Springtime in Prague

Prague in spring sparkles -- it is a very different place from wintertime Prague, which is all fog-draped hills and damp cobblestone. The hills are now green, over-run with local dogs who sniff stinky things in the long grass, blithely ignoring the feeble cries of their aged owners. The cobblestone can scarcely be seen beneath the feet of tourists tramping doggedly through the streets and alleys following the umbrellas of their tour guides, hands clasping their souvenirs of choice....an open can of Staropramen (you can't do that in America!), "genuine Bohemian Crystal," perhaps a plastic Golem?

Blossoms are everywhere, and at lunchtime the parks that are hidden to all but the most intrepid tourists -- the park in the old Carmelite cloister in Mala Strana, for example, or the garden you can just barely see through the gate here, also in the Mala Strana -- fill up with locals...old ladies sit on benches grumbling, young couples flirt on the grass, solitary types pull out their sandwiches and the morning paper.


Despite the tourist crowds, it is easy enough to turn a corner and find yourself completely alone, as I did here in Mala Strana...










Sometimes even Kampa, the little (former) island just below Charles Bridge, that's with restaurants and bookshops, empties out.

Not for the faint of heart is Charles Bridge itself. There are several bridges across the river, but this is the oldest and is pedestrian-only. A bridge has been located on this spot for hundreds of years -- before the Charles Bridge, there was a bridge called the Judith Bridge located here. The statues are all from the 17th and 18th centuries, but there was a lone cross there at various points from the 14th century on. The repeated destruction and restoration of this cross, which was incorporated into a crucifixion scene in the Baroque period, indicates the bridge's role in various conflicts in the city's history --- the Hussite Wars, the invasion of the city by the Catholic troops of the Archbishop of Passau in 1611, and again in the 1640s by the Protestant armies of Christina of Sweden.

Today, traversing the Charles Bridge is a serious undertaking: it's packed with tourists, souvenir sellers, buskers, and pickpockets, and at least one part of it is always under scaffolding due to restoration work. The statue of St John Nepomuk, who was one of the most popular local saints, continues to be popular today. Poor Nepomuk, the queen of Bohemia's confessor in the very distant and murky past, met his end in the Vltava/Moldau, thrown in after he refused to divulge what the queen had told him in confession. People today touch his statue for good luck, and their ardour has left its mark in the shiny spots on his statue....

I have my own favourites, though. As someone who seems to always be on the move, despite being at heart a sometimes unadventurous homebody, I always give St Christopher, patron saint of travelers, a nod when I pass him on the bridge. There's something comforting about images of mighty St Christopher helping the tiny child across the river.

He always gets me thinking, though, of Schumann's settings of Heine in Dichterliebe, in particular the last song.... when the Dichter, the poet, having been disappointed in love, searches bitterly for a very large coffin --- a coffin so big that it can only be carried by giants, "die muessen noch starker sein wie der starke Christoph im Dom zu Koln am Rhein" -- the coffin will be so heavy, that he needs not one but 12 giants, and they have to be stronger even than the mighty St Christopher in Cologne Cathedral. The coffin isn't, of course, for himself, but for "die alte, boesen, Lieder" - the old, evil songs, the love songs he sang to his beloved...

I'd like to think Prague's Christopher stands watch over a rather happier group of travelers...