Bohemian days

Prague is … 


Many a Wenceslas ...

… two in particular seem omnipresent in this city… Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol – actually Duke, not King, of Bohemia in the 10th century -(notwithstanding his goodness he was assassinated by his somewhat less pious brother Boleslav, but scored the last laugh when he was made the patron saint of Bohemia)…

St Wenceslas gets on his high horse in Wenceslas Square

The name in Czech is actually Vaclav, still a common first name for males, as in Vaclav Havel (below), playwright and activist in the Prague Spring of 1968 and two decades later the ‘Velvet Revolution’ which led him to become president of then-Czechoslavakia. (Shouldn’t there be a law that political leaders must be artists, musicians or writers by profession?)

(Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org)

... and Charles IV (also born Vaclav!), Czech-born Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, who made Prague the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, and who was responsible for so much of the city we saw last week – Charles bridge, Charles University (the oldest in central Europe),  Prague castle and St Vitus cathedral. 

 Music …

Prague and music are virtually synonymous – this is the country of Dvorak, and Smetana, (Mahler was born here too) and the city loved by Mozart, who famously proclaimed when he felt scorned by Vienna, “Meine Prager verstehen mich”, feeling this so strongly that he conducted the world premiere himself of Don Giovanni in 1787 in the Estates Theatre below ...

 

It seemed that on every street corner and outside every church (there are tons!) there were announcements or people handing out flyers for live concerts … 

(crystal chandeliered entrance to church in readiness for a concert)

… not to mention folk music everywhere in the streets 

(musicians in Old Town Square)

(and on Charles Bridge)

and the touching (on this anniversary of his death) Lennon Wall, a 30 year old tribute from Czech Beatles lovers ...

  
Angels and Saints … 

These are everywhere you look in Prague, and perhaps they've been much needed in the course of this country’s turbulent history

 

 

St John of Nepomuk, one of 30 statues lining the Charles Bridge, was a priest thrown into the river here on the orders of the King (yet another Wenceslas) in 1393 for refusing to reveal the secrets of the Queen's confessions to him.

 Rub the brass plaque at the base of his statue - the one that depicts him being tossed into the river - while making a wish, and it will come true ... but whatever you do, don't touch the plaque next to it, of the queen's shiny dog, because that will guarantee you bad luck!

 A heritage of writers ...

Besides Havel and Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) who the Czechs have an ambivalent relationship with since his defection to France, Prague’s famous son is Kafka, who was born in Old Town Square and lived in this tiny house in the diminutive Golden Lane underneath the castle. Read about his relationship with Prague here.

All About Food ...

It seemed that literally every second doorway in Prague led one to food. You are spoiled for choice with stylish restaurants ...

 the uber trendy Pravda brasserie

 The lovely Cukrkavalimonada (I challenge you to get your tongue around that one - it means sugar, coffee, lemonade) where we met friends for lunch and loved it so much we went back for breakfast the next morning. Thank you Corey of Tongue in Cheek for this recommendation! 


... cosy cafes ... 
 

  

... and an incredible profusion of street food - traditional Czech fare, that thankfully the arrival of disgusting MacDonalds and KFC has not succeeded in ousting ...

grilled traditional sausages in Old Town Square - these were so good

the biggest frying pan I've ever seen, with potato dumplings in the making

Trdelník is a traditional Slovakian sweet pastry, made from rolled dough which is wrapped around the long poles you see here, then grilled over hot coals and topped with a mix of cinnamon, ground walnuts and sugar. They are light as a feather and absolutely delicious - a little bit reminiscent of the 'farturas' I loved in Portugal as a child (though those are fried), which is perhaps why I scoffed quite so many of these.


Bad for the neck ...

Maybe Bohemian crystal is your thing, or Czech garnet jewellery, or antiques, but whatever's in your suitcase,  one thing you will definitely bring back from Prague is a crick in your neck ...

 And a final image ...

Bella & the Bezzies: with school mates at Lennon Wall

Postcards from Prague

We've just returned from a sunny but very chilly Prague, which had its first flurry of snow this week. 

View of Prague from the observation tower on top of Petrin Hill (photo credit: Nicholas Bicket, who had more puff for climbing than I did)

A spur of the moment trip, allowed by a half-term break and a bit of skiving off work, turned into an unforgettable few days. We were bowled over by this city.

  
View from Charles Bridge of the Vltava river

Prague was the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries, which surely accounts for its quite incredible density of statuary, spires, bell towers, churches and cathedrals ... this is the City of a Hundred Spires...

Prague in spring or summer must be beautiful, we thought, but the autumn colours seemed to make it glow

Dome of St Frances church overlooking the river

Baroque towers of the Jesuits' St Nicholas's church

 

Carpet of leaves in the castle gardens 

Canal in Prague's 'little Venice'

C

One of dozens of statues lining the Charles Bridge, the spires of St Vitus in the background

In the traffic-free Old Town Square every facade is a different colour and horse-drawn carriages give the feel of a different era

Jan Hus, the Protestant heretic who was burned at the stake, is commemorated here (he stands in the left foreground below)

High up on the hill the battling Titans protect the entrance to Prague Castle

The president of the Czech Republic lives and works here in the castle, like the emperors of long ago, an unassuming brass plaque and bell marking his offices.


I've wandered round more cathedrals in Europe than I can remember, but St Vitus Cathedral, in the Castle complex, was a phenomenon all of its own. 

I didn't have a lens capable of remotely doing justice to St Vitus's grand Gothic facade.

Inside was all jewelled colours and angels dancing in suspension ...

More to come later - meanwhile I must catch up on work deadlines which are interfering with my holidaying ...

I leave you with a final image: La Bella czechs out the local scenery in mouse hat ...

Ode to Keef

"They forgot the roll and they only kept the rock. The roll's the whole damn thing, dude, the rock is nothing, deal with it, the roll is king. " (Keith Richards on rock music today, NME April 2007).

 You tell 'em, Keef! 

Keith Richards' autobiography, Life (published by Little, Brown & Co), comes out this month and is currently being serialised by The Times. Their exclusive rights are perhaps recognition for the favour done by that newspaper in 1967 when the then-editor, posh toff (now Lord) Rees-Mogg delivered an editorial attack - surprising, to say the least, for a mouthpiece of the Establishment - on the harsh jail sentences handed down to Richards and Jagger for drug offences. Headed 'Who breaks a butterfly (up)on a wheel?' (from Pope's 'Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot' - check out the link there), the piece by Rees-Mogg is credited with getting their sentences quashed and thereby saving the band. 

Rees-Mogg was not even a fan of the Rolling Stones; his musical tastes, he says, were firmly stuck in the 1920s and 30s: "It is a long step from Showboat to Satisfaction. I was not yet 40, but I was already on the far side of the musical generation gap". A long step indeed - his words remind me that people of roughly my parents' generation were so close, yet too far from being able to appreciate the radical shift in popular music that happened in the 1950s as 'black' musical genres of blues and jazz were drawn into the mainstream in a new fusion: they were just (only just!) too old, too weighed down already by the responsibilities of work and raising children to be caught up by rock and roll or to 'get' its significance to the generation right behind them. 

You might fear that Keef could have difficulty remembering much of anything, but no worries, his Life is full of raucous sex & drugs escapades, as well as the ongoing musical and sexual rivalry between him and Jagger (my favourite quote there: 'Marianne [Faithfull] had no fun with Mick’s tiny todger. I know he’s got an enormous pair of balls - but it doesn’t quite fill the gap.’).

Music journalist Neil McCormick calls him 'the world’s most elegantly wasted human being, rock’s ultimate survivor'. I know he looks kind of magnificently wrecked these days, but I prefer to remember him as he was in the pic above. And to remind myself of what the roll in the rock means ...

I love Autumn

Yes, I know I'm slow on the uptake. It has in fact officially been autumn for some time now and I cannot in good conscience continue to have my summer garden pictured above. I hope you like the new seasonal theme up there.

Not my garden this time, though close enough. These were taken at the farm ten minutes walk down the road ...

Northern hemisphere autumns mean bonfire nights and pumpkin time ...

Can I eat these?

Mulled wine, woolly socks and dvd marathons (check out Willow's selection over here) ...

and the promise of Christmas ...

Santas getting in the mood early in Selfridges this morning

In short, all the fun bits of the cold season happen between now and the end of the year. Just please don't expect seasonal cheer from me in the bleak, freezing months of January to March; I promise unrelieved melancholy and fits of peevish whining.