044 - tue 13 jun - prague

today we decided to tackle prague castle first thing in the morning, to try and beat the crowds. prague, apparently, recently supplanted paris as the number one tourist destination in europe. and no one comes to prague and doesn't visit the 'hrad', prague castle, so we figured getting in first might be the sensible thing.

it didn't really seem to make much difference. we had about half an hour of relative peace before it was just jammed with tourists from all corners. so we rushed through a fair bit of our visit, also because we were starting to become a little castled-out (surely a fairly common phenomena for europe travellers), and also because prague castle was frustratingly poorly signed. there just really wasn't that much in the way of illustration or context, slabs of text to illuminate the meaning of things, pamphlets that tell you about stuff. but the cathedral was still amazing. we even climbed the tower to get views out over the city, although i got really dizzy and nearly passed out going up the claustrophobic spiral staircase of around 300 steps. it took us something like 20 minutes just to get up the tower because things were moving at such a slow pace. and it was the one narrow spiral staircase that people were using to go up and to come down, and no crowd control limiting the numbers entering it.

we saw the changing of the guard, we actually were standing next to a group of elderly english ladies who had this tall, dashing 60-something youngster with a beer gut as their tour guide, he had a wonderful way of speaking that reminded me of stephen fry. actually maybe it WAS stephen fry... he must've really let himself go.

after enduring the 'golden lane' - theoretically an intact restoration of a ye olden days shopping strip, but in practice just a shopping strip - we had to leave. i think we both left feeling sorry for the hrad, because it now spends its days bloated and heavy from the weight of so many stomping feet. while other historical monuments limit the traffic that goes through their doors, in a struggle to preserve what is left of the buildings, prague castle seemed to have an all-in policy. surely in 50 years there will be no castle left, it will have been swept away by millions and millions of impatient footprints. but someone is making some money out of it in the meantime i suppose, and it would surely be less profitable to limit the numbers of tourists coming in and out. but does the hrad suffer? and can this hastily thrown together hypothesis be applied to the city of prague in general? mmmmm.

best leave that kind of talk to people who actually know what they are talking about. after the hrad we descended down the hill to find the st nicholas church in the middle of what is called the 'lesser town' which was really spectactular. 'the book' then told us to have lunch at a jazz club, which we soon regretted.

we then took in the wallenstein gardens, home to a unique cement wall (i think it was cement) that from a distance looks like howling skulls or the backdrop in al pacino's office in that final scene of the devils advocate, you know the one. yeah you do, just think about it. no? ok fine. walking back across to the old town, we found the tyn church which is not hard to find, being right on the main square of prague. afterwards, we found the mucha museum, wherein we learnt much that we did not previously know about a man named mucha, though some called him albert, and even others called him bobo for reasons known only to me.. he painted art nouveau stuff! then - iced coffees in the grand municipal hall, one of europe's best surviving example of art nouveau architecture! woo hoo!

we grabbed picnic bits from tesco and headed for a park, where we met rodrigo and ferdinand and drank wine and ate as the sun went down. there was an improbable public performance across the road that amused us momentarily.

click here to see photos