baudot

Prague.

Prague is beautiful and old.

Prague is overrun with tourists.

Prague has seen worse. It will endure the tourists and still be Prague after they too, have passed.

- - - - -

Ms. Count showed me about the town yesterday. These are my recollections from that and my wanderings the night before. So first, a thanks to a very lovely and EGL tourguide.

Thank you, your excellency, for your kind hospitality and for getting me away from the tourist swarms.

- - - - -

Let's begin with a glimpse at Prague Castle. The first thing you need to know about Prague is the entire history of Western Civilization, prior to the industrial revolution. Or at the very least, you need to understand the Holy Roman Empire. As my high school teacher Dr. Day liked to say, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire. What it was was the largest power in Europe between the fall of Rome and Napoleon's re-ordering of the whole place.

When Rome fell, she fell in pieces. The empire split, east and west, and the flame of Rome carried on some while longer in the east than the west. While in the middle east some land that might still call itself Rome carried on, here in Europe, the various tribes who'd divided her western corpse, the goths, the franks, and all the rest, aspired to her greatness. The greater part of these lands that we now know as eastern Europe and the German speaking countries called themselves the Holy Roman Empire.. If they could have agreed upon a common leader or culture or anything else, it might have been a mighty force indeed. Rather, this is the land where your knights fought each other and power hungry bishops had soldiers of their own, and all the rest; a land of shifting loyalties, sellsword barons, princes whose loyalties swayed with the wind, where the flag that flew over a village might change from one night to the next depending on which neighbor seemed the least worth pissing off. And somehow, Prague named itself capital over this boiling stew of madness and held the title for centuries, accreting the wealth and beauty a capital of Empire affords. And so the Castle at Prague grew to be one of the largest in the world: half a kilometer long and more than a football field wide.


Much of the beauty of Prague hints toward this history. Her stone cobbled streets are built to last. Her apartments are uniformly three to five stories high for miles in all directions, grown up before the age of steel skeletons yet dense enough all the same to allow a city where everything is under 15 minutes from everything else, on foot. Vital points in the city are bedecked with crenelations and tall windows, such as this gatehouse at the Western side of the great Charles Bridge.

So I wonder looking at it, how many who glance up as they pass out of this gate think it is beautiful, and how many realize that those crenelations are meant for a handful of guards standing against an army or a rabble, for them to duck behind as they fight foes shooting up from below? How many times in Prague's long history was the strength of this gate tested?

So yes, Prague was built to last, over centuries, having collected the wealth of the dark ages under her wing. She vanished behind the Iron curtain for a few dark decades, and now she's coated with a film of gawping snowbirds from wealthier countries. But she is made of stone, and when all else has washed away, stone remains. Her beauty is for the ages.

The Old City holds the densest concentration of both tourists and beauty. Take this memorial:

It's dedicated to a church reformer, Jan Hus, in his moment of triumph against the papacy. Some time later he was burnt at the stake, but for now he stands triumphant, the armies that joined him triumphant over those of the Pope.

Within sight of Mr. Hus is Prague's Astrological clock. And within sight of her is the childhood home of Franz Kafka, a handful of stately cathedrals, and more further old world beauty than the eye absorbs.


And then, because photographing is thirsty work, there's this.


- - - - -

Not captured in these images is the Kafka Museum, where no cameras are permitted. It earns a top recommendation from me, as the museum is a piece of art itself. One gets to walk through it and hear it. The whole is the largest coherent art piece I have ever had the joy of inhabiting for any time. (Yes Burning Man is larger, but can hardly be said to be coherent.)

There's still much of old Praha left to explore, so you'll pardon me if I leave you here for now. I'm of a minfd to find more of this:

Steampunk. If ever it can find a home in any town, it will be Prague. Wish me luck, do.