First of all, Czech Republic has an interesting monetary system. Their basic unit (the Czech koruna) is worth about 1/20 of a dollar, and it feels very largely coin-based. They have a 100 koruna bill, which is the same value as a $5 one, so technically I suppose it's not that different than Canada, but people seem to use bills pretty rarely for everyday things, and it feels weird paying for lunch with what looks like 2 nickels and a dime.
My hostel is a bit away from the city center, in Zizov, an area described online as "almost certainly the highest per capita of drinking venues in any district in Europe". Most of these aren't clubs and fancy bars, but dirty, dark places selling beer out of plastic cups. The main landmark in Zizov is a huge TV-tower up the hill, so the first thing I did in the morning was to go check that out.
And what are those black things on the side? Why, giant babies crawling of the side of the tower, of course!
More on the babies later (they get even weirder, imagine that!)
Next was a visit to the old town, which was a pretty easy walk away. I love the architecture in Prague. At first it looks a bit the same as Vienna, but I find it looks a lot more organic and gothic, in the sense that things aren't as uniform and neat, but instead a bit unbalanced. I find the top of buildings especially interesting. If you look down a street you see a chaotic mix of towers, domes, steeples, spires and other structures I don't know words for. As in many of these old cities the main square is surrounded by huge fancy buildings.
That building at the bottom warrants special note. It's the Prague Astronomical Clock, which was built in 1410, and the oldest such clock still working. Legend has it that the people who had it built liked it so much that they rewarded the creator by blinding him and cutting out his tongue so that he wouldn't be able to reproduce it. In addition to the time, day, week, etc it also keeps track of the rising and setting sun, what position the sky is in, and a bunch of other things I don't know the specifics of. It also has a ring of names, one for each day, and supposedly you're supposed to celebrate the day your name matches up to in addition to your birthday. The guide I was eavesdropping on said that by law all children had to be named one of the names on the ring unless they applied for special permission to deviate from it.
The food and bars in this area were also very neat. I find there's a lot more diverse cuisine and more places trying to establish a unique identity and stand out, which makes it more interesting. I had a sandwhich of old Prague ham from a street vendor, which was roasted on a spit over a wood fire. I also saw an interesting looking comic-bar/museum, but a quick peek in indicated that they only did drinks, not food.
After lunch I treated myself to probably the strangest ice cream I've ever had (and keep in mind I've had wasabi ice cream before).
What's so strange about this ice cream? Well...
Mmm... absinthe ice cream. Absinthe is an institution in Prague. Where most places you go to an alchohol store and can find bottles of absinthe, in Prague you go to an absinthe shop and can find bottles of other alchohol.
The two big touristy crafts in town seem to be Russian nesting dolls and marionettes. At one of the doll shops they had nesting dolls of probably just about every professional sport's team in the world - everything from basketball to Aussie-rules to like... Finnish soccer teams.
I checked out two small museums of particular interest to me. The first I went to was the Alphonse Mucha museum/gallery. I'm sure a few of you (probably Jessica) are familiar with Alphonse Mucha's work, but he was famous for art nouveau designs and posters in the early 1900s, and has a style which is still widely copied. I've always liked his art a lot, and am considering a strange detour to a small town to see his greatest masterpiece. The other museum I went to was for Franz Kafka. I haven't actually got around to reading any of Kafka's work yet, but the story of why I'm interested in him is a bit interesting. A few years ago I had a random conversation with somebody studying literature in school, and I asked what her favourite book was. Her answer was "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami. I'm one of those people that likes to follow trails I'm given, as they have a habit of leading to interesting things, so I looked the book up and read it. "Kafka on the Shore" is not a normal book. It starts off with a simpleton old man who can speak to cats and a teenager fleeing a prophecy from his father that he'll sleep with his own mother and sister - and then it gets weird. Ghosts, people being frozen in time, a supernatural pimp that looks exactly like KFCs Colonel Sanders, you get the idea. It is a great book, but confusing, and it delves both directly and indirectly into Kafka's work, which made me interested both in his writing for its own sake and also as a clue into better understanding Murakami's book (he himself has stated that the book isn't meant to be understood in one reading, and that each reading is meant to reveal additional insight and understanding into what's going on).
The Kafka museum was across the river, so I took the popular Charles bridge across. The pedestrian-only bridge is lined with statues and full of artists, vendors and beggars (and probably pickpockets).
The complex containing the Prague Castle is also on this side of the river, but by the time I got to it many things were closing for the day, so I'll include the pictures I took when I visit it more thoroughly later. Also on this side was the John Lennon Peace Wall which is a constantly changing graffiti wall of Lennon and Beatles art, lyrics and just general messages. It also has one of those lock walls every big European city seems to have where couples add a lock to symbolize their love.
Finally, I promised more weird babies, so here's some random sculptures from around town. I think they alone more than justify the quirky label.
1 comment:
Prague does seem pretty amazing. I already knew about the babies on the TV tower and the astronomical clock, but every thing else looks awesome too. And I adore Mucha.
Post a Comment