Images of Prague

Prague was the last resting place on my Summer tour of Central Europe. It was an obvious place to break the long journey home from Slovakia and was in keeping with my long established strategy of visiting Prague whenever I can.

Having done a lot of the main sight-seeing and revisiting of old haunts on my last two trips there, this time I was able to take it more slowly and savour the detail.

Prague wins the hearts of most tourists, mine included, because of its relentless beauty, especially in the Old and Lesser Towns.

This gorgeous building is fairly typical, so much so that I cannot recall precisely where it is so if you want to see it for yourself you will just have to wander aimlessly around Prague like I did.

The building is already pretty with its neat arched windows, the carvings between them and the hint of a balcony but it is made even more so by the painted flowers and scrolls.

No prizes for guessing that this is Charles Bridge.

The extensive restoration and refurbishment that clouded it in scaffolding last time I was there has now all but disappeared making the bridge once again the one place that every visitor should go to.

But for reasons that escape me, the vast majority of visitors who are wise enough to go to the Bridge unwisely avoid climbing either of the two towers at either end. From there you get the best view of the Bridge and of the neighbouring area.

This (almost) secret passage is another old haunt providing an attractive short-cut to one of the main pedestrian streets, Na Prikope.

Eighteen years ago it was home to a model railway shop that has been sadly washed away in the tide of Westernisation and so-called Modernisation.

Being undercover means that it was also a welcome path this time when the heavens opened with unreasonable ferocity making me wish for the dryness of a drowned rat.

It is hard to ignore Prague Castle, so I won't.

The green walls peppered with windows stretch across the horizon and peer down on the lesser buildings in the Lesser Town. But while the lower buildings lose out on grandeur they have their own charm, notably in the tiled roofs that spread out across the Lesser Town like a patchwork quilt or terracotta.

The windows in the roof make a brave attempt at decoration but the building cannot deny its plainness when compared to its cousins in the Old Town.

Prague would not be the same place without its trams, the best was to explore the city. I discovered some new places this time simply by getting on the wrong tram (several times).

And trams mean tramlines. These squeeze trams through narrow arched streets to and from Malostranske Namesti (Lesser Town Square).

Something seems to have scared the tourists away too and I've somehow managed to take a picture without any in it. These things are worth waiting for.

I have no plans to go back to Prague at the moment but it is pretty safe to say that I will be going back and that I'll be taking lots more photos and writing about it when I do.

A long weekend in Prague

I first went to Prague to work in 1991 and spent most of the next two years there and made a few more trips in the following year. Since then the opportunities to go back have been more limited but have all been taken. I've been back for an IBM conference, a proper holiday and to break the journey home from Kiev.

The latest opportunity came thanks to some friends who now live there who offered a good reason for going, somewhere to stay and the prospect of some stimulating company. I just had to go.


I had a reasonably busy schedule for the three days that I was there but there was still plenty of time to do what I like doing the most, exploring the city on foot.

The journey started with a steep climb through the gardens of Vitkov Hill up to the National Monument where Jan Zizka sits motionless on his horse looking over the centre of Prague ready to spring to its defence.

A museum opened in the monument the week that I was there and I had a look at it but all the writing was in Czech so I did not have much clue as to what it was about. Some of the pictures look good though and there were also great views to enjoy.

It seems a little churlish to complain about a museum but I think I preferred Vitvok when there was no real reason to go there so I usually had the place to myself.

From Vitvok I walked roughly due south to the familiar Vysehrad before heading west to the Vlatava and an enchanting walk north back to the city centre past art nouveau splendour.


The Lavka bar, restaurant and club sits in one of the very best spots in Prague, on a spur of land that juts out into the river just south of Charles Bridge.

The garden at the back offers stunning views across Charles Bridge towards the Castle and this is where I usually ended the evening (or, more accurately, started the day) when I was living in Prague.

Sadly the garden was off limits this time due to the restoration work being done to Charles Bridge but the seating outside at the front was a fair alternative and I sat there for a while with a well deserved Gambrinus.

Next door is the Smetana Museum and a statue of the composer sits patiently outside providing yet another attraction for the many tourists who come here to capture the view. I did my Good Samaritan bit and took a photo of an American tourist with the bridge and castle behind her.

As I returned to by beer I tried to guess how many photos were taken there each day but this Fermi problem was beyond me.


Having sat and looked at the castle from a distance it was only natural to go there and take a closer look.

I could have walked up the hill but why bother when a tram can take you there in style?

Bizarrely, for one of Prague's main attractions, the castle has never interested me that much and I have never really explored it - ever.

The district around the castle and the views from the hill are another matter and it was for these reasons that I go there.

I love all sorts of roofscapes. I have particularly fond memories of Venice, Casablanca, Dubrovnik and Li Jiang, and Mala Strana (Lesser Town) deserves to be in this list too. I like the way that the different layouts and styles of the buildings produces interesting shapes that are emphasised by the white walls.


At the end of the day I just had enough time to go almost to the eastern edge of Prague, to Karanska in Malesice, where I and a colleague lived in a company flat.

This was two family flats, one above the other, converted in to one flat. It was enormous and there were some rooms that we never used.

The area is mostly high density housing, as pictured here, but the buildings were in good condition and there was lots of open space and vegetation to make the area attractive rather than oppressive. It's certainly far better than the equivalent housing in the UK.

Also much better is the public transport. Despite being right on the edge of town, getting around is easy as very regular buses (around one a minute at peak times) take you to the metro station about 2km away where the ridiculously fast and smooth trains take you to the heart of Prague in a matter of minutes.

Even more bizarrely than before, this minor road in Prague is on Google Street View whereas the road I live in now in London is not.

Every time that I go to Prague I leave determined to go back again one day. This time was no different.

The Vampire of Prague

Three of my very favourite things are comics, Prague and the art of P Craig Russell so getting all three together is bound to be a winning combination.

The occasion for the inspired confluence is "Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others", the seventh trade paperback collection in the Hellboy series created by Mike Mignola.

Most of the volume is reprints of the Hellboy comic but The Vampire of Prague was commissioned for the collection and so had not appeared in print before.

It is in full colour but I chose this black and white sample from the few readily available online because it is so distinctly Prague.

The story itself, like most Hellboy stories, is short, mysterious and quirky; almost like Neil Gaiman but with fewer words. That means it is good.

If that is not enough to convince you to investigate this book then knowing that the last story was drawn by Richard Corben should be the clincher!

Remembering The Wall

Two of my favourite things are the music of Pink Floyd and the culture of Prague so I was not going to turn down the opportunity of spending a long weekend in Prague during which I could see a performance of The Wall.

Some brave Czech musicians had chosen to stage a spectacular version of The Wall to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

The venue for this extravaganza was the O2 arena in Ceskomoravska, just two stops on the metro from where I was blagging free accommodation in some friends' apartment.

They know the venue very well as it is also the home to HC Slavia Prague ice hockey team. This familiarity enabled them to buy me a decent ticket even though I was not able to confirm my attendance until just a few days beforehand. A lot of other people must also have made late decisions as the place was all but packed on the night with only some of the more remote seats left unsold.


I know the music of The Wall well but had not seen it in concert so I was not too sure what to expect.

The first thing that was obvious was that there were a lot of musicians involved. Most of these, I am told, are well know Czechs but the name Harry Waters (keyboards) was rather more familiar and gave a semi-official stamp to the occasion.

I was amused to see that The Wall was sung in English with Czech sur titles, a reversal of what I am used to at operas in this country, and I wondered what the translators made of phrases like "toys in the attic" and "somebody must have taken my marbles away".

The show was a real performance as the story was told through acting and film montages, as well as the words of the songs. The wall itself was gradually added to through the performance until it completely covered the front of the stage and hid the musicians from us.


But it came down soon after to the ringing chants of "Tear down the wall." I was not alone in joining in heartily.

As originally conceived, The Wall is about one person's struggle against their own daemons but has been slightly modified over the years to accommodate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Roger Waters solo song, The tide is turning, from Radio K.A.O.S., has been adopted as the new ending.

The enthusiastic standing ovation after this was long, well deserved and rewarded with an encore.

First up was the unexpected, but relevant, Who needs information, also from Radio K.A.O.S. then the quadraphonic jingling announced the arrival of Money. This rock anthem featured three guitar solos, two keyboard solos, a saxophone solo and a scat piece from the three backing singers.

The Wall was played and presented brilliantly and was made the more meaningful by the anniversary of that other wall. Without any doubt it was one of the very best concerts that I have been to. Simply wonderful.

My Prague

I do believe the maxim "you can never go back" but, just this once, it worked!

My plan for my one full day in Prague was to walk around all the places that I liked best from the time that I worked there (1992 to 94) and to take lots and lots of photos.

Of course I have photos from the time but these were the dark days of analogue photography so I only have a relatively small number of photos compared to the places that I have travelled to in recent years.

My hotel was just to the east of the town centre and during an early breakfast I decided that the best way to see everything would be to walk clockwise around the edge of the city to the west side and then walk back through the centre.

My route took me to Zizkov, Jiriho z Podehrad, Namesti Miru, Vysehrad, Smichov, Mala Strana and Hradcany, before I walked across the Charles Bridge to explore the old and new towns.

Along the way I walked across the rather scary footpath alongside the railway bridge at Vysehrad, took the funicular railway up the hill in Mala Strana, climbed to the first observation deck of the small Eiffel Tower copy at the top of the hill, and climbed the towers at both ends of Charles Bridge.

The afternoon was a less organised ramble through the old and new towns that took in the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square and various shops that mean something to me such as Maj (I refuse to call it Tesco) and Kotva.

Along the way I bought some more crystal tumblers as they get used a lot at home and are gradually getting broken.

I took a few trams too, including a short trip back to the hotel to recharge batteries (mine and my camera's).

And tram journeys in Prague always remind me of this R.E.M. video. There is even a glimpse of Kotva about four minutes in.

There have been many changes in Prague since I first went there but the place is still largely unspoilt.

The beer has doubled in price, it is now around 50p a pint, and the food has got a lot better so eating out is an easy and cheap pleasure.

I am looking forward to my next trip there!

Prague in a day

I took advantage of a business trip to Kiev to break the journey home with a stop-over in Prague.

There I managed to spend a day revisiting many of the places that I know well from time working in Prague for the Czech Savings Bank (Ceska Sporitelna).

For me, this is where is all started.

The tower on the left was the Forum Hotel and I stayed there for the first few months before moving out to a flat in Malesice in the eastern suburbs.

The houses in the middle of the picture are in Vysherad, which is one of the many pretty parts of the city, as you can see. The concrete bridge that stalks above them carries the main road south and the "C" line metro. It is also quite a scary walk for those of us who are not very good at heights!