Prague

What sets Prague apart from the rest of Europe?  It’s not the combination of old and new as much as the combination of old and really old.  Like many of the cities in Central Europe, it dates back to Roman times.  Let’s start with my hotel – Hotel U Tri Pstrosu, or The Three Ostriches.  The house was built by a purveyor of ostrich feathers in 1597 replacing a middle-age pub where King Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, used to take in a pint or two while watching construction of the bridge he commissioned to connect Old Town with the castle.  The house was converted into an eighteen room hotel in the 1970’s.  My room overlooks some of the thirty statues placed on the 14^th Century bridge sometime in the 1700’s.  Other tourists frequently caught me in their photos as I headed out to do my own site-seeing.

Old Town is a honeycomb of narrow streets that all seem to lead to the old Town Square.  The Square’s astronomical clock, a 15^th Century relic, tells time not only in hours and minutes but also charts the movement of our galaxy and rotates once every 25,000 years.  They build things to last here.  The town is also filled with old churches and each one seemed to have a concert going on.  They’re mostly for the tourists, I’m sure, but it keeps the classic musicians employed.  It was hard to pass a church without hearing music or take a tram without seeing someone carrying a violin or viola case.

I found myself fascinated with Prague’s old Jewish cemetery.  It wasn’t the mammoth crypts and headstones that interested me as much as the nooks where cremated remains were kept.  The enclosures had glass covers and were decorated with photos and other momentos.  It was snowing outside, but the faces were eternally smiling inside.     

Everything looks up to Prague Castle, which dates back to the 9^th Century.  And the castle has everything a castle should, including an indoor jousting ring.  St. Vitus cathedral sits entirely with the castle complex and dominates the skyline.  Its original nave is as old as anything in Prague.  The castle has a small city inside too.  I think the footprint of the walls that surrounding the castle, keeping its inhabitants safe from bad guys, is what makes it Europe’s largest.

Prague isn’t all castles and churches though.  Its people were different than those of other Eastern European cities I’ve visited in that they’re more playful.  It snowed one night and the late-night revelers had a grand time pushing each other across the bridge on pieces of cardboard after the bars closed. And they’re respectful too.  Even at the famous graffiti wall where everything is painted, marked and carved, John Lennon’s bust remains clean and unharmed.  The Czech’s love the Beatles.