  He guides us to the tram stop - which my tired feet appreciate - lends me a ticket and we ride back across much of the Nove Mesta precinct, past yet another park - this one Charles Square - and ultimately to Powder Tower, where he returns me to my hotel and says good-bye.  A true gentleman who didn’t want me to be lost in his adopted city.


       All that's left to do is enjoy an early dinner in the hotel's restaurant.
A table all to myself, and a lovely bisque with caviar.
Then a quick shower...
... and bed.

Prague: Day Three, Part One - The Market, the Woods and a New Friend

View over Prague from Powder Tower

The buffet breakfast at the hotel is a feast.  When you cater to a clientele of different nationalities, you pander to their culinary foibles.  At breakfast time, that means croissants and other morning pastries for the French, cheeses for the Dutch and Germans, eggs, bacon and broiled tomatoes for the Brits, and cereals for the Americans.  As well as a few Czech cold meats that don’t look familiar.  If you can’t find something you like here, you’re hopeless.

After breakfast, it’s off to the farmer’s market, something I always like to see in a place I don’t know.  It tells you a lot about what makes a country different, and what it shares with the rest of the world, in fruit-and-vegetables if not in politics.  The best-known farmer’s market is on Havelska Street, where it’s been since the Middle Ages.  Lucky for me, it’s nearby and on the way to the museum.
       On the walk over, I happen upon workers redoing a pavement.  I’ve seen work like this in France, Cuba and now the Czech Republic, and, like a market, it’s something that’s done the same anywhere.  It always amazes me how fast they work, their hands flying, perfectly lining up each one of those granite squares at the same height as the ones next to it. 

   At the market, the vegetables of choice seem to be sweet peppers
and tomatoes, along with small pumpkins and carrots long enough to use as truncheons.  The fruits are more varied and many come from far away, where the climate and seasons are different than Prague’s:  bananas, peaches, plums, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, huge blueberries...  There are also artisans at the market.  Several offer a choice of marionettes, which seem to be a form of entertainment Czechs love.  I choose a Pinocchio and a peg-leg pirate for my two grandsons, not realizing that I will have to carry these fragile things from Prague to Paris... and across the Atlantic.

      Then it’s on to the Champs-Elysées, the Fifth Avenue, of Prague:  Wenceslas Square. More of an elongated, round-ended esplanade than a square, it runs from Stare Mesto - Old Town - into Nove Mesto - New Town - ending at the National Museum.  I’m hoping to find where they hide the Impressionist collection, but no one seems to know at the hotel.
       It was here that Jan Palach, a Czech student at Charles University, set himself on fire in January of 1969.  Taking a page out of the books of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam, he did it to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, troops sent to put down the Prague Spring uprising and quash the liberal reforms of Alexander Dubcek.  I was very aware of Palach and the Uprising because it mirrored the French student riots of May 1968, and I had arrived in Paris shortly after that revolt ended, to attend university.  Palach’s sacrifice was the leading subject among us students, as it echoed what they had just gone through... although no Frenchman immolated himself.

       Down the middle of the esplanade are café terraces, not yet full.  On either side of the avenue are majestic buildings from Prague’s prime.  Some have known better times, such as the Art Nouveau-style Hotel Europa, built in the very opening years of the Twentieth Century.  Now closed, I’m told it’s soon to be renovated and reopened by the new owner, an international hotel chain.  Another striking building is the Neo-Renaissance Wiehl House, named after its architect, who adorned the entire facade with loggias and colorful sgraffito.  There’s also the Assicurazioni Generali Building where Franz Kafka once worked as a clerk.  In front of one café is a wooden bench, and seated on it a bronze gentleman in a fedora hat and bare feet.
       When I reach the far end of Wenceslas Square, I take the underground passage to the Museum, Prague traffic being unpredictable, as are Prague drivers.  It gives me a look at the Métro system - at least the business part of it if not the actual train part, which is sub- to this subway level.  But when I come out at the other end of this underground mall, the scaffolding on the front of the Museum is blocking the entrance, and I can’t read any eventual signs there may be that would indicate how to get in.  So after a superficial hunt-about, I give up and head back toward the hotel, because my Facebook friend and author Christopher Cook is about to become a face-to-face friend.  He’ll be meeting me at my hotel at noon.

Municipal Hall

       After investigating various streets, some quiet, others busy with tramways, and after buying a ticket for a concert at the Mucha-decorated Municipal Hall tomorrow night, I reach the hotel.  I’ve bought a few roses in a little shop on the way to thank the lady behind the front desk for all her kindnesses.  Especially when I called before arriving to say I might have to cancel because I hadn’t heard from my son for six days after Hurricane Maria.  She was very understanding... and asked after his health when I did arrive.  Good memory.
       Then I just have time to nip around the corner and climb the 186 steps of the Powder Tower, the last of which, again, are ladder-like.  Although less high than the steeple of St. Vitus Cathedral, there’s still a lovely view, and one that affords a closer look at some of the buildings of central Prague.  Especially the vert-de-gris cupola of a nearby building that looks remarkably like the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette department stores in Paris.
       On the way back down, I ask the ticket-taker how many people can fit up there on that narrow walkway.  The ticket-taker says thirty because that’s all the “statics” of the building can handle.  Translation:  it might collapse.  I mention that some of them up there seem to think they’re all alone, blocking the passage and view for others.  He smiles and replies, “There are people, and then there are tourists.”  Down another flight, the handsome ticket guy is being teased by his friends - maybe about his period costume - so I tell him “They’re just jealous”, wink and leave.