Monday, October 09, 2006

Little mother Prague

Close-up of the weird black babies crawling up the TV Tower

The TV Tower, Prague's tallest structure (this is actually nowhere near the other places, but had nowhere else to stick the photo)

Even the manholes are cool in Prague

Intersecting contrails form a cross in the sky

Old Town Square (told you it was a gorgeous day)

Church of Our Lady before Tyn, Old Town Square (at least that's what I think it's called)

The Jan Hus monument with church of St Nicholas in the background, Old Town Square

Down by the river - you can see the 'Eiffel Tower' at Petrin on the far left and the castle in the background

The Spanish Synagogue

Cubist atlantes in the Jewish Quarter


Ah, my adoring public have signalled they desire another post. Always happy to comply...

On Thursday I went to the Franz Kafka museum, which was atmospheric without being particularly informative. Dare I say it, Kafkaesque? I also got a cool t-shirt from the gift shop - a drawing by Kafka (hate stupid 'I went to Prague, look at me' t-shirts, but ones that are significant but not cheesy are all good).

The museum also introduced me to the following Kafka quote -

'Prague doesn't let us go... This old crone has claws. One has to yield or else.'

- on which I mused as I wandered around the city yesterday, on the most gorgeous sunny autumn day you'd ever care to see.

For I'm six weeks or so into my Prague life, and "Wenceslas Square!" has become "meet u at wen sq. at 6" in a text message, Charles Bridge has become a convenient-but-not way to cross the river and Old Town Square has become just a tourist trap and yet... the city has claws and you can't walk its streets and not think now and again, "I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be in Prague!" Especially on a day like yesterday (and today, for that matter) when the sky's a deep blue liberally criss-crossed with airplane contrails, the sun is shining and everything is beautiful.

I got up relatively early yesterday and walked down to Wen Sq. to change some travellers' cheques, then walked the length of the square and bought a new bag (my beloved 'ART!' bag has seen better days, alas), then hopped a metro to Old Town Sq. and wandered around the Jewish quarter, which is a pretty wicked part of the city - some old synagogues remain, but the ghetto was cleared in the early parts of the twentieth century, so there's a lot of art nouveau and even cubist-inspired architecture, plus some of the real high-end shops. I walked all the way through to the river bank and strolled around there for a bit, when Scotty texted that he was finally ready to meet up, so it was back to Old Town Sq. for a 45 min wait (naughty Scotty) but I didn't mind too much, since it was sunny & it's a great spot for people-watching. Slightly awkward when the homeless come and lie down right next to your bench, but oh well... (Sorry to interrupt the story, but someone next to me in the internet cafe is watching an ABBA video online ha ha)

Anyway, once Scotty arrived, we walked to St. Agnes Convent, which houses the National Gallery's collection of medieval art - and a lot of it there was, too. We got trapped by a tour group of about 30 people at one point - unfortunately it was in Czech, so we couldn't even learn from it. Luckily, once we escaped from that we had the place virtually to ourselves, which is always nice. Unfortunately I had heels on, so you could hear me for miles across the wood & stone floors, d'oh. Downstairs were the empty convent buildings (founded way back in the 1300s, if I recall correctly, by St. Agnes herself, sister of King Wenceslas) where I had Scotty all to myself ha ha. He'll tell you nothing happened, but don't believe it! Anyway, that was pretty cool too.

In the evening, it was dinner at Bohemia Bagel, where I had hummus for the first time in ages (woohoo!) with Carolyn and Laurie - gotta love how a dinner date is only ever a couple of texts away - then we went back to Carolyn's and watched the tail-end of a weird Chinese horror movie with Alasdair (featuring, among other things, a break-dancing competition with a possessed boy).

Today it's moving day yet again, back to the first hostel, sigh!

2 comments:

  1. All that walking in high heels - obviously her mother's daughter...

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's your fault for not fleaing miaow regularly enough. My sensible shoes were wet. Long story...

    ReplyDelete

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