Off Beat Poets Society

One of our musician friends in Prague

14th Century sculpture of Karluv Most

Karluv Most

You meet all kinds of interesting people when and where you least expect it sometimes. Or maybe you just gravitate to the kind of places where you are likely to bump into them because they're your kind of people. It's not that they are necessarily interested in the same specific things as you, but rather the attitude and passion they share about what motivates them.

babies

these are NOT parking meters

Prague turned out to be a magnet for many such people who had been drawn there because there is something in the air about Prague that seems to bring out the hidden poet in you. There is the sheer beauty of the old central core of the city, there is the dedication to the arts and preserving, expanding and transmitting the city's classical heritage not only in music but in its art and architecture. It is also a place of innovation and experimentation with both old and new forms of expression from the opera and concert houses to jazz clubs and cafes developing more up to the minute techno and fusion works. You can see sculpture from the 14^th Century and modern art works on display in public parks, museums and city squares.

popular with
tourist cameras--
I wonder why..

from the post Communist era

This bit of nostalgia is not another paean to Prague, but a hats off to people, some of the cool people I met, poets all of whatever stripe you care to imagine, in Prague. They were poets of music, beer, technology, translation, teaching, philosophy, politics, bears, writing, painting, photography, travel, mushrooms that can save the world and simply being in that wonderful town. It was an honor and a privilege to be in their company in bars, cafes, restaurants, parties and homes—not to mention a hell of a lot of fun and great incoherent conversations into the wee small hours. It was a love affair, romantic, and like a romance, all too brief.

Charles, Karel, Karl . . . everywhere

Karluv Most 

Karlstejn Castle

The 14^th Century Kingdom of Bohemia (as the Czech Republic was then known) under Charles IV (Karel IV in Czech, Karl IV in German) is remembered as a Golden Age in the present day Czech Republic. Charles is revered as the “father of the country” and his namesakes are everywhere, especially in Prague, and most especially in the Karluv Most (Charles Bridge) across the Vltava (Moldau) River. The largest of his namesakes, Karlštejn Castle, however, is located some 30 km. outside the city, about an hour's train ride, and thus an easy day trip.

village of Karlstejn

you talkin' to me?

We took one and visited Karlštejn (Karl's stone) recently leaving Prague around noon. You have to walk about 2 km. from the station, mostly uphill, through the castle town also called Karlštejn. The road, of course, is lined on both sides with cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops offering all kinds of merchandise from Nazi helmets to colorful wigs. 

c'mon make my day...

Ignoring these (in the sense of buying, not looking) we trekked up the hill towards the castle entrance. The last kilometer or so is a considerable uphill slope that prompted a rest and hydration break so we stopped at a little cafe just outside the castle gate for some iced tea. Upon leaving I spotted a stuffed animal in the road and wondered what the hell it was doing there. It begged for a photo, so I took out my (t)rusty camera and started framing a shot when I heard a low growl and looked up and saw this terrier eyeing me. The shop lady said the stuffed frog was its toy. So I apologized to the dog and snapped his/her picture standing protectively over the frog and giving me a not very friendly look.

Bohemian crown

Photos will speak for the castle and surroundings, but I'll just add that our tour guide, a very engaging and entertaining young guy, spoke wistfully of the era of Karl IV while showing us the replica of his really quite beautiful crown (photos not permitted, of course, but...). He said that Czech people could only be proud when they looked at Karl's crown which goes on display once in a blue moon. He wished they could see it more often and, presumably, be filled with patriotic fervor. When I thought about it I realized that these people have lived subjected to outside powers, most recently under the Nazis and the Soviet Union for a generation or two or three and the notion of independence isn't yet absorbed into their national spirit. But, if this young fellow is any example, they are going to make it.

marketing everywhere - nothing is sacred

entrance to main castle buildings

well tower

view from well tower

village viewed from the ramparts

late afternoon sun

self evident

infinity

We were pretty whacked out by the time we got back to Prague, so much so that we forgot to change trains in the metro and had to back track when we realized our mistake. By then it was sunset and we crossed to the going-in-the-other-direction platform with the setting sun streaming into the station. Day was done and we were more rather than less ready to hang it up for the day, too.

Walking the last mile

Aria Martern Aller Arten - Jana was as good as Malin

Charles Bridge - Lesser Town gateway

We are into the final countdown of our stay in Prague and the feeling is becoming a little bluesy. Tonight was our last show at the Theater of the Estates and walking home felt like a man on death row's proverbial “last mile”. The walk to this particular theater has been unique in that we have to walk (no convenient trams) through the most beautiful areas of Prague to get from our apartment in Lesser Town to the theater in Old Town across the river--especially at night in winter when the streets are nearly empty and quiet. You can hear the sound of your own boot heels clicking and clacking on the cobblestone streets and sidewalks or, if you're really lucky, fresh falling snow crunching under those heels.

principal cast

best singers - baritone and soprano

Tonight we attended a rather mixed (but the soprano Jana Srejma Kacirkova was superb and baritone Zdenek Plech was excellent) performance of Mozart's Escape from the Seraglio and we were not raving about the show as we walked back across the Charles Bridge to Lesser Town. Our mood was somber and the streets were crowded with the Friday night testosterone rush of the college break crowd. I remarked to road buddy that I was feeling a little sad and lonely and she just nodded her head in agreement. Funny how you can feel lonely in a crowd when you're nearer the ending than the beginning of the journey. But it's easier when two people share the same loneliness.

conductor David Svec - the orchestra was very good

We have two more shows and a couple get togethers with friends and then it's T-Day on March 31. Those shows won't be so nostalgic since we reach the State Opera house by tram and subway—efficient and convenient but somehow not as, I don't know, romantic?

Road buddy says I'm a hopeless romantic.

Well, I've been called worse things!

A Walk in the Country

Meditation from Thais

Sometimes I need to be alone.

We (good road buddy and I) were at an expat party at the flat of some friends we met early on here in Prague. There is quite a large expat community here so it dovetailed very nicely with an old expat like myself. One of the party people, a young woman, asked me (the doyen of the party) if I ever meditated. That got me to thinking about meditation.

Road buddy had made an arrangement to meet a blog buddy for hot chocolate and chat at a local cafe, to which I was cordially not invited and didn't want to attend anyway since the ladies are both Japanese and they would want to chat in Japanese, and my Japanese isn't good enough to carry on a lengthy conversation and, besides ... I had other plans.

I took a tram to the end of the line where there are woods and a small lake or big pond (I'll call it a pond), however you want to look at it. When at home in Japan, we have a car, so my euphemism for being alone is “I'm going for a drive in the country”. Here, no car, so it's “a walk in the country”. Call it a kind of meditation where I get in touch with myself without distractions and plans and schedules and obligations—yada, yada, yada.... Just me and the world around me.

After walking for 15 or 20 minutes, I spotted an old bench with a partly broken slat as I approached the eastern end of the pond and decided to set a spell. There was still ice on the pond, but the edge was clear and there were several Mallard ducks swimming around. A couple of them were walking on the ice. I was sort of mesmerized by the elements I was a part of:  the declining sun, the hazy sky, the ground and hills and the partially frozen lake and the ducks making silhouetted ripples in the unfrozen water. Literally and physically surrounded by fire, air, earth and water and a few swimming creatures that had been made by the interaction of these indispensable elements. Fire Air Earth and Water are not some kind of mystical concept, they are, in plain simple observable fact, the natural world we live in, like me sitting alone on a bench and ducks swimming in a pond on a sunny hazy afternoon.

Suddenly, two of the ducks were walking on the melting ice and came too close to the weak edge and plunged in. It was fascinating to watch, how they instinctively and unerringly fought their way through the thin ice until they finally reached the flowing water and started swimming freely.

I guess it must have been a kind of waking dream because I realized I was smiling at the antics of the ducks while losing contact with the sweet dream. “Well," I thought to myself, "that's enough enlightenment for one day.” I got up off my butt, and started walking back toward the tram stop.

A thousand apologies for any incoherencies and inconsistencies in this meditation. There are none in the above link to the “Meditation” from the opera Thaïs

It takes time to fill up

Hluboka nad Vltavou

At the front desk Ms. Lady Receptionist is talking with Mr. Whoever, so I bellied up to the bar, so to speak. Did you see that? Ms. LR broke off her chat with Mr. W and gave me a not quite “Well, what now?” look. I said: “Sorry to bother you again, but the toilet doohickey in my room fell apart—again.” She responded, not altogether contritely, that it would take some minutes to send the maintenance man—the same one who “fixed” it the first time. I assumed. (And I've got an unflushed load on my mind--to put the frosting squarely on the cake.) I'm beginning to lose my cool and remind her a bit tight-lipped this is the second time today this problem has occurred.

Suddenly, Mr. Whoever, who seems to be somebody with authority, comes to life as if he had suddenly been plugged in and says in a few words and gestures to follow him. OK, so we go back to the “castle” room and he in his turn fiddles with the doohicky (which is obviously broken since the whole thing comes off in your hand) and says: “It just takes a little time to fill up.” With a straight face, mind you! “What! Time to fill up you say?” “Yes.” “Oh really!” says I and yanked the lid off the toilet tank. “Look! This tank is as empty as it was when I went to the front desk. This tank is obviously broken, can't you change our room?” putting the lid emphatically back on the tank with, perhaps, a slight bang! He nodded solemnly and said: "Yes, please gather your things and we'll exchange the key card.”

the king's room

splish-splash

Problem solved; and the thing that had us in stitches and oohing and aahing is that they gave us an upgraded room—a “king's” room, which was more than three times as large as our budget “castle” room. In fact, the green and dark red pseudo-marble bathroom, was nearly as big as our previous “castle” room. We just stayed in and lounged around in the “king's” room for the rest of the evening—and slept, of course, on a king size bed.

A fairy tale ending in a fairy tale castle.

In the morning we toured the castle and wandered around pointing the ever present camera here and there. Below is a selected sample of the pictures I like best. 

Patience! Patience! I've come to the end of this absurd but true story. 

Zamek Castle, Hluboka

landscape garden

Zamek Castle from the side

door knob

spiral stairs

church in downtown Hluboka

Second Hunt—looking for a good doohickey

the castle room

OK, so, anyway, we're staying in this rather swanky hotel with very few guests (off season reason) and were asked if we plan to eat in the restaurant that evening. We hadn't thought about it but simple thought telepathy had us agreeing that no, we didn't plan to eat there that night. We wanted to explore around and find our own restaurant. In our “castle” room, (the least pricey), when I tried to press the doohickey to flush, it came apart, so to speak. [;-P “aha”] I went immediately to report the "serious problem" to the front desk lady receptionist. She said she would send someone immediately; sooner as it turned out. The repair man was there before I got back fiddling with the doohickey a couple times and pronounced the toilet “fixed”. This paragraph has been amended, let's move on to the next one.

Main St., Hluboka

Hotel Podhrad

Third: Hunting for food—The hour was latish but we wanted to reconnoiter the area to see what was to be seen with more time the next day—a kind of sneak preview, as it were. Ha, gotcha! Gotcha? Whassis 'gotcha' crap? We walked around the real Zamek Castle, reconnoitering, and then headed down the hill to town hunting for a restaurant. It occurs to me, while walking downhill, that primitive man also had to go hunting for his food, just as we were doing in a strange town. Hluboka is a small town, off season, empty streets, closed up shops! Uh-oh, we start wondering if we'll find a place that's open. We notice the Hotel Podhrad restaurant at the bottom of the slope that looks like the only one open, so, hotel restaurants not usually being a good choice, we get a little confidence and decide to walk up the empty main street of town in search of a second and possibly third opinion restaurant. We don't have to go far to realize that – nada, and decide it's the hotel restaurant or starve—the same dilemma facing primitive man. 

We chose the restaurant over starvation and the food turned out to be excellent—as was the wine and the companionship.

After a very good hoof up the moderately steep hill, we go to our room and good road buddy uses the loo, but the doohicky to flushit comes apart again, embarrassingly enough if it were anybody other than me. Off to the front desk, again, to report the "more serious problem" with the toilet doohickey....

Next episode: Fourth: Hunting for a flushable toilet...

To be cont'd. 

Hunting for Food...and other things

My road buddy (promoted from “the SO”, then “my wife”) decided to hit the road within the road, so to speak. I hate phrases like “so to speak” or “as they say” or “as it were” but sometimes they are unavoidable—like a short cut or a detour. But, first, a little detour to splain how the SO evolved into my road buddy.

good road buddies

Over a glass of wine (in vino veritas) I said to my wife: “You know (and I'm not overly fond of “you know”, but you know how it is, you know?), you've been a good road buddy all these years.” And drank a toast to it. Then, remembering one of our first travels together, I continued: “Remember that horrible flophouse in Bangkok? Of course she remembered. “You didn't freak out. That's when I knew you'd be a good road buddy.”

Now that that's cleared up, on to the story of the hunts.

principal cast of "Maria Stuarda"

On a side trip by train from Prague for a few days to go to Linz for a production of Donizetti's opera “Maria Stuarda”, with a couple of stops along the route to see some castles and a medieval town. BTW, in case you haven't noticed, there are castles galore in the Czech Republic and in the rest of Europe for that matter.

Before going on to Linz, two days in Ceske Krumlov (a world heritage town); but pictures can say more about that beautiful town than words. On the return trip from Linz we got off the train in Ceske Budejovice (the original home of Budweiser beer) to take a local bus to a town called Hluboka nad Vltavou pod Kostelem (try saying that without biting your tongue). Here is where the story of the hunts begins.

First hunt: My road buddy's guidebook said there was a bus stop in front of Ceske Budejovice station where we could catch a bus up to the castle town. When we walked outside there were several bus stops all right but with all the schedules in Czech which neither of us can read. We were able to figure out by the transit map that we should take bus #4, but each stop we looked had any number but #4. Getting a little anxious and antsy now—new town, difficult language and only sporadic English speakers. At the last bus stop and no #4 I tapped a young woman on the shoulder and asked in very simple English and gestures where we could find #4. She seemed to have a halting knowledge of English and smiled (I smiled too, not to say 'beamed' back) and asked us to come with her saying: “We'll find it.” Back down the row of the wrong bus stops; she suggested we go across the street where there were more stops. Thanks and thanks and bowing and swearing eternal indebtedness we parted from the good samaritan and went to other side where we found #4 at the absolute last bus stop. Perfect strangers can be guardian angels I swear to the great spirit of the universe. Hugh sigh of relief!

Second hunt: We were staying at the Hotel Stekl annexed to Zamek Castle, which is what we stopped in Hluboka to see. We stayed in a castle as it were (there I go again!) Anyway, this story is getting longish. Sometimes you can't get started and then you can't stop writing.

I've got a few photos I want to tack on so I think I'll stop here and finish about the hunts next time. Serials and cliff hangers shorten the attention span required for reading and hopefully whet the appetite, or the curiosity, for the rest of the story. I wouldn't want to bore the audience.

my first impression of Zamek Castle

To be cont'd.  

“Stalinist Architecture” now a 5-star Capitalist Hotel

Soviet tank in Prague 1968

Czechoslovakia was, until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, one the SSRs (Soviet Socialist Republics). (Remember the Prague Spring of 1968 when Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks appeared in Vaclav Square and put down an attempt at political liberalization by Alexander Dubcek.)

There is still an area of Prague where echoes of the Soviet era can still be heard—or rather remnants of the finest and ugliest of Soviet era buildings for Communist Party members and the proletariat can be seen. In the theoretically classless society you can imagine who got the finest buildings and who got the slum tenements.

guest house for high Party officials
now Hotel Crown Plaza Prague

no longer red star

We were looking for a restaurant in the Dejvice District a short tram ride north from our apartment. My wife wanted to try the roast duck that is the restaurant's specialty. There happens to be an interesting Soviet era building a 15-minute walk from the duck restaurant; we decided to have a look at it. Built in the 1950s as a guest house for Communist Party officials it is the largest example of so-called Stalinist architecture in Prague. The building stands out from everything around it complete with a no-longer red star on top and its blocky facade can't be missed even from afar. The beautiful entrance door is made of brass and glass, while the lobby is decorated with black marble facing and art deco elements here and there. There are some interesting bas relief sculptures over the entrance that are typical of Soviet art glorifying the proletariat, as well as some paintings inside also depicting rather sentimental and idealized views of peasant and worker life.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the building is now a 5-star hotel—the Hotel Crown Plaza 

Prague.

bas relief over the entrance (1 of  3)

brass and glass entrance door

lobby

art deco glass panes

sentimentalized paintings of proletariat

idealized painting of peasantry

Walking back to the tram stop we walked past what I took to be the more prosaic Soviet era tenements that housed the ordinary workers who were not necessarily Party members and probably never got to see the inside of the Stalinist guest house. 

 stuccoed concrete - probablySoviet era housing
for ordinary workers

The Masked Parade that wasn't

We had arranged to meet with my wife's blog buddy, who has lived here in Prague with her husband for some eight years, in front of the Starbucks in Malostranské náměstí to view the masked parade that I mentioned in my previous post.

costumed family on Nerudova Street

As it turned out it was more of a masked milling about in another square up the hill from ours called Loretánské náměstí. As we were hanging around Malostranské there didn't seem to be any sign of a parade, but there were more people in the streets than usual who seemed to be going up Nerudova Street toward Loretánské; we decided to follow along and see what the score was.

up the steps

While we were walking up the hill I noticed a couple in costumes going the same way and decided to follow them, but they ducked into a coffee shop. A few minutes later I noticed a costumed family of four going up Nerudova and decided to follow them. I figured they must know where the action is. Soon they turned off to the right in what was a long flight of stairs towards what I knew to be Loretánské náměstí. Lo and behold there was music coming from the square and, as I puffed up to the top of the stairs and turned the corner there was the action. A large crowd, some costumed others not, was gathered around a group of musicians and milling around drinking some small glasses of alcoholic beverage, and taking photos of each other. So, we decided to do the same and took lots of fun and colorful pictures.

lovely young women of Prague

Vinohrady park

Later on we took my dear old tram 22 to meet with our friend's husband for lunch at a Mexican restaurant (Las Adelitas) near their flat. My wife and I had Blue Margaritas (tequila and Blue Curacao) before lunch—starting rather early in the day, but, what the hell, it's Carnevale time, right? The food was excellent and after lunch we walked around a bit in a beautiful nearby park in the Vinohrady (means vineyards) district of Prague, bought some wine and ended the day drinking wine with the great view from their flat, before returning, again on tram 22, to our own apartment in Malostranské.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, and tonight we are looking forward to a costumed baroque concert and dance. It's beginning to feel like the season is slowly turning.