P R A G U E
9 - 13 March 2006

Storming the Castle -- Saturday, 11 March 2006

At breakfast the second morning it occurred to me I was learning more about how northern Europeans live while on holiday than I was about how the local Pragulodites go about their everyday lives.

I used to be very keen on researching how the locals lived, but this involves dedicated drinking sessions and long, drunken conversations in out of the way and, more often than not, dodgy bars. These days, being older and, more to the point, married, I tend to see the insides of museums and historic building more often than drinking establishments.

Consequently, on Saturday morning, I  found myself meandering through the Grott Market toward Charles Bridge and Prague castle.

As we passed through the square, we managed to catch the Astronomical Clock in performance mode. Every hour on the hour, for the past 516 years, the clock chimes and images of the saints perform a morality play. I have to say, it was a bit of a disappointment. A series of puppet-like images peeked out of some windows, then disappeared. It was wholly unsatisfying and, if there was a plot, I missed it. I suppose, however, this having been constructed in the days before MTV, Xbox and iPods, it was probably thrilling to watch when it was first unveiled.

The castle, however, was not a disappointment. It isn't so much of a castle as it is a complex of impressive and diverse structures surrounded by a fortified wall. It still dominates the city and servers as the seat of government for the Czech Republic. It's also the city's main tourist attraction.

Most prominent is the massive cathedral dating back to 1344. Several hundred years in the making, it rises spectacularly toward the heavens and still has the power to impress. What impressed me most was how bloody cold it was inside (though, with ceilings that high, it must be a bitch to heat); I could only sympathize with the countless generations of Slavs who congregated there for hours at a stretch, getting frost-bitten knees from enforced praying on the frigid concrete floor.

Like most churches, the interior was brooding and somber, but the windows were sure pretty.

Elsewhere the complex was a mixture of old buildings you could go into and newer ones (presumably with central heating) that you could not. That these latter buildings housed an active government was punctuated by the changing of the guard at noon.

The guard's outfits were a cross between medieval garb and chunky, communist fashion. The changing ceremony itself was full of self-conscious pomp, circumstance and marshal music that my wife thought sounded like a cross between the theme songs of the Man From U.N.C.L.E and Thunderbirds.

Dinner that evening--two entrées, a bottle of wine, desserts and coffees; £20. Eat your hearts out.

After dinner, as we ambled toward the hotel, we encountered one of the local beggars who, having finished his shift, was wandering around the streets talking to himself as homeless people are wont to do. There seemed nothing remarkable about him and we passed by without much notice.

Around the next corner, two buskers were setting up under an archway, so we stopped to watch. They tuned up their violins and began playing Vivaldi, using the archway's acoustic properties to mimic the sound of a full orchestra. It was thrilling to listen to.

Then the beggar came by. He stopped just beyond the small crowd that had gathered, listened for a few moments, and began singing along.  The results were startlingly not unpleasant.  I've rarely encountered such talent in a vagabond before. He sang for a while, then strolled off, presumably to spend his hard-earned charity on some Slivovice to ease the aching in his knees.