Good King Wenceslas Looked Out ...

... on Wenceslas Square in Downtown Prague.

Yes, that King Wenceslas is the namesake for Wenceslas Square in Nové Město, or "New Town," which, interestingly, is "new" because it was founded only in 1348, still the interloper after a coupla-decades shy of seven centuries given that Old Town came into being around 1100. The snow may not have been deep and crisp and even on this sunny October Day, but King Wenceslas nonetheless towers over the southeast end of the huge Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Square is not so much a square, but an extra-wide boulevard with a pedestrian walkway between the lanes. It goes on for several blocks. I think I needed to have been somewhat elevated to capture the enormity of this place, but this is the best I could do:

If you remember your Late 20th Century Czech history, whenever anything important was happening in Czechoslovakia, Wenceslas Square would flood with people. When you see video of the Velvet Revolution bringing down communism in Czechoslovakia in October-November 1989, that's happening in Wenceslas Square. The Prague Spring putdown in '68? Wenceslas Square.

The southeast is the higher end. Behind The King is the National Museum, which I believe is closed for renovations.

National museums tend to be skippable for us non-residents, so I did not walk up to verify. Across the way from the National Museum is an old building that got repurposed as the home of -- calling on in transit -- Radio Free Europe.

Radio Free Europe later moved to a more secure location south of this spot. This is now an annex to the National Museum, I believe. This is my attempt at artsiness, with a vaguely socialist realism looking statue outside the old RFE, with the National Museum reflected upon it:

Turns out the statue of Good King Wenceslas at the upper end of his square is not the only statue of him astride a horse in this neighborhood. There's another, to be found in the Lucerna Gallery just off Wenceslas Square:

It's by reknowned Czech artist David Černý.

See it? Let's get closer.

King Wenceslas Riding an Upside-Down Horse. Černý also is the artist behind the peeing statues at the Kafka Museum.

Old Town Square

In the afternoon, I took walk over to Staroměstské náměstí, a.k.a. Old Town Square. It too was lousy with tourists.

The main site in Old Town Square is the historic Astronomical Clock.

It is on the side of the Old Town City Hall tower.

I guess I should go back tomorrow and go up into the tower. It doesn't look unmanageably high. Anyway, the clock was built in 1410 (not a typo), making it the oldest functioning astronomical clock in the known universe (and third oldest of all time). Crowds gather there every hour on the hour for the cuckoo-clock like show. And there's a light show on the side of the Old Town City Hall after dark, which also draws a crowd of tourist.

Let's face it. Everything in Prague seems to draw a crowd of tourists. According to Wikipedia, it is the sixth most visited city in Europe, after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. That means Prague outdraws tourist meccas like Barcelona, Venice, Vienna and Pag Island, Croatia. (I threw that last one in there because I love Pag so much.) And when you're on the Charles Bridge, you think everyone of those tourists giving Prague that #6 ranking are right there on that bridge. And when you are in Staroměstské náměstí, you think they moved over there. This is a tourist town.

And I'm here in my capacity as a tourist, so it's all good.

But if you come as a tourist, wear sensible shoes. When I was in Staroměstské náměstí tonight, I saw this young girl (young girl now means early 20s), dressed to the nines, unsuccessfully trying to navigate the cobblestones of Old Town in the dark in stiletto heels. She was being propped up by her two girlfriends who were wearing sensible footwear. Kinda funny, Kinda sad.

Which reminds me of another point. Prague after dark is dark! This is not a very well-lit city. Yet it's perfectly safe, except for some minor street crime.

Before the late night visit to Old Town Square, I had a delicious dinner at Restaurace Na Zlaté křižovatce, the all-gluten-free Czech restaurant. I had a delicious dish called beef goulash, served with potato pancakes, but it was more a beef bourguignon than a goulash. I'm not complaining! Just commenting. It was served with a side of potato pancakes and I washed it down with a Celia, a draft gluten-free beer. Which tasted like regular beer. Which is the whole point. The strawberry and cottage cheese dumplings were "eh," but I'm not sure if that's the gluten freedom or just because it's the one clunker on an otherwise delicious menu.

The Detroit Burger

When you travel to foreign lands, it is always interesting to see how they pair American place names with food. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you ... The Detroit Burger.

Here in the USA, we don't really think of "Detroit" when we think of "burger." I'm not really sure what would turn an ordinary hamburger into a "Detroit Burger." What do you think is on it? Used motor oil? Will they recall it for faulty pickle placement? Maybe two out of every three Detroit burgers get bailed out by the federal government because of high legacy costs in the manufacture of each burger.

A Walk Across the Charles Bridge

The Charles Bridge is the Tourism Star of Prague. It connects the Mala Strana and Castle Quarter on the west bank of Vltava, to Old Town on the east bank. Construction started in 1357 and was not completed until the early 1400s. Talk about not being "shovel ready." Anyway, we can safely presume that this was before the era of the automobile. Although it is wide, it is pedestrian only. Good thing it is because it is elbow-to-elbow, butt-to-belly busy on that bridge. It is lousy with tourists. And I was one of them.

The sides of the bridges are lined with various religious statuary. Aside from a couple of Christs on the Cross and a pietà where I can recognize the major players, I don't know the identity of the myriad of saints who line the sides of the bridge in stone statue form. There are as many Prague guidebooks out there identifying the saints by statue as there are tourists on the bridge -- well, not really, as the number of tourists on the bridge is more akin to the number of grains of sand on the beach -- but, regardless, I don't know and I'm not guessing, so just enjoy the tour of the saint-statues lining the Charles Bridge without further comment from me:
















OK. You knew I couldn't hold back from commenting forever. But you have to admit that was an awfully long stretch with no talking from me. A couple of points. First, that big giant balloon from the Kafka Museum is visible in a couple of these pictures, such as this:

Finally, apparently, it must be good luck to touch a dog that is at the base of one of these statues because (a) people are continually reaching out and being photographed touching the bronze dog:

And (b) the dog is completely clean while the rest of the statue is soot black.

You Could Describe My Morning as "Kafkaesque"

You definitely could describe my morning that way because my second stop of the morning was the surreal Franz Kafka Museum along the banks of Vltava River in Mala Strana.

It was my next stop of the morning after paying homage to the Infant of Prague at the Church of Our Lady Victorious -- no flash photography thus no pictures of that reknowned icon -- so, yes, this is the first blog post anywhere devoted exclusively to the Infant Jesus and Franz Kafka.

The thing that surprised me most about the Infant of Prague is that the icon is just there. You walk into the church. You start walking past the religious displays along the side walls and then, midway down on the right side, there he is. Given the fame of the Infant of Prague, I assumed that he would be back behind the alter, or in some side chapel with very limited access, like the reliquaries in famous cathedrals. No! The Infant of the Prague is an icon for the people! There is a small museum upstairs showing various garments -- vestmens actually -- worn by the Infant. The whole thing is quite moving, if you're into that sort of thing. Which I am.

Here's the church in daylight:

English language mass Sunday at noon. Join me!

From Baby Jesu to the Adult Kafka.

I walked down Karmelitská street:

I saw the beautiful Church of St. Nicholas (I didn't go in. They charged admission! To church! Oh the humanity):

Wandered down the narrow, cobblestone streets:

Past the gates of the Charles Bridge:

Down more narrow streets:

I was getting closer, but not getting there. It was like a Franz Kafka novel!

OK. It wasn't. Actually, it was quite easy to find once the helpful guy at the Tourist Information Center pointed me in the right direction. Down one more street and then I saw the sign. Then I saw the famous "fountain" at the entryway:

You need a closer view?

The tour was interesting, but it gave me no grand insight into the mind of Mr. Kafka. I was surprised to learn that he was a great fan of the Yiddish theater in Prague and that some critics note the heavy influence of the old pre-WWI-era Yiddish theater. You know what else was heavily influenced by the Eastern European Yiddish theater of that era? Old Hollywood. So many of the builders of Old Hollywood were Jewish immigrants from this part of the world (especially Hungary). Interesting that one influence could go in such different directions.

I like this picture because the giant people-carrying balloon in the background hovering over the Kafka Museum adds just the right amount of "The Prisoner" Village surrealism:

And this picture is just plain wrong:

Yet cute. In that surreal sort of way.

The Blague from Prague

For the next 36 hours or so, this is officially a "blague." Because I'm in "Prague." Get it? Blague?? OK. OK. Cut me some slack. I'm still jetlagged.

One of the many great things about wandering the streets of Prague is looking at the detail to the buildings. Famous structures, such as the tower at the Old Town (west) side of the Charles Bridge, are filled with decorative statuary:
But even more common and ordinary structures are decorated so:

This is a great city for walking. And given how narrow and winding the streets are, you're continually surprised at what's your next view. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing as this happened to me repeatedly when I thought I knew where I was, only to be "surprised" that I had walked a couple of blocks in the wrong direction. When you see sights like this large statue behind St. Nicholas Church in the Mala Strana, that's a good thing.

When you're trying to get to a theater performance by starting time, that's a bad thing. Oh well. I will go see the Black Light Theater production of "Aspects of Alice" tomorrow. Two shows daily, so no big deal when I get lost trying to find the theater on one of my days.

My first Czech supper

Halušky! It's what's for dinner.

When I woke up from my sleep glorious sleep, and wandered the Mala Strana, I wanted to get something snack-y to eat to tide me over to supper. When you read too many tour guidebooks, you sometimes can get scared to try something not listed in the book. But spontaneity is my middle name. (Well, actually, it's "Paul." I'm using a figure of speech.) I wandered over to Kampa Island alongside the River Vltava, and there were some stalls with people cooking up streetfood! One guy had this big cooking vessel that looked like a giant wok. He was cooking up a mixture of potato dumplings, sauerkraut, and thick-cut bacon which which my Polish friends may be familiar, but I was not. The sign said it was "potato," but one bite and it was definitely a spaetzl-type dumpling that probably had wheat in addition to potato, but it was gooooooooood. Washed it down with a beer, of course, because this is Prague. Nobody drinks water.

And the Czech Republic Is Country #13

Taking pictures at night seems to require a special talent. Actually, it just requires steady hands (or a tripod). I got neither. So the above is what results from me taking pictures at night.

I am now safely ensconced in my hotel in the Mala Strana, or Little Quarter, of Prague, CZ. And with my plane touching down in Prague, the Czech Republic becomes the lucky 13th country I've been to. I count the USA as Country #1 (USA #1! Woo hoo!!), again, as I said earlier, I'm desperate to inflate my count of countries of visited.

I arrived in Prague dog-tired. I barely slept on tte flight(s) over.* I don't think I could sleep on an airplane even if it were comfortable. And steerage on Swiss Air was not bad at all for steerage, but it was still an airplane. I did to get to watch two movies I've never seen before on the flight: "The Hangover" (yes, I had not seen it before and it was funny in parts) and "Water For Elephants," with Reese Witherspoon and some kid who I think is one of the "Twilight" boys, but I'm not sure. Perhaps if the movies had been more boring, I could've slept. But, try as the filmmakers did, there was to be no sleep. Which means the plane landed in Prague with me having pretty much been awake for about 24 hours.

Footnote [*]: When you sleep only a little, it's "barely" slept, right? Because if I "bearly" slept, that would mean I've been hibernating for several months and, man, could I use a few dozen salmon.

So I cabbed it to the Hotel William (seen above) in the Mala Strana, near the Prague Castle and, more importantly, the Infant of Prague! He's like, half a block down the street! The room is very European, meaning, "tiny," with a "hard bed" and a comforter and a little capsule shower. It's also kind of loud, with no a/c. I might as well crack a window to sleep since the street noise level (car traffic, no drunken Brits on "stag" weekend as you find everywhere else in Prague) is pretty loud even with the windows closed.

But it wasn' so loud that I couldn't take a nap when I got here. I got to the room at about 3:30PM local time and did not leave until 7:30PM. That was a good nap.

So by the time I went to check out the neighborhood, it was dark, but the old buildings were lit up nicely. This is the Church of Our Lady Victorious, home of the one, the only, Infant of Prague:


This is looking down the main drag toward the Church of St. Nicholas:


I'm not sure if this THE St. Nicholas -- and there's another landmark church of St. Nicholas in the Old Town on the other side of Vltana River -- but there is only one St. Nicholas who matters, right? Here's a closer view:


I then walked down to the Charles Bridge (Karlův most), probably the most photographed (and photogenic) landmark in Prague. This is the view mid-bridge facing west toward Mala Strana:


And here's the view mid-bridge looking east toward Old Town Prague:


It looks better live. Really.

Switzerland Is Country #12

Switzerland is officially the twelfth country that I've visited and the first foreign port of call of this trip. I'm only changing airplanes in Zurich, but I'm counting it as a visit to Switzerland because (a) I had to go through passport control and have my passport stamped as entering Suisse, (b) I bought a souvenir (to forever cherish those those memories of my 90 minutes in Switzerland) and spending cash = visiting, and (c) I'm trying to inflate my count of the total number of countries I visited so airport layovers count since my feet have touched the soil, or, at least the tile flooring, of Zurich.

I didn't get to see any of Switzerland other than the innards of the airport. It was a foggy dreary day, so no Matterhorn, no alpine lakes, no Heidi. Just a tiny little fog-encrusted airport.

I actually had to go though airport security for each leg of the flight. McCarran, of course. Then, in Chicago O'Hare, I had to exit the domestic area, walk briskly across the world's busiest, then go through international security. I accidentally walked into the no-line first class security checkpoint, which meant I was treated like someone not to be [trifled] with it. And then more security at ZRH. But no customs inspection when I landed at Prague.