{"id":1821,"date":"2019-04-01T14:35:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T13:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secretescapes.com\/magazine-uk\/?p=1821"},"modified":"2021-03-03T17:05:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T17:05:26","slug":"chasing-prague-a-travellers-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.secretescapes.com\/escapist\/chasing-prague-a-travellers-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Prague \u2013 a traveller\u2019s account"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I stood watching Kafka\u2019s face metamorph, glistening, from something recognisable to something wholly the opposite; layer by layer, David \u010cern\u00fd\u2019s playful ode to the city\u2019s greatest writer perfectly captured the absurdity of the writer\u2019s prose. I was in Prague and up to this point was rather taken aback at the city\u2019s beauty; to give birth to such existential angst in a young Kafka, to be the setting of myths, legends, revolutions, and sacrifice \u2013 well, there wasn\u2019t a hint of such turbulence here, not in the cobbles and pastel grandeur of the Old Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Delve deeper then. Round the corner from Kafka\u2019s face lies one of his old haunts \u2013 Cafe Louvre. Prague\u2019s coffeehouse culture easily rivalled Vienna\u2019s at the turn-of-the-century; the scene is glamorous, old-fashioned at heart, but certainly set to make you feel every-bit bourgeois. This, after all, was the home of the intelligentsia, sipping rich Viennese coffees and mumbling about the treachery of modernity. Best of all, my traditional Czech breakfast (complete with cake, of course) was a steal \u2013 a theme, you\u2019ll be glad to read, that continued throughout my trip. Down below, the trams trundled through the streets; their vintage looks had me totally in awe, offset by the grand art nouveau buildings on N\u00e1rodn\u00ed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The street was the setting of a great stand-off during the Velvet Revolution, the days when the citizens took back the city from the chokehold of the communist regime, electing a dissident playwright as their president. Their banners read \u201cHavel na Hrad\u201d, Havel to the castle \u2013 following suit, I left Cafe Louvre and made my way across the Vltava.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I crossed the 14th-century Charles Bridge. It\u2019s a fitting entrance to Prague\u2019s Lesser Town, lined with judgemental baroque statues peering at the ebb and flow of visitors; their stony gazes anguished, juxtaposed by the joy of the tourists posing for selfies \u2013 John of Nepomuk, who was thrown from this bridge and now immortalised in bronze, seemed particularly unhappy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An imposing gothic tower marked the entrance; what followed was a delicate chalk picture of baroque and rococo buildings, twisted around a cobbled street that led high into the castle complex. Prague is a remarkably intact city; it was never overhauled like other cities in the early 20th century, survived the wars, and by some marvel Soviet rule didn\u2019t reduce it to an angular concrete mess. It\u2019s a striking asset; the climb through the Lesser Town was like stepping back in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The castle complex, a sprawling collection of architectural riches, was suitably charming and grandiose. I continued, aiming for Kafka\u2019s sister\u2019s place on the Golden Lane, a narrow collection of postcard-perfect cottages. Fittingly, hers was now a bookshop piled high with copies of Metamorphosis, The Castle, The Trial and so on. This is where Kafka escaped to, quite regularly, avoiding the noise of downtown so as to find the solitude needed to piece together his existential musings. Strange; the tourist trail made it hard to imagine such anxious prose finding its maker here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onwards. Leaving the Golden Lane, the views from the hilltop were wonderful. It added weight to the old moniker \u2018city of a hundred spires\u2019. The gothic theme continued into Wenceslas Square, a dazzling, medieval astronomical clock marking my arrival \u2013 the tourists were gathering like a flock of pigeons. On the hour the clock does something; I knew it most likely wasn\u2019t worth the wait, and these poor visitors were 20 minutes early. Kafkaesque? Not quite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lunch was a rich, hearty affair (in fact, I still dream about Czech food) at the industrial, canteen-like set up of Lokal. It\u2019s a small chain in the city (donating food to in-need locals) dishing out Czech favourites; think roasted meats and dumplings strung together by the most gorgeous sauces you\u2019ve ever tasted \u2013 something the Czech\u2019s are masters of. I gorged myself on the overly-generous helpings, washed down with that Czech speciality \u2013 the wonderfully smooth pilsners that are, by some godly intervention, cheaper than a bottle of water. Feeling the slumber set in, I dragged myself into the old Jewish Quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a district filled with stories; a golem stuck in an attic, a treasured rabbi\u2019s tomb laden with pebbles, and dark echoes of pogroms and ghettos. The tour of the old synagogue was filled with poignant moments; names, neatly written, cataloguing the lost residents of the city filled the walls and ceiling of two rooms. The volume of names was heartbreaking, but nothing was quite as touching as the collection of childhood drawings from the Terez\u00edn ghetto. The crude, playful images portrayed lives filled with hope and innocence; as the series goes on, this spirit is slowly and cruelly extinguished under the weight of ghetto life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I stepped outside to catch some air; the path was now winding through the cemetery. It\u2019s Europe\u2019s oldest surviving Jewish cemetery, a sea of jutting headstones (many hastily added after other sites were closed) with dates stretching back to the 15th century. It\u2019s here that Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel is interred, the creator of the mythical golem. As I left, walking past the Old-New Synagogue, I glimpsed the attic in which the golem is said to lie; the iron steps jutted from the side of the synagogue, only starting half-way up the wall and leading to an ominous-looking door at the top. It was a perfect choice to perpetuate the myth, a mysterious, rather odd-looking sight. But then again, it seemed for all the city\u2019s grandeur, Prague was full of odd sights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A remarkable cubist lamppost tucked behind a thoroughfare, Sigmund Freud apparently hanging off the top of a building, a dancing house, a mummified arm of a thief in a church, a statue of two men pissing; I could go on. For all Prague\u2019s civilised beauty and charm, there was a palpable undercurrent of eccentricity, energy, and revolt. Maybe it came from the fact that the beer was cheaper than water. Or maybe it was the character of a city that infatuated my wanderlust in a way that Paris or Rome couldn\u2019t hope to; for here, it was all so real, authentic, unchanged and utterly, utterly inviting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t