*Prague.*

06Apr08




Had a walking tour this morning, and I must say that Prague has been the most beautiful city I have seen so far – and probably will the most beautiful city I will see as I only have two or three more cities to go - and at least one of those was bombed out and had to be rebuilt.

Prague’s history is weird and interesting…an almost ancient city, with the same development that anyone would expect from a major cultural center in Europe; at the same time, this it’s gone through several major transitions in my lifetime, and even more during my parents lifetime. You have to remember, when I first learned about European geography in the sixth grade, Prague was in a different country: Czechoslovakia. It is strange to me to learn about historical events that have happened during my lifetime when everything I have seen on this trip has been massively old. On top of that, the tour guide spoke of the protests that occurred in the late 60’s (a turbulent time, it seems, just about everywhere), and what it was like to transition from Soviet control to being a free independent state. I guess that’s Eastern Europe for you…still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union and, hopefully, coming out for the better.

After the tour started at the site where two students burnt themselves in protest of Soviet occupation (more on that in a later post), the tour went on through Wenceslas Square (St. Wenceslas, apparently, was never a king and has nothing to do with Christmas; rather, he was a good and benevolent Duke who became the patron saint for all Czech people). We went though the bustling square to this statue that was made to commemorate the Czechoslovakian government “riding a dead horse” through the time when the Berlin Wall fell and when it split back into two countries.


St. Wenceslas Square


Riding a dead horse

Leaving Wenceslas Square, we started to walk toward the old Jewish Quarter of Prague…along the way we saw an Astrological clock (that my picture won’t do justice to) that was apparently so magnificent when it was built (somewhere between 300 and 500 years ago) that the king at the time, folklore has it, blinded the man who designed and built it so that he could never create another. Other than that, we passed by a shrine dedicated to Jan Hus, whom, if I’m not mistaken came before both Martin Luther and John Calvin and is widely credited with being the first person to come up with the concept that we now call Protestantism (I’ll check on this, because I might be wrong). He was burned at the stake in the same area that his statue now stands.




The Astronomical Clock


Jan Hus

Now, as I said, Prague is beautiful, and if you’ve been reading I have commented on art, music, culture, politics, and all kinds of other stuff…but never architecture. This is due mainly to the fact that I know absolutely nothing about architecture and can’t even B.S. my way through it like I have so many other things (this is where you’re supposed to laugh); however, if there was one thing I learned about Picasso in Barcelona and Paris it was that he came along with this thing called “cubism” and changed art from trying to replicate the exact picture and tried to get to something deeper by using color, shading, and reflected light. (I am aware that this description is very limited, I’m just making a broad point.) Prague’s architecture is, so I have been told, the most varied of any city in Europe, if not the world and it, apparently, is the only city to have buildings built with cubist art influences, where the building looks different depending upon how the sun is shining upon it.


Cubism in Architecture

The Jewish quarter was filled with history as well…as it was where the Jews were confined to when the pope stated that Christians and Jews were not to live in the same areas (16th century, I think). Interestingly enough, it’s also the part of the city that is most prone to flooding.

I think I’ve mentioned in the blog about how I have been amazed by how much prior knowledge I have had about some of the things I have seen on this trip…and about how (perhaps too much of) that knowledge has come from comic books: the Jewish Quarter in Prague fits into this in a weird way as I learned about this building:


The New-Old Synagogue

…and this mythological icon that is said to still be locked in the attic:




The Golem of Prague

…from a fictional novel that was about comic book authors in the 1930’s, one of whom escaped (in the story) from Prague in a coffin with the golem. (The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay: if you’re wondering, and before you disregard it as “low culture” remember…it won a Pulitzer Prize.)

After that we were lead down the Charles Bridge and across the other side of the Vlatava River where the tour guide pointed the large number of “Gothic Golden Arches” in Prague (referring to McDonalds) with a little disdain…apparently, with freedom and capitalism, so to has come globalism and homogenization to Prague. I imagine it’s better than Soviet rule, but at the same time, it does kinda suck to see a bunch of McDonalds’ in a place that has been around for a 1000 years or so.


The tower of Charles Bridge