Czech-ing Out Prague

Many Americans have visited Europe, often over and over. The “Grand Tour” is a venerable tradition – but it was always focused on the same countries of western Europe: France, Italy, Britain, Germany, and perhaps Spain.

There is another dimension to Europe, central and eastern Europe, that we have neglected, but is “central” to understanding this vast and storied continent that gave the United States most of its inhabitants and most of its heritage. To find the heart of Europe, there is no better place to start than Prague.

Just looking around as you walk or drive through the historical section of Prague – and even the “New Town” in Prague dates to the 1400s or before – you can tell that, like Dorothy and Toto, “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” or for that matter, anywhere in the U.S. The architecture leans to buildings with dozens or hundreds of windows, each ornately decorated with corniches, pediments, balustrades, railings, and other three-dimensional masonry.

Rising above the rooftops are a myriad of onion domes, stone towers, cupolas, statuary, and pointed spires. Prague has been called the “city of 100 spires,” but they are selling themselves short – the number is probably closer to 500. Fortunately, the city was spared much of the devastation from bombing and battles during the Second World War, so the historical splendor was largely preserved, and damage that did occur has been erased in the intervening decades.

One of the historical artifacts damaged during WWII is the Prague Orloj or Prague astronomical clock, originally built in 1410, a masterpiece of medieval chronology. Expanded and repaired over the centuries, the clock displays a wide range of timekeeping, astrological, astronomical, and religious data – not just the time, but phases of the moon, position of the sun, and zodiacal signs. On the hour, the chimes are struck by an animated skeleton, and a parade of saints and apostles appears at windows above the main clock face.

The astronomical clock is lodged in the Old Town Hall, one of the buildings surrounding Old Town Square, along with the Kinsky Palace, the Gothic-style Church of Our Lady before Tyn, dating to the 1300s, the Baroque-style St. Nicholas Church, and the Kinsky Palace, hosting an art museum. The square also features numerous eateries and pubs offering the national Czech beverage – pivo, or beer – and the majority of the signs for these establishments are in English. Illuminated at night, the square is a mecca for visitors.

The city is a beer lover’s delight, with everything from a host of microbreweries, some over 1,000 years old, to Pilsner Urquell, which has numerous devotees in this country. Each town, each section of the city, has at least one local brewery, and the level of quality is high. I didn’t have a bad or mediocre beer in Czechia, and I sampled a few.

Prague is hardly undiscovered; the city hosted over eight million overnight visitors last year. Nearly 500,000 of these were from the U.S., making this the largest international group after Germany, with about a million and a half. Czechs themselves were the largest source of tourism.

Visiting in the “shoulder seasons,” before or after the summer, helps if your goal is to experience less crowded conditions, and offers the prospect of good weather. Prague is also renowned as an autumn destination. Whenever you go, expect the traditional cuisine heavy on hearty meat dishes such as pork knuckles and Prague ham, and sweet local pastries. The city offers a diverse international dining scene, with many Italian eateries, the inevitable McDonald’s and Starbucks, and a surprising number of Vietnamese restaurants.

We enjoyed one dinner in Restaurace Zvonice, eight stories up in a historic stone bell tower, with tables squeezed between the massive wooden bulwarks helping to hold the structure up. This elevated fine dining to a new high, and I couldn’t resist reaching up with the handle of my knife before we left to give a soft clang of the bell overhead.

Prague is a very walkable city, with enchanting vistas rewarding your gaze around every corner, and also easy to ride via public transit. The tram system is regular, extensive and clean, and if you are over 65 or under 14, free of charge. While renowned for its hundreds of years of traditional, Gothic, and medieval architecture, the city is also home to American architect Frank Gehry’s “Dancing House,” also known as “Fred and Ginger” for its freeform sweeping curves evoking a dancing couple. The beloved local landmark stands – or dances – on the bank of the Vltava River, downstream from the Charles Bridge.

Named for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, the bridge dates to the 1300s and was for centuries the only crossing on the river, helping make Prague a major trading route between eastern and western Europe. Nowadays, limited to pedestrian traffic, the bridge connects the Old Town of Prague to Prague Castle on the other side of the river. It features 30 statues, including one of a priest who was thrown into the river to drown by the king, when the priest would not break the sanctity of the confessional and divulge whether the monarch’s queen was committing adultery. For some reason, it has become traditional to rub the statue of the unfortunate cleric for luck, even though his own ran out on the bridge.

Prague Castle is reputed to be the largest historic castle in the world, although it appears more as a complex of buildings, including the presidential palace and a Gothic cathedral festooned with gargoyles, rather than a single building surrounded by a moat and a wall. The changing of the guard draws crowds as the troops march by with swords and bayonets unsheathed.

Long known by its historical name of Bohemia, the area has endured a turbulent history, with competing empires and religious sects decimating the population in bloody wars, “defenestrations” and purges, along with repeated outbreaks of bubonic plague. The Holy Roman Empire, the Luxembourg dynasty, Swedish troops, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and the Habsburgs all held sway before the new nation of Czechoslovakia was created after World War I. Hitler annexed the country, then lost it along with everything else to the Soviets. After achieving independence from the Iron Curtain in the “Velvet Revolution,” Czechia and Slovakia parted ways amicably in the “Velvet Divorce.”

The Hussite Wars and the Protestant Bohemian Revolt were major theological conflicts. In today’s Prague, with the Jewish population largely annihilated by the Nazis, only 10 percent of the population declares allegiance to any religion, ironic for a cityscape so dominated by church spires. This is a drastic change from the first half of the 20th century, when 90 percent of Czechs were Christian.

One of the most striking churches is outside of Prague, an hour’s train ride to the east in Kutna Hora. There the Sedlec Ossuary, popularly known as the “bone church,” is festooned with the skulls and entire skeletons of 40,000 to 70,000 medieval corpses. Thousands of these are arranged in various artistic patterns, with thousands more skulls piled in massive pyramids. In visiting and reading about the ossuary, one question never answered was just why this was thought to be a good idea, appropriate for a house of worship. Part of the former Sedlec Abbey, the ossuary is still an active chapel and hosts devotional services, as well as drawing over 200,000 curious visitors annually.

For all the focus on the past, Czechia is a cosmopolitan, forward-looking country, and the Czech people we met were uniformly friendly and welcoming. Many speak some or good English, and that helps immensely, as the Czech language, with no connection to English or Romance languages, is a difficult wall to breach, even with the aid of Google Translate. Figuring out the trains was a challenge, but the conductor on the Kutna Hora to Sedlec spur line waved us aboard her train and didn’t bother to collect a fare.

The people of Czechia seem to have great warmth toward the people of America and credit us with helping establish and preserve their independence. Get them talking – perhaps over a cold glass of pivo – and you discover folks with great curiosity about this country, pride in their own, and a reverence for peace and democracy.