My dear family & friends
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My sojourn in Prague began with a bang in the middle of the night. I left my suitcase next to the automatic teller machine in Prague airport and walked off. I got on the bus and, after about two stops, realised I was travelling a bit light. By the time I got back to the airport, after retracing my steps, the suitcase was surrounded by police, bomb squad and airport officials who were all very fucking unhappy with me, but I really didn’t care – I was just too overjoyed to be reunited with my luggage. I wanted to hug my suitcase, but the policemen wouldn’t let me do so until I had produced my passport, given them my address, proof of my address, and (I suspect) generally given them a look of contrition. They never did get the look of contrition.
All the while I was sending Lucia – who had caught a morning flight to Prague for work – panicked text messages. By the time I had all my luggage and was allowed to leave, it was approaching midnight and Lucia insisted that I catch a taxi to the apartment we were staying in. The taxi ride cost £20 against the £1 it would have cost me using public transport.
The apartment, which Lucia found for us on the Wimdu website, was right in the heart of the old city. We had the “suite” which was more like a loft apartment. It had a big open room downstairs and a mezzanine level for beds. Well, when I say mezzanine level, I mean a sort of roof space no more than five feett high at the apex of the roof and then slanting fairly sharply down. My head and the ceiling became quite well acquainted over our stay. Despite this drawback, it was a lovely apartment and I would recommend the apartment block to anyone considering going to Prague.
We were up early the next morning because this was a working trip for Lucia and she had to get to the office which was a few streets away. We listened to the sound of bells wafting in the open window over a breakfast of cheese, ham and bread rolls.
It took me quite a while that Tuesday morning to shake off the events of the night before – I have never done anything quite so stupid.
My first task for the morning was to get a local prepaid simcard for my mobile phone with a big data allowance. I’ve become a heavy data user while travelling. You can never get lost with Google Maps because it uses GPS to pinpoint your exact location. If there’s an interesting sight or building, Google Earth will once again use GPS to pinpoint your exact location and, nine times out of ten, will tell you what you’re looking at with a link to Wikipedia. And, if you want to know more about what you’re looking at, you can just Google it. Google Translate is an absolute gem of an app which enables you to get by without speaking a word of the local language. You just type in what you want to say and show the shop assistant (or a member of the bomb squad getting ready to blow up your suitcase for that matter) the resulting translation. I also have a clever little application called JellySMS which uses the Internet to send text messages anywhere in the world at the local rates of the country to which you’re sending the SMS. And the Skype app allows you to call anyone anywhere in the world at vastly reduced rates.
My second task was to find the Brazilian restaurant which was recommended to us as a possibility for watching the Portuguese matches in the Euro 2012 football championship. I found it relatively easily, but all of the staff were Czech apart from one lone Brazilian chef who didn’t know of any bars or restaurants where the Portuguese of Prague gathered. He suggested I try the Brazilian Embassy around the corner.
I had more luck at the Embassy from a very helpful consular assistant who called a pal to find out the name and address of a new Portuguese cafe which had only recently opened its doors for business. I traipsed across the city to the Cafe Oliveira which was on Mánesova, a bourgeois (according to my Rough Guide) boulevard of beautiful art deco apartment blocks. The cafe was a small hole-in-the-wall type place but, having ascertained that they would indeed be showing the football, I strolled off back in the direction of the city centre to go and look at Prague.
My trusty Rough Guide was both good and poor. It was excellent at informing me about where to go and what I was looking at, but poor in that it only gave the Czech names of the sights and areas. Let me ask you: What would you rather read about - Náměstí Republiky or Republic Square?
I spent the rest of the day just walking, taking arbitrary turns when I saw something interesting. The city is like a giant art gallery in and of itself. Down in Wenceslas Square (which is more a wide boulevard than a square really) I had lunch at a cafe which comprised two old trams and rows of outside tables. Rather unsurprisingly it’s called “The Tram”. The square is lined with the most stunning Hapsberg era art deco architecture and a few dull buildings from the communist era. It appealed to my sense of humour that the big communist department store is now a branch of Debenhams, and another has been converted into Marks & Spencer. Around the corner, the Museum of Communism is right above McDonald’s and next door to a casino. Nice.
The top of Wenceslas Square is crowned by the imposing National Museum which was the focus of the 1989 demonstrations which brought down the communist regime. In November 1989 750 000 people – nearly three-quarters of the population of Prague – crowded in to the square demanding change. On the day I was there, a few protestors with big flags and banners and a loud sound system were trying to gain support and sympathy from passersby not very successfully. I’m guessing that they were protesting the economic situation given that there were several “Occupy” sites dotted around the capital also trying to rouse some sympathy and action from the populace.
At the bottom of the square stands a five-storey Bata shoe store. Much to my fascination, my Rough Guide reliably informs me that Tomáš Baťa was Czech. I didn’t know that. All I ever knew about Bata was that they made my school shoes. For my South African friends – anyone remember Bata Toughees? I still remember the jingle and tag line from the radio ads in the 1970s: “(B)ring Bata your feet and we’ll wrap them in comfort, comfort for the whole year round.” The shop proved quite handy a couple of days later when my sandals broke.
Walking around Prague that afternoon I learned a few rules. First, Czech’s don’t have the same regard for pedestrian crossings than they do, say, in the UK. Getting across the road is more a question of who has the bigger balls – you or the driver? Second, trams have absolute right of way. Given that they are fairly large and heavy vehicles made of iron and steel, this is understandable. Third, the Czech’s don’t like it when you cross against the light even when there is nary a car in sight.
Perhaps the biggest soundtrack of Prague for me is the ticking of the pedestrian traffic lights. It’s a slow tick when the light is red, and a triple time tick when the light is green.
Aside from the traffic lights, I was most surprised at how full of music Prague is. There are buskers everywhere, open air concerts in the courtyards of many state and city buildings, concerts in many churches nearly every night (although the ensembles seem to play much the same pieces of music), and often the sounds of students or children practising the piano, or violin, or guitar, or clarinet wafting down from open windows. I suppose that shouldn’t have been surprising in the city that gave us composers like Dvorak and Smetana, where Mozart tickled the ivories of the city’s organs, and the hometown of the Princes Lobkowicz, one of whose ancestors was Ludwig van Beetohoven’s principal patron, and to whom Beethoven dedicated his third and fifth symphonies.
That first afternoon, my walk took me from Wenceslas Square down to the Vlatava River (Moldau in German) at the Legii Most (The Bridge of Legions), past the Karlův most (Charles Bridge) – perhaps the single most recognised icon of Prague, the Mánesův most (Manes Bridge), and the Čechův most (Czech Bridge) where I stopped for a beer and to watch life go by on the river to a soundtrack of trams running over the bridge.
One of the few things that I find disappointing about London (and the UK in general) is the lack of riverside cafés – more like complete non-existence. All over Europe you’ll find cafe after cafe lining the banks of its rivers as they wind through whichever city, frequented by tourists and locals alike. The atmosphere is always relaxed and laid back with patrons sipping a coffee, a beer or a glass of wine, and perhaps tucking in to a pastry or a sandwich. All the UK seems to have is the odd, usually dull (although there are some exceptions), expensive pub.
After a beer (or two) I wandered through the old Jewish quarter(Josefov) towards the MillwardBrown office in Klimentske. Right next door I passed the Bulgarian Institute which was preparing for a concert by a fourteen-year-old violinist, accompanied by a pianist. It was free and there were free drinks afterwards, so I went to the concert which turned out to be most pleasant. Lining the walls of the storefront concert room were pastels by Bulgarian artist Georgi Jelezerov. No, I hadn’t heard of him either, but if I had some spare cash burning a hole in my pocket I wouldn’t mind hanging a few on the wall in my home. Lucia still wasn’t finished work by the end of the concert, so I strolled back to the apartment via Republic Square and the grand art deco concert hall that is known as the Municipal House. Outside, I stood listening to a group of eight French buskers who played everything from The Kinks, to the Beatles, to French and Spanish folk songs. I don’t easily give money to beggars and buskers, but I gave them a bunch they were that good.
Diagonally opposite the Municipal house is the Palladium Shopping Centre which is easily the best shopping centre I have visited – ever. You would hardly know that it’s a shopping centre from its facade – it just looks like one of the art deco buildings. But step inside the doors and it leads into the best layed out, the best dressed shopping centre, with just the right blend of shops that I have ever visited. To my mind it completely blends into its surroundings, unlike the brutalist architecture of most shopping centres.
For dinner Lucia and I had pizza at a Bohemian, Italian hole-in-the-wall jazz cafe right next to a medieval cathedral. The keyboard and double bass jazz combo were really good. Lucia expressed some surprise that I liked jazz. The problem with jazz is that it actually represents so many different genres (which usually sound like discordant squawks to my ears) that it’s impossible to say whether you like it or not. This fell into the category of good jazz by my definition.
Interestingly, Prague has one of the biggest Italian expatriate communities in Europe, and it has the Italian restaurants to prove it – they’re everywhere. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the outnumbered “traditional” Czech restaurants. The only more numerous type of shop in the city centre is probably the hundreds of tourist traps selling Czech crystal tat to tourists. We passed one on the way home pumping out Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” (the only decent song he ever wrote) at 11 o’clock at night.
On Wednesday morning, I awoke sneezing and spent the rest of the day trying to combat the effects of sever hayfever. First, I returned to the bookshop I had spied out the previous day on Wenceslas Square to replace the Marco Polo map of Prague I had lost the day before. The Neo Luxor bookshop – over five floors – is easily the biggest bookshop I have ever visited. I wondered if the Kindle hadn’t made it to Prague yet. The size of the shop would certainly seem to indicate a significant thirst for knowledge among the Czechs.
With my new map in hand, I strolled back across the city and then across the Vlatava River at the Bridge of Legions to Kampa Island and Malá Strana (Lesser Town) which sits below Prague Castle. It’s an incredibly picturesque area set on a slope up to the Castle. It’s narrow streets are a melange of churches, museums, galleries, concert halls, adverts for musical events, restaurants, cafes, trams, buses, a few beggars and thousands of tourists. The Czech parliament and senate are housed in two of the old grand palács. I felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of attractions. It would take many weeks, possibly months to see everything.
Around one corner I came across a workman high up a ten meter ladder painting the wall and cleaning the gutters of a hotel sans any sort of harness or safety equipment. His head was protected by a baseball cap. English “’Elf & Safety” would have had a collective heart attack.
I stamped up the hill to the castle district, which is more a series of palaces than a castle per se. It didn’t quite have the bustle of the district below with no trams and few cars, but it was still buzzing with hordes of tourists.
First port of call for me was a cafe in the Schwarzenberský palace for a cappuccino and something to try and calm my hayfever. My sister’s solution is always to gargle with Bagaçeira (the Portuguese version of grappa) – she swears by it. The only other patron at the cafe recommended that I try Becherovka, a Czech firewater made from grain alcohol and steeped in spices. I forgot the gargling bit (which is possibly why it had no effect on my hayfever), but I felt good.
The exterior walls of the Schwarzberg Palace are an excellent example of sgraffito decoration – I had to look it up on wiki. Essentially you plaster a wall with several layers of different colour plaster and then carefully scrape away the layers in a geometric pattern (or trace a picture) to create a multi-coloured wall. There’s a lot of this around Prague.
Outside the gates to the “castle” I watched the changing of the guard with soldiers trooping around in their sky-blue uniforms designed by film maker Milos Forman. As a counterpoint to the “friendly” uniforms, the event was watched over by Ignaz Platzer’s Blood-curdling “Battling Titans”, two gargantuan stone figures wielding club and dagger about to inflict fatal blows on their victims.
After that, I joined the midday throngs in the palace compound, elbowing my way around the sights and into St Vitus Cathedral. I quickly (and easily) tired of that and paid the equivalent of £5 to climb the cathedral bell tower which afforded panoramic views up and down the Vlatava River and all around Prague with its red roofs, big green parks and communist style apartment blocks in the distance. Below, the square outside the cathedral was littered with tour guides holding up identifying flags, umbrellas or giant plastic flowers for their followers. (The identifying flags rather reminded me of my days in the army and the drills for fire and movement: every time I see one of the flags, I want to give firing instructions the light machine gun crew.)
After descending the tower, I took myself for lunch at the Poet Cafe in a much quieter, green corner of the castle where I decided to head back to the apartment – I’d had enough hayfever for one day and my head was pounding despite several doses of ibuprofen. I crossed the river at the Manes Bridge and strolled along the riverside under a row of linden trees where young lovers clogged the park benches.
In the evening, two of Lucia’s colleagues, Grace from Italy and Tomas from Germany, joined us for dinner and football at Cafe Oliveira. (The match was Portugal against Spain which Portugal lost on penalties much to the dismay of the Portuguese customers.) The four of us made our way to the cafe on the Prague Metro. It feels like it was designed by the KGB – it’s almost devoid of advertising and has very little signage to tell you where to go. (If you don’t know where you’re going, you shouldn’t be there in the first place.) Unlike London transport, however, it is spotlessly clean – and that goes for the trams and buses as well.
The big screen was in a crammed little room and the air soon became thick with cigarette smoke, but it had an amazing atmosphere. (That’s one thing the Czechs can do: ban all smoking in enclosed public places – we’ve got quite used smoke free restaurants and pubs.) Dinner comprised petiscos: olives, cheese, bread, chouriço, lupins, toasted sandwiches, two bottles of wine and a couple of beers – all for the grand total of £30.
The cafe had such an amiable crowd as well, with everyone enquiring from everyone else where they were from and why they were there. We met a young fellow studying international relations in Prague (probably headed for the diplomatic corps), an oil trader from Angola, a middle-aged pharmacist, a slim and svelte blonde American who spoke perfect Brazilian Portuguese (but with an over-riding American accent), a gay Brazilian girl and her partner (the partner didn’t like me, I suspect because I was yelling loudly at the television), and sundry others who gave us the warmest welcome. It was such a pity Portugal lost.
The next day, Thursday, I spent most of the day riding trams. I like to do this, to get to know the city and get the feel of the city, if I can. I bought my day ticket at Republic Square and got on the very first tram that came by – the number 14. I rode it out to the terminus, and then got on a different one and rode that one until I got to a major tram intersection, and then got on another one again.
The first thing that becomes clear is that Prague has gone up rather than spread out like London or Johannesburg or most cities in the “new world”. One passes apartment block after apartment block right out to the periphery. As you move further out, the apartments become more plain – none of the art deco, baroque, or rococo of the centre – just plain blank walls of the 20th century. At the extreme you get to the communist built apartments which are not really bad looking at all, but something that could simply have been built anywhere.
Alongside the river on one journey I came across a large outdoor market, the Penny Market, so I hopped off the tram to investigate – but it was mostly the Eastern made tat you can find anywhere in the world, although it was in lovely surroundings. Right next door was a warehouse complex with a huge advertising hoarding announcing this was “Showpark”. I thought it would be some sort of cinema or other entertainment complex, but on closer inspection I discovered that it fell more into the “other” category. I looked it up on my mobile phone and was guaranteed that this was the “the largest adult entertainment complex in all of Europe.” I disagree – Amsterdam (where the wares are on public display) wins that one hands down, although I am reliably informed that the Reeperbahn in Hamburg is a close contender.
At around lunchtime, I caught a number of trams which took me to the base of Petrin, one of Prague’s larger green spaces set on a hill to the side of Malá Strana. I took the funicular, built for the 1891 Prague Exhibition, to the top of the hill, and thence ambled to the one-fifth replica of the Eiffel Tower (built for the same Expo) where I lunched on Klobasa (Czech sausage) and a beer. The park is lovely – although it is surrounded by the bustle of the city, it is quiet, green and shady. The stillness is broken only by the sounds of birdsong and church bells. It’s a wonderfully calm space.
Back on the trams in the afternoon, I continued to explore the city – this time with a little more activity on the trams themselves.
First, I was sitting on a tram in a daydream, and suddenly this very big bloke in jeans, with muscles bulging out his floral t-shirt, was at my side shoving some sort of badge in my face and making some demand of me in Czech. My first thought was that the police were still pissed off about my suitcase at the airport. But no, they were ticket inspectors, and I happily showed them my day pass. They continued their inspection of the rest of the passengers, and then just sat down for about four stops, then jumped up again to badge the new arrivals. This time they found some fresh bait in a group of rather older Swedish or German tourists who scattered off the tram in all directions at the next stop with the ticket inspectors in hot pursuit. The last thing I saw as the tram pulled away and around the corner was some old dear walking a lot faster than her prescription walking stick would suggest.
And then, later, out near the more upmarket suburb of Bílá Hora, I had a minor altercation with another passenger. I was sitting happily in my seat with my legs crossed looking out the window at the passing sights, when another older man got on the tram. If I can try to paint a picture in words: he looked like a mean mouse. His clothes were dowdy, more reminiscent of the communist era, he had on very big glasses that seemed to cover half his face, his hair was greasy and his shoulders were slumped. He looked like some minor communist party official who was bitterly disappointed that he no longer got the respect that he thought he deserved was his right – almost glaring at everyone in defiance as he walk down the coach. He walked with a walking stick that he didn’t need other than to bash people as he did to me. I couldn’t believe it – he walked past me and whacked my foot as if it was in his way (which it wasn’t) and took the seat in from of me. I was completely stunned for a moment, at the same time noticing a group of teenagers sort of hiding their eyes and sniggering, and then reacted – I thumped the back of his seat as he sat and told him to fuck off and show some manners. Unfortunately I don’t think he spoke English. And then we just sat there.
In the early evening, I went to a concert by the Old Prague Music Ensemble at St Georges Basilica in Prague Castle. The programme included works by the likes Smetana, Dvorak, Vivaldi and Mozart. The ensemble was adequate, but not brilliant. The £20 ticket for the 70 minute programme seemed expensive, but the venue was fantastic. My sandals broke as I walked there, and then I still had to flop all the way back to the apartment afterwards to change for a work do with Lucia’s company at a cocktail bar around the corner. At some point during the evening I looked at my phone to get the score in the match between Germany and Italy in the other Euro 2012 semi-final. I couldn’t believe my eyes to see German was losing. One of Lucia’s new hires in Prague, Martin, quickly took the opportunity to invite me to another bar around the corner so that we could watch the second half.
We awoke late on Friday morning after a long, hot, sticky night. I took the morning slowly, filling in time until Lucia could join me at lunchtime for the rest of the weekend. I went to the giant Bata store on Wenceslas Square and bought a lovely pair of replacement sandals for around £40.
Just before lunch, I met Lucia at the apartment and we caught a combination of the metro and trams to the funicular at Petrin. We had a lunch of Klobasa, Czech pork steaks, bread and beers at the copy of the Eiffel Tower. Lucia relished the quiet calmness of the park after a hectic week of work – we put our feet up, sat back and took things slowly. After lunch we wandered through the extensive rose gardens and then along the “Hunger Wall” down towards Prague Castle. We wandered a short way down the hill in the park so that Lucia could lie against a tree in a yoga pose to try and cool her feet.
In the castle district we first wandered into the Strahovs Monastery. Although it houses one of the largest ancient theological libraries in Europe (£10 entry please), we headed straight for the terrace cafe to enjoy what is probably one of the best views of Prague. The cool drinks were expensive, but we viewed the price more as rent.
Afterwards we sauntered down the hill to the castle precinct itself. What a difference it makes to go later in the day – it was so much more pleasant without the crowds. We almost had St Vitus Cathedral to ourselves, and then bought tickets to see the Old Royal Palace, St Georges Basilica and “Golden Lane” – a narrow alley of tiny houses built into the walls of the castle. Apparently Franz Kafka wrote one of his early books as a resident in this alley. (There’s a lot of emphasis on Kafka around Prague.)
Having taken our fill, we wandered back to our apartment via the castle vineyard set into the hill down from the palaces, across the river at Manes Bridge where we sipped a few beers at the cafe and watched people and boats go by.
For dinner we went to the Cuban restaurant/cafe/bar (more precisely “La Bodeguita del Medio”, which is apparently quite famous) where we supped on a dinner of Mojito’s and Chicken Paella. The food was okay, nothing wrong with it at all – but I hate paying for something I can do so much better.
If anything, Friday night was even hotter than Thursday night with the thermometer staying up in the high 20s.
Saturday was our first full day together and Lucia let me be her guide. First stop was shoe shopping at the Bata store. I left Lucia to peruse the wares while I went down to the coffee shop I’d been at the previous day for cappuccino. The waitress recognised me immediately and told me that I hadn’t paid for my cappuccino previously. I could have sworn that I’d paid her colleague, but given my recent track record for forgetting and losing things, I wasn’t going to argue. Then when it came to pay and leave, the same colleague told me “not to worry” and that “it had been sorted out”. Having worked in a bar/restaurant for five years of my life, and having seen every skulduggerous and nefarious thieving trick in the book, I am prepared to lay money on the fact that he was ripping his colleague off.
As we headed off to begin our day of sightseeing, we past an American family walking the other way – the mother declared loudly that: “It sure ain’t Copenhagen.” My immediate, silent response was: “No you twat, it’s Prague,” but I’ve spent a long time trying to think about what she could possibly have meant. Did she think Prague was shit, or that Copenhagen was shit, or was she just making an innocuous general comment? And, if she thought any of them were shit, why did she get on an aeroplane in the first place?
Our first stop was the Riding School of the Wallenstein Palace where the Prague National Gallery was hosting the works of Jakub Schikaneder. No, I hadn’t heard of him either, once again, but I was really taken the giant posters dotted about the city advertising the exhibition. It showed what looks like an old man standing on the Charles Bridge through the haze of the setting sun on a cold winter’s day that really appealed to me. That, and the fact that various websites described him has the most important Czech painter of all time, was enough for me to make a date with Lucia at the gallery.
Let me qualifying my comments by stating that Lucia said it was the highlight of her trip. Much of the paintings were quite dark. Certainly they showed a robust social feeling often depicting women in hardship, old age and poverty. They show the hard life of the peasantry under the old European monarchies. There was a whole series of contemplative paintings showing priests in prayer and reflection. But there were also very bright pictures, usually views out a window or door. His grasp of painting light and shadow was superb. His speciality seemed to be nocturnes – paintings made in the half light of the setting sun: a couple walking arm in arm, a crowd on a quay, a carriage waiting in front of a grand house. If I ever win the Euromillions, and should some Schikaneders come available on the auction market, I would definitely be a buyer.
I even recognised one of the paintings – Lucia said it looked like something from a chocolate box, and she may well be right. But just because some capitalist fucks stole his picture to sell their chocolates doesn’t mean it isn’t any good.
After the exhibition, we headed down the road towards the centre of Malá Strana looking for somewhere to have lunch and chanced a beautiful tree-lined courtyard set with cafe tables. I have no idea what the trees were, but their flowers filled the courtyard with the most divine scent – so we plonked ourselves down for a sandwich and a beer.
Afterwards, we wormed our way through the narrow, cobbled, twisting streets looking for the museum of musical instruments – which we didn’t find because I was distracted by the Rough Guide’s mention of the John Lennon Wall. It’s simply a wall that the youth of Prague started tagging after John Lennon was assassinated in 1980. Call it what you will – rebellion against the Communist regime, or simply the rebellion of youth against adult authority – it has become a shrine. It looks like a complete mess to my eye (there is nothing Banksy-like on this wall), but it seems to have kept the graffiti artists mostly away from the rest of Prague – and that’s a good thing.
Around the corner is the Museum Kampa (on Kampa Island), a gallery of surrealist and “spiritual” art that is highly rated on TripAdvisor. Among its more famous exhibits are works by Goya and the sculptor František Kupka. We were keen to go, and went to the ticket desk – BUT, that was where things turned sour. Adult admission is about £9 each, but family admission (two adults, three children) is around £11 – and you’re not allowed to buy a family admission without children. I’m never one to take such discrimination lightly – it’s either gross discrimination on families without children, or simply a tax on tourists. They say it’s to encourage children to go to galleries, which may well be true, but the Museum Kampa was the only gallery or museum we came across in Prague that charged a discount on the adult price for a family entry. So, after arguing strongly for several minutes while I let the queue behind me grow, we departed, but it left a bitter feeling (probably the only negative of our entire stay in Prague.) So, if you ever go to Prague, don’t go to the Museum Kampa – in fact, write to them and tell them why you’re not going.
We dithered about what to do after that. It was extremely hot – apparently the hottest day in 65 years – and we were feeling a bit washed out. We eventually took a tram to the top of the palace gardens of Prague Castle and meandered through the coolness of the tree-lined paths. In the middle of the gardens is a house which was built for the President of Czechoslovakia during the communist era. It’s just a shit (big) modern house really, and looks entirely out of place. Leaving the gardens we wandered back down through the castle precincts (popped in at a photo exhibition of pictures by Jan Reich) and the castle vineyard to the Villa Richter, a restaurant where we shared some more beers and a cheese platter gazing over the city. Afterwards we dragged ourselves back to the apartment in the still searing heat. For dinner we went to a Lebanese restaurant in the Palladium Shopping Centre, although I’m not sure I should actually admit that we went to a shopping centre for dinner.
Back at the apartment we tried to find sleep with all the windows wide open. In the morning (Sunday), I found Lucia on the sofa under the window complaining that she hadn’t slept at all. We both took cold showers and dressed for another day of exploring. We had breakfast at a cafe next door to the “Spanish” Synagogue which was our first port of call. The synagogue doesn’t look like much on the outside, but the interior is breath-taking – the gilded Moorish interior deliberately imitating the Alhambra. My Rough guide says: “Every available surface is smothered with a profusion of floral motifs and geometric patterns in vibrant reds, reds, greens and blues, which are repeated in the synagogue’s huge stained-glass windows.” I concur.
The synagogue now houses a graphic history of Prague’s Jews from the 1781 Edict of Tolerance right through to the Holocaust. Most of the Jews in Prague died in Auschwitz after being moved to the ghetto in Theriesenstadt.
As I was looking at an exhibit on the revival of the Jewish community in Prague, I heard a bearded kantor next to me say to a Jewish tourist: “I’ll say a prayer for you.” He then sang the most beautiful and haunting prayer. The synagogue fell silent and you could have heard a pin drop apart from his voice. Me – a confirmed atheist – put my hat on as a mark of respect. But then he went and spoiled it all, when he was finished, by holding his hat out to all and sundry saying: “What, this is a free concert?” I shouldn’t have bothered with the hat.
Outside we passed Švejk Restaurant named for the main character in the book “The Good Soldier Švejk” by Jaroslav Hašek. It was a book I bought when I was still a teenager (because I like the cover), and is one of the few books in my (extensive) collection which I’ve never read. I started a few times, but just got bogged down in the philosophy. But it’s one of the books which define Czech nationhood and you find cartoon motifs to The Good Soldier Švejk all around Prague.
We only had one other tourist item on our list for the day – the Lobkowicz Palace in the castle district, not particularly because I knew its history, but rather because it was something that you should do in Prague. It was only in the gallery/museum that I learned the history of the Lobkowicz family. Most notable is the fact that one of the Lobkowicz princes was Ludwig van Beethoven’s principal patron, paying him a stipend to continue composing. In one of the rooms, surrounded by ancient musical instruments, they have the actual, ORIGINAL score of Beethoven’s third symphony, the Eroica.
The rest of the palace is filled with the most stunning art, paintings, decorative arts, musical instruments, original musical scores and weaponry. I was amazed to discover that the Lobkowicz’s actually own the Canaletto painting of the “Lord Mayor’s Parade” on the River Thames which was the blueprint for the recent Diamond Jubilee Parade for the Queen.
Recent family history is just as interesting. Everything was confiscated by the Nazi’s when they invade Czechoslovakia in 1938 and then given back after the war, only to be nationalised by the Communist regime in 1948. The family then escaped to America and finally claimed it all back under the Restitution Act after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. That said, I have a bit of a problem with restitution: 1) it perpetuates the inequities of feudal Europe as so emotively illustrated by Schikaneder, and, 2) the communist government of 1948 was a legally constituted government supported by at least half the populace thus representing the will of the people at the time.
But let than not detract from the palace – TripAdvisor rates the palace a rare 5 out of 5, and we agree.
In the museum shop afterwards Lucia and I had the opportunity for a good laugh at the expense of some more Americans. Among their wares they had large posters, postcards and key rings depicting “The Lord Mayor’s Parade” by Canaletto . In a very broad American accent a tourist asked the shop assistant: “Is that the Vlatava?” to which the assistant truthfully answered: “No, it’s the Thames in London.” Says the American: “Oh, what a pity.” It makes me think of the well-worn proverb: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Before dinner that evening, we switched our apartment for a hotel as Lucia would be staying on in Prague (for work) once I took my leave on Tuesday morning. Dinner was a hurried affair (at a rather good Czech restaurant) so that we could find a bar with big screens showing the Euro 2012 final between Italy and Spain. We found a nice-looking Italian bar/restaurant around the corner from the hotel which was packed with Italians. As it turned out, it was quite awkward really as Spain dished out a 4 – 0 drubbing to Italy. But we certainly enjoyed the match.
Monday was my last day in Prague. I walked to the Prague Fortress (Vyšehrad – literally High Castle) about four kilometres away, bordering the southern tip of the “New City”. I wound my way through the streets and boulevards simply marvelling at the architecture, once again. The fortress has more legends and myths attached to it than any other place in Bohemia, and it has emerged into a symbol of Czech nationhood. There is little left of the palaces that once adorned its ramparts, and it is now simply a large green open space sitting high above its surroundings and affording an awesome view up and down the Vlatava.
Part of the symbolism of the Vyšehrad arises from its cemetery which shields the remains of Czech art intelligentsia. Only the great and good lie here – there are no soldiers or politicians, and not even the Communists managed to muscle their way in except on artistic grounds. I took my photograph in front of the mausoleum to Antonín Dvořák and then the simpler grave of Bedřich Smetana.
I tried to get in to the neo-Gothic church of Saint Petr and Pavel next door which hides Art Nouveau murals on every surface inside, but the Rottweiler on the door kept slamming the door in everybody’s face without explanation. This somehow deemed it beneath her to converse with the paying (tourist) public. Luckily a nun came along and I more-or-less stood directly in front of her to enquire what was going on and when we might get in to the church. She made the queries of the Rottweiler in Czech who glared at me menacingly while begrudgingly answering the nun. My smile of thanks didn’t quite echo with my thoughts.
I didn’t feel like hanging around until two or three o’clock and so went to a cafe in the corner of the castle for a coffee and slivovitz under the trees while I decided what to do next. I could have gone back across town to the Žižkov Television Tower – the highest structure in Prague – which was allegedly built to jam West German television signals in the 1980s. It has the distinction of being voted one of the ugliest structures in Europe. Apparently the Praguers call it The Rocket because it looks like a rocket standing next to its launch gantry. Look, it’s not art deco or baroque, but it has its own charm to my eye. I’ve seen many more shit buildings that I would pull down first – the Birmingham Central Library would be number one.
But I’d already got my bird’s eye view of Prague from the bell tower of St Vitus Cathedral, so I scratched that idea. Then I remembered the posters I’d seen for the KGB Museum in Malá Strana, looked it up on my phone (a four out of five rating from TripAdvisor), and decided to go there. I walked along the River until I got to Zofin Island which houses a concert hall and various operations renting out pedal boats, rowing boats and the like. I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I thought it may be a place for a sandwich and a beer. Some “pleasure island” this – it was littered with drunks and drug addicts, one lot doing lines of cocaine right in front of me right out in the open. I moved on.
The KGB Museum (essentially two rooms high in Malá Strana a couple of doors away from the American Embassy) could have been good – but the owner kept dashing between guests trying to give the same story to everyone instead of doing a tour every fifteen minutes. He kept on saying “one minute, one minute” and then dash off for five minutes to lay his patter on somebody else. Eventually, I’d had enough and just left – but it was a real pity really because he had a good story to tell and some truly fascinating objects to illustrate it along the way.
As I walked down the hill I stood for a while watching the police road block that searched every single car that simply wanted to drive past the American Embassy.
Back at the hotel, I packed my bags for an early morning departure. In the evening, Lucia and I went back to the terrace of the Villa Richter for dinner with one of Lucia’s Dutch colleagues. Over our meal we watched the lights of Prague switch on as the night set in. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and got soaked in the most terrific thunderstorm.
At the airport I wondered why the why the word “Bohemian” had come to mean some sort of artist or writer living an unconventional lifestyle because there is nothing particularly unconventional about Prague. So I looked up the etymology and derivation of the word – and discovered that it derives from a French misunderstanding of where gypsies came from. So, actually it started out as a bit of an insult, but today is worn as a badge of distinction by those whom we refer to as “Bohemian”.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
