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…picture Prague.
Prague is simply a beautiful city. I can’t imagine being there during the real high season, seeing its narrow streets crowded to bursting with tourists, because even after only spending two days there, I have a feeling that that’s nothing like the real Prague (or, as they say in Czech, Praha — is there a cooler name for a city?). I’ve got a ton of pictures (as usual) but rather than post a ton of the touristy ones (astronomical clock, anybody?) I’m probably going to include more that show the kind of Prague that I could feel there under all the souvenir shops and tour groups. The kind of Prague that shows in this picture, looking down the river from Karluv Most (that’s Czech for the Charles Bridge, which is admittedly very touristed, but provides fabulous views in either direction). It seems so calm and unhurried, bursting with old-world charm side by side with new-world conveniences.
Most of the pictures that follow are going to be from the complex known as Prague Castle — most specifically, they are going to be from inside St. Vitus’s Cathedral, because it possesses the most stunning stained glass I have ever seen. I first entered the cathedral right before sunset, when the light threw colors in patterns all through the building.
(I can’t possibly caption this. Words don’t do it justice. There is light on the floor!)
I am so in love with gothic after this trip that it is almost impossible to relate how much. Gothic arches and stained glass windows and flying buttresses consume my architectural daydreams.
Oh look, it’s me!
1930s Art Deco stained glass window designed by artist Alfons Mucha, who is one of my new favorite human beings for designing something as glorious as this. There’s actually a lot of Art Deco and Art Nouveau going on in Prague, right alongside the Gothic, and it’s hard for me to say which of them I loved more. Probably the best part was seeing all the ways they contrasted and complimented each other.
On the castle side of the river, in the so-called “Lesser Quarter,” is a wall entirely covered in graffiti devoted to the Beatles, in particular John Lennon. After Lennon’s death in the 80s, Czech teens began spray-painting homages to him on this (formerly unadorned) stretch of wall — greatly against the wishes of the communist police forces, who would whitewash it every day, only to find the graffiti had returned every morning. Eventually, the police gave up, and the wall flourished as testimony to Czech restlessness under communist control and longing for greater contact with the culture and ideals of the western world.
People to this day leave their mark on the wall. Based on the oldest dates that I could see, I’d say that the wall gets almost entirely re-graffitied about every five or six years. Some people come with paintbrushes, some with magic markers, and even some with spray cans and stencils to leave their mark on this continually growing piece of history.
The paint is so thick in some places that it’s beginning to flake off, exposing the many layers underneath.
The obligatory picture containing me! And before you ask, of course I left my own mark on the wall — though since all I had was a regular ballpoint pen, the result was not too visible and probably won’t last very long. However, I feel like that’s a large part of the point. This is a changing landmark, an expression of the power of free speech and unity across cultural and political divides. It won’t look the same the next time I see it, and that’s beautiful.
I have managed to combine the obligatory clock tower picture with the obligatory “look I have climbed something tall!” picture without actually showing the face of the astronomical clock! This is the view from the top of the clock tower in Old Prague Square, right before the last clock-ringing of the evening (the clock works all year round, but the chimes only go off from 7am-9pm).
A final picture from the clock tower, with the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn in the background. It’s a Catholic church now, but back in the day it started out life as a Hussite church (protestant reformer and generally awesome guy Jan Hus was a Czech who did much of his work in Prague in the 1600s). Why is there a ridiculously bright light in the background, you ask? That’s the floodlight they use to light up the outside of the clock tower!
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