10:50 a.m. - 2003-06-23
Yet Way Too Much Prague
One more day in Prague, my Sweeties!

Want to see some pretty money?

I don�t know if it still looks like this or not. We weren�t supposed to leave the Czech Republic with any money but I fell in love with it, so I confess!!! I smuggled it out!!!

Why can�t American money look like this? Sigh�

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Prague has a heaviness � the feel of a city that has been around for awhile and isn�t going anywhere any time soon. The buildings are layered in architectural trends � what might have started as a medieval church got spiced up with Gothic overtones and then tarted up with all sorts of baroque frou-frou over the ensuing centuries.

One of the churches near the Old Town Square epitomizes this, and has a wacky tourist attraction, too. St. James Church is, outwardly, an innocent looking baroque gee-gaws on a gothic base affair. Inwardly, it�s the only church I have ever been to which has a shriveled up human arm hanging from the ceiling.

Ya�ll think I�m making this up. And if you look in a guidebook for Prague, it probably won�t mention this. But fortunately Bruce and I picked up a very off-kilter guide, which blithely mentioned the arm in passing. So here�s the story:

When going into St. James by the main entrance, turn right and look up towards the ceiling. You�ll see something that looks like a stick with dirty rags around it. The legend is that in the 16th century a man tried to steal the church�s silver. The Virgin Mary was so incensed that she grabbed his arm and wouldn�t let go. So in the end the thief finally had to have his arm lopped off. The church elders hung it up as a warning to other thieves and there it hangs today � black and grisly and with little bits of cloth coming off it.

It seems quintessentially Czech. One just doesn�t find 16th century arms hanging in churches in America.

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And yes, for my Catholic friends, I did get to see the Infant of Prague. Quite by accident, actually. It�s in a non-descript church in the Mala Strana. There aren�t any huge signs saying �Infant of Prague! Miracles Nightly!�, just hordes of tourists going in. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and wandered in after them.

It was very sad. All the tourists troop up to the Infant, read the little blurb in their guidebooks, scratch their chins or cross themselves (depending on their religion) and turn and leave. They never look at the rest of the church, which is actually quite nice.

The Infant Himself? First of all, the statue is�infant sized. Second, it isn�t dressed in red like all the pictures, at least not when we�re there. It had on a stunning hot pink robe. It looked innocent enough and not quite capable of causing miraculous events. But what was I expecting � a ten-foot tall baby that breathed fire and spat nickels?

As promised, let�s go to the Castle, shall we?

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The Castle is up on a hill, and you can see it from all over Prague. Here�s looking up at it (on the right) from a point next to the Charles Bridge (on the left).

Prague�s famous castle doesn�t fit my image of a proper castle � having been to England I�m expecting something a little more�.coherent. Instead there are a lot of disjointed but connected buildings with a Cathedral sticking up in the middle. I realize I don�t even have any really good photos as it was just too discombobulated. It felt more like a bunch of buildings with a wall of buildings around it than a castle. Sigh.

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We get a thrill shortly after walking in when a motorcade comes through the gateway and there in the second car is President Havel. What other country could you go to where you get that good a chance to wave to the President?

And he waved back! And smiled!! Why can�t we have a Frank Zappa fan for our President? Grrr�..

Later on, we were taken on a tour of Prague by a friend of a friend, who took us to the apartment building Havel lives in. It�s the same building he has lived in for years, with only one change since he became President. He requested that a window be put in his bathroom.

That�s right. The whole side of this large building has no windows, except for a very tiny one about halfway up. I wonder how many tourists have stared up at it, wondering if the eccentric President might at that very moment be taking a pee?

Anyway, the Castle has a number of interesting places associated with the time of Rudolf the Second, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. I�m fascinated with old Emperor Rudolf II because he was basically a fruitcake, but the gallery that houses his famous art collection is closed. A terrible pity. It is full of paintings by a man who�s name escapes me but who painted Rudolf II and all his court as though their faces were made up of various kinds of food. You know, the cheeks are peaches, the eyes are grapes. Rudolf himself is painted as a sandwich.

Oh dear. You all think I�m mad. I�ll have to look up his name and some examples of his work to vindicate myself.

We wander into St. Vitus Cathedral instead. It�s covered with happily ferocious gargoyles � now this is a proper Cathedral!

And catch the design on the little roof . I want to have designs like that on my roof!!

Halfway through the inside you can pay an extra 5 crowns (17 cents) and go down into the crypt.

I have lovely, grisly ideas about dessicated bodies and bones stacked up to the ceiling, but no, it�s just the Cathedral�s cellar and some coffins sealed into a windowed chamber. One of the coffins is Rudolf�s. It�s pretty ornate, with the Hapsburg double headed eagle on the front and cherubs resting on hourglasses and skulls on the top.

Now here we get into the realm of false memories, folks. For some reason in my memory I think of us as having had a drink down there at a caf� table next to all the coffins, but I know there is no possible way we could have done this! I must be confusing the pizza place we ate at just before going to the Castle with the Crypt. It did have the same damp and ruinous atmosphere.

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Oh, and you can see a little house that Kafka lived in at the Castle! In the middle of the complex is a row of tiny dwellings, painted lovely colours. The row is called the Golden Lane, and one of the dwellings was lived in by Kafka.

These houses were originally built for the alchemists that Rudolf II hired. Was the Lane called Golden because of the gold the alchemists were supposed to produce? Or, as one of my more off colour guidebooks suggested, did the golden refer to the fact that the alchemists used to urinate in the street?

Oh, when you�re around the Castle, check out the view!

Especially as you�re walking down the these stairs outside of the Castle walls:

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I don�t know what Prague is like now. When I was there the Czechs impressed me as the most resilient of people. They had beer, Easter eggs, beautiful postage stamps and not much else. Also a huge amount of chocolate � racks and racks of it � but really not much else and certainly not much variety of anything else.

As a result, we ate strange dinners in our small apartment. One night we had egg noodles with canned bell peppers on them. Bruce got laughed at good naturedly when he asked for canned tomatoes, or any tomatoes at all.

Everything seemed to be done in a slow and old-fashioned way. The center of Prague has roads so narrow that cars can�t get through, so there�s a whole lot of walking going on. The streets were full of the tink tink tink of workmen slowly refitting the tiny stone cubes which they use as pavement. I loved these small cubes, and when we found a pile of discarded ones, I picked one out for a souvenir.

And speaking of odd souvenirs, I brought home some matchboxes, too.

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You�ve heard of the John Lennon wall? The graffittied wall that appeared in repressive, Communist-ridden Prague the day John Lennon died? Well, here it is when we were there:

It�s right around the corner from some 13th century buildings. Bruce particularly liked this part:

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I promised dachshunds, didn�t I? Almost all the dogs in Prague are dachshunds. Every sort of dachshund imaginable � dark, light, furry, sleek � but all dachshunds never the less. The city is truly infested with them, a continual parade of canine cuteness. After a couple of days it becomes clear to me that they must breed in the sewers like rats but as they are generally adorable and well-behaved it doesn�t bother me.

Other than the dachshunds we come across maybe three other small mutt-type dogs (whose mothers were probably dachshunds), a larger dog with and imposing muzzle (to keep him from eating dachshunds?), and a truly horrifying creature who looked like a cross between a German Shepherd and � you guessed it � a dachshund.

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