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Dear everyone I know,
Go to Prague. Now. No, don't wait. Go. Quickly, before everybody else I just told beats you there. In fact, don't even read this. Just go.
Still here? Okay then. Here's the breakdown. I've never felt this way about a city before. Ever. Seriously dude, I think this one's the one. I'm gonna ask her out. I bought flowers and everything.
I know I may have left an unsatisfying impression with my description of the airport before, but what I left out of that description is that, in spite of the rocky landing, we were overjoyed to see rain on the tarmac as we touched down. I've never been so happy to see rain (you know, given the horrific heat we'd been marinating in the whole time we were in Rome). The city is stunning and the people are great. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but of all the amazing pieces of history we came across in London, Paris and Rome, nothing has hit me quite like what we've seen here. Don't get me wrong, Westminster was amazing, and the Vatican actually cause portions of my mind to collapse on themselves
Champagne Beer... Literally
I don't know how it works either, and quite frankly after 2 or 3 of these, you really stop caring.while trying to come to terms with what I was seeing, but Prague...
We went to a town square that has a cathedral built in it. Over the years soot and grime have stained its exterior to the point of blackness and its front (Which I'm quite sure was at one time as stunning as Notre Dame's) has been built onto. I don't mean that people have changed the style of the facade over the years, I mean that a restaurant and a shop have actually been built onto it using the front of the cathedral as their rear wall. On one hand it is tragic and sad, but on the other... When you get to the end of the little alleyway that leads to the cathedral doors, you can see on the left where a little nook was left in the wall of the restaurant so that a cherubic face carved onto the cathedral can still peer out at the worshippers. It's incredible. For me at least, standing there and feeling the continuous string of time leading back to when the blocks for that cathedral were first lifted into place was more meaningful to me than standing in
the Sistine Chapel looking at it's world famous ceiling (Recently cleaned and restored by a leading Japanese company using the latest of technology and resulting in a copyright that prevents admirers from taking pictures or videos for the next twenty years and forcing the placement of guards who break up your awed contemplation with their constant droning "Shhh" and "No Pictures... No Video...")
Do I make any sense? Yes, it would be incredible to see that baroque cathedral all cleaned up and sparkling like the day it's doors first opened, but it would be fantasy. It would be to separate the work before you from the world around it. In Prague, it doesn't seem to work that way and I love it.
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Dad
non-member comment
So true!!!
Your comments about the cathedral remind us that some things should be allowed to progress through their own lifetime without the artificial maintenance performed by our high-tech methods. Age and the consequences of the adoration of millions of awe-struck souls gives these places a patina of grace that the original builders could only pray that they might live long enough to see. We can plant the seed, but it takes the passage of time for the tree to attain its true beauty. Which brings us to my garage......aaahhhhh....... Love, Dad