Circumspencing the Globe

After reuniting with Sarah in Krakow, we traveled together to the Czech Republic. On October 15, we took the overnight train from Krakow to Prague in a sleeper cabin adjacent to a cabin occupied by some American college students–“Derek,” “Brandon” and “Courtney”–who spent a dramatic night playing drinking games, breaking glass and bleeding. In the morning, the train hallway looked like a crime scene.

We arrived in Prague and, after pumping ourselves full of coffee, began exploring the city. It’s divided into four main areas: an old town and new town on one side of the Vlatav River and then the castle complex and a smaller town (site of the Franz Kafka museum) at its base on the other side of the river. The castle complex is the largest in the world. It houses, among other things, stunning cathedrals, a 16th century merchant’s street and a prison fortress full of torture implements. Near the castle are a convent and a monastery. The monastery includes a library which, according to Lonely Planet, has on display two leathery, brown whale penises. Not one to miss a cultural attraction, I paid that library a visit but arrived after it had closed. So, I’m afraid I’m unable to answer the question on every reader’s mind: were the whales circumcised? If so, were they bar mitzvah’d?

A number of bridges join the different parts of Prague, but the most beautiful is the Charles Bridge. At night, it and the surrounding buildings are expertly illuminated, and the light dances over the water. Now, I don’t exactly consider myself to be a romantic. [Pause for a chorus of protestations to the contrary from my ex-girlfriends.] But anyone with a pulse can’t help but feel amorous in such a setting. Had I been alone, I fear I would’ve morphed (Kafka-like) into Roberto Benini and begun waltzing with strangers, shouting poetry to passing boats and french kissing lampposts. Thankfully, I was not alone but with Sarah. We had a nice time as soon as I managed to pry her off a handsome statue.

One night, we took in a live performance at one of Prague’s ˝black light theatres˝ where pantomime, dance, puppetry and music blend together on stage.  We chose a show with a Beatles theme convinced we were in for a good time.  Sadly, the show wouldn’t have won third place at a summer camp talent show.  The actors moved about aimlessly, seemingly expecting the black light effects to sufficiently wow the audience.  Didn’t happen.  They would’ve done better to clear the stage, cut the lights and just blast the Sgt. Pepper album.

After three nights in Prague, Sarah and I boarded a bus for a small town in the southern part of the Czech Republic called Cesky Krumlov. The bus made a few stops on the way, and at one, a group of young people got on. There were no seats available, so they squeezed together in the aisle. What made the group notable was that most of its members had Downs Syndrome, and they had an awfully fun time trying to keep their balance. The most vocal one in the group happened to be leaning directly over Sarah. As the bus turned and accelerated and braked, the vocal one kept a running commentary, presumably in Czech, and made sounds like ˝eee-yo˝and ˝oooof.˝ A smaller girl next to her played the role of monitor and repeatedly shooshed the vocal one, but that only made the vocal one more emphatic. And she didn´t just say it. She sprayed it. For the entire ride, Sarah buried her head into my shoulder, as much to stifle her giggles as to find refuge from the spittle.

When we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, it began to hail. We found a hostel fairly quickly and warmed up inside. The yellow hostel abutted a river–the Vlatav River, the same one that flows through Prague. It was an ideal spot, but I don’t think there were anything BUT ideal spots in the little town. Lonely Planet aptly describes it as a ˝pocket-size Prague.˝ It’s got a castle on a hill, narrow cobblestone roads that wind up and down, picturesque cathedrals and the river. When we woke up the next morning, it was snowing. You couldn’t help but feel you were in a giant snow globe that had just been shaken.

We surveyed the list of attractions, and Sarah identified two she guessed would tickle my fancy: the torture museum and the puppet museum. She joined me in visiting the former but not the latter. The torture museum looked like it had been designed by Terry Gilliam and featured an audio recording of people writhing in pain. But I think I’d prefer to be trapped in the torture museum after dark than the puppet museum. The puppets (marionettes mostly) dangled in their display cases adorably enough, as if completely harmless, but I just didn’t trust them. Something in their eyes. Like they KNEW something. Good for them Cesky Krumlov doesn’t have a puppet torture museum. Imagine a puppet being stretched on the rack, locked in a tiny cage or, worse, bursting at the seams by the insertion of a gigantic hand. All this to say that I’m taking in all of the high culture Eastern Europe has to offer.

Tags: Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, Prague, Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.