I’m standing at my window in Prague, looking over the rooftops. I’m not sure what the time is. I think it must be tomorrow. A flight from Australia always takes forever. Add in a few connections (since a direct flight from Sydney to Prague doesn’t exist) and it takes forever and a day.
Below me lay a city till half asleep. I stood with my back to Prague Castle, once home to the Bohemian Kings, and for a while the Holy Roman Emperors. Even the name Bohemia sounds magical. A romantic place, a world of fairytales, of knights and princesses, and most likely a dragon or two.
The Loreta, Loreto, Loretta: like Bruges, the place has numerous spellings. Filed away safely where I can’t find them are all my entrance stubs and maps and brochures for Prague, kept with the promise of helping me with my blogging. Yet whatever the spelling, the Loreta was a great find, a bewitching convent complex near Prague Castle.
Bohemia. Such a romantic name. And Prague lives up to it, even when it’s early morning and only 3 degrees. Although it was spring, the morning was bitterly cold. The sun had barely risen, yet already people were setting off to work, rugged up against the cold. When most sensible people would still be warm in bed, I set out with the aim of photographing the Charles Bridge before it became swamped with tourists.
A Cabinet of Curiosities – such a delightful term. It embraces all the romance of the gentleman (and gentlewoman) collector, from parish curates to kings. A time just before the birth of scientific classification, when unicorns and mermaids might still exist, if one was to travel and explore far enough. A time which flows in a direct line to modern museums.
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stevan
I knew very little of the good king, other than the carol sung at Christmas. I tended to think him a myth, until I came across his vineyard in Prague.