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~where the Vlatava flows~ Tuesday, 27th June 2006 before i went to Prague ~ i tried to imagine how it would be, but even after having read parts of the guidebook, i had no real idea how it would be. i expected it to be a bit on the grey side, streets filled with too many buildings, and concrete blocks. one thing about Prague is that there aren't really much classic movies set there, that give a feel of the place before. but then there is a piece of music that carries much of the mood: Smetana's symphony “Moldau” – or in Czech and English: “Vlatava”. i never really understood this symphony before i walked along the Moldau, on Sunday evening, when Inge and i went on our first discovery tour. there is a vast, deep melancholy that is floating through Prague, just like a river, framed by hundred beautiful buildings, each a grand masterpiece, each trembling on the verge of erosion.
today we returned to the river, in daylight, taking tram 22 from Charles Place to Ujezd, and from there walking through tiny streets to Kampa Park, past mothers with kids on a morning walk, past drunks on benches that seem to be their home, past run down houses on one side, and renovated mansions on the other side, past a giant wooden chair that stands there, in the water, as if it waited for time to take a seat, past an old water mill.
a pair of contrasting motions that is omnipresent: lightness and pain. enhancing each other even more through the imprints history left on the life here over the last decades. and on the arts. we didn't think of this, though, when we went to the Kampa museum, this gallery that is set right at the Vlatava riverside. we didn't even really know what to expect when we bought the tickets, and then entered the rooms. rooms between steps. rooms that held the grieve of freedom lost, of creativity in chains. and rooms filled with fantastic colour schemes. magic dreams of life. some stairs further, the pain again. and the music. this sad classic music. if you want to see some of it yourself, there is a well-made online walk through the museum. click the photo to start it – and maybe put on some slow music while going there.
another thing that is reflecting this moodiness is the statues – there are so many of them, everywhere, on the towers, above church doors, on the frames of classic buildings. and of course, on Charles Bridge, the central bridge of the city. 30 statues frame the passage from the Old City to the Castle District.
and like all the other statues, they carry the air of time passing, as their surface still holds the dust, the shade of time, and so they stand there, like dark shadows, with only the metal parts polished: the cross they hold, the halo they carry, or their wings, like symbols of this unbearable lightness of being. the most famous is St. Nepomuk, the patron saint of the city – his statue is on the bridge, too, at the place he was thrown into the water by the guards of King Wenzel in the 14th century, in an act to get rid of a critical representant of the government. the king didn't realize back then that it was this act that made Nepomuk a martyr, and let him live on in memory of the people. ~~~ next: Trinidad |
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