Prague - Prague is one of Europe’s elite cities, renowned for its picture-postcard views.
Gareth Huw Davies takes a tour of its fine old buildings, sees a magnificent medieval clock – and even samples some tasty dumplings…
Grand designs
Prague is listed as one of Europe’s most beautiful cities by Unesco, the UN’s cultural agency. The New Town was founded in 1348 with the grandest of designs, as an attempt to create a ‘New Jerusalem’. Architects followed the dream down the centuries. Linking it all is the 15th Century Charles Bridge, the great pedestrian crossing of the Vltava River. Prague Castle towers above the city. There are fine houses, churches and palaces everywhere. The crowning baroque glory, St Nicholas Church, built in 1735, towers above Old Town Square, near the medieval astronomical clock, which provides a clockwork parade of apostles every hour.
Links with Lennon
In tyrannical countries, walls usually signify loss of liberty. The John Lennon Wall is a remarkable exception. Since 1980 the youth of Prague and beyond have expressed their dream for a better world in the form of quotations and creative graffiti on the wall in Grand Priory Square. Lennon never saw Prague, but soon after his death students began to invoke the great singer- songwriter’s spirit with defiant daubings. The all-controlling state erased them daily, but new works were added the next day. The tradition survived Communism’s fall in 1989. On my visit a busker at the wall was belting out All You Need Is Love.
New wave art
The works of provocative sculptor David Cerny pop up everywhere. His model of Sigmund Freud casually hangs with one hand from a high beam jutting from a building in Husova Street; bronze babies crawl outside Museum Kampaw; male statues relieve themselves into a pond in the shape of the Czech Republic outside the museum commemorating the writer Franz Kafka. Cerny’s most recent work, at the Quadrio shopping centre, is a 30ft-high mechanical statue of Kafka’s head.
Medieval marvel
When I first visited in the 1990s, hotels were standard Soviet-era issue – big and dull. How things have changed. A new generation of smart boutique hotels, woven into the city’s ancient fabric, includes The Golden Key, opened in 2014 in a 13th Century building on a steep cobbled route to the castle. Links with the past include painted wooden ceilings from the 1600s, old wooden floors and a piece of 200-year-old furniture in every room. The hotel’s pretty cafe, open to the public, serves home-made cakes.
Nouveau rich
In addition to its glittering buildings, Prague has another claim to architectural fame: it has some of the finest creations of the colourful and decorative Art Nouveau movement from the early 20th Century. Its characteristic elegant, flowing curves appear on balconies and frescoes, in bars and restaurants, and in the main railway station. The exquisite stained glass window of St Vitus Cathedral is the work of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, one of the movement’s leading figures. Some of the most striking and sumptuous interior design inspired by the movement is in the Grand Hotel Europa’s restaurant.
Hearty fare
Let’s hear it for the humble knedliky, the Czech dumpling made with bread or potato. Restaurants serve it with roast duck and braised red cabbage, or with any of the standard pork or beef dishes accompanied by a tasty sauce. Look for this hearty fare in big old restaurants such as U Sadlu.
lFor more information on the city visit prague.eu.
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