On Thursday morning we ventured down along the riverbank south of the Charles Bridge, admiring the gorgeous Beaux-Arts buildings. We wandered as far as Prague's newest (and, in my personal opinion, most over-rated) architectural landmark, the "Dancing Houses." If you haven't seen pictures, it's a pair of vaguely whimsical modern structures made to give the impression of a waltzing couple. While I'm in favor of anything opposed to the tyranny of bland Internationalism, I also favor practicality in architecture. The groovy shapes of the Dancing Houses just scream "unusable interior space" and — sure enough — one of them had a prominent sign advertising space for rent.
From there we ducked inland and had lunch at the National Cafe, which sounds like a remnant of Communism but actually takes its name from the avenue on which it stands. The place was quite the cultural mecca in Prague's boom years before and after World War I. Our plan had been to have just a light lunch, but the menu was too tempting so that wound up being our main meal of the day. I had a delicious braised beef in sour cream sauce with cranberries (hadn't expected to see them in Europe) and the inevitable bread dumplings.
Thus fortified, the adventurers went a few blocks north to the Clementinum, or Klementinum, a former Jesuit college which now houses the Czech national library. The place started as a Dominican monastery, but in the 16th Century the Jesuits took over and constructed a sprawling Baroque complex which rivals Prague Castle in size.
Because it is an active library, you can't just wander around the interior, so we took the guided tour. There were big signs warning that the lift was out of order, so visitors should be prepared to climb lots of stairs. And climb we did. First we went two floors up a narrow iron spiral stair (with some traffic-management issues as another tour group was trying to come down at the same time) to the magnificent original library hall (it's the place in the picture if you do a search for images of "Clementinum Library"). For preservation reasons we were only allowed to look in the doorway, not go inside. We were also forbidden to take pictures, as the library hall is considered part of the Czech "national patrimony."
To an American, that seems odd. All of our "national patrimony" is — more or less by definition — in the public domain. NASA recently made its whole collection of space images available for free, and there's no copyright on the Declaration of Independence. One should note, however, that Americans don't have a history of bossy foreigners trying to steal our stuff.
The Czechs do have such a tradition, and one reason getting to that library hall was so difficult was that just before the Germans rolled into Prague in 1938, the staff of the Klementinum demolished the big stairway leading up to it, and built a wall across the doorway to keep the bossy foreigners from finding it.
They continued that ruse for fifty years, even while the next set of bossy foreigners, the Russians, used the building as a surveillance post, watching for menacing groups of four or more Czechs assembling in the streets below.
After looking in, we continued to climb. The stairs led up into the Astronomy Tower, where Jesuit astronomers used a camera obscura system to determine noon every day (and signal to the rest of the city by waving a flag). Above that was the observing level where actual stellar observing was done, and where we could get a spectacular daytime view of the city.
(Irony alert: one of my fellow tourists was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins before the tour began. It's all about how awful "religion" is and how it promotes ignorance and superstition. Then we went to look at places where monks and priests did cutting-edge science.)
After enjoying the view we went back down those narrow stairs (the upper levels were excitingly creaky original construction), and walked back to our flat for a much-appreciated rest.
In the evening the adults went down to St. Nicholas Church on Old Town Square for a concert. The church is yet another amazing Baroque showpiece. It's a Hussite church — part of the dissident denomination re-founded in 1920 and drawing its inspiration from the martyred reformer Jan Hus. Ironically, the building itself is pure Catholic Counter-Reformation in style.
In a Baroque church it's only appropriate to hear Baroque music — Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, and some others, performed by an organist, a trumpeter, and a soprano. The music was lovely, a perfect ending for the day.
From what I could see, pretty much every church in Prague hosts musical performances every evening, at least during tourist season. The musical audiences fill the house, and I'm sure their admission fees are a huge help in keeping those great buildings in repair. But I did find myself thinking melancholy thoughts: people were once willing to die for their faith, but now the churches are just prettier-than-average concert halls.
I dropped off my fellow adult at the flat and went for a solo ramble in the general direction of Wenceslaus Square to the southeast. It was a fine evening and the streets were packed. I passed another TORTURE MUSEUM, and (for the second time that day) saw a massage parlor (the kind that actually give massages) offering the creepiest thing I saw in Prague: Fish Pedicures. The patient sits with his or her feet in a large aquarium, home to a lot of small, hungry fish. I don't know if there's a specific type of fish preferred for pedicure duties, or if any will do if they're hungry enough. The fish nibble all the dead skin off the patient's feet. I have no idea how well it works, and very little inclination to find out.
After a final drink at a cafe in Old Town Square, I also headed off to bed.
Next time: Wonders!
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