Europe > Czech Republic > Prague > Prague > Articles > The Bells of Bohemia

Perhaps, like myself, you wondered what city could possibly be so well-preserved as to form the splendidly convincing backdrop to Amadeus, the world-acclaimed Mozart film biography.

Well, it is here, every stone of it, every turreted palace, every crooked lamplit lane. Its escape from damage in the last weeks of the war was a minor miracle, for which thanks are still being offered. It may be equally grateful for the complete absence of tower-blocks in the town centre. Thus Prague stands alone as the ultimate Baroque monument, half-German, half-Ruritanian, perhaps the last we shall ever see of the vanished Central Europe. And I am seeing it from the 23rd floor of the Hotel Forum, perhaps a cheat, though we are not quite in the centre. However, a couple of stops by metro whisks you to Wenceslas Square, from where everything is an easy walk. But entering the station, I suddenly stand transfixed. For all around me, on illuminated red panels, there hangs the name Vysehrad.

There is a condition, not unlike Wagneritis, that binds together those of us who cannot hear enough of Smetana’s Ma Vlast (My Country), the supreme expression of Czech nationhood. And the opening movement - Vysehrad - reaches right back to the roots of Prague, the legendary rock above the river where it all began. To the sound of the harp, the prophetess foresees a future city whose glory will touch the stars. Vysehrad is really a state of mind, a dream of strings and woodwind. But now I can glimpse its twin spires through the pines, I must go up and see what is left of the ancient hill-fort.

Behind its old ramparts, today’s Vysehrad is a Gothic park, dramatically perched above a wide bend of the Vltava, and a nest of history. A thousand turbulent years have left their mark in a mixture of ruins and replicas that some have found confusing. To me they harmonise perfectly, and I could happily spend all day among these little chapels and basilicas, enjoying the secluded paths and colonnades, without wondering how much of this rotunda or that gatehouse arch is original. Mighty statues celebrate the legends in twenty feet of stone. A well-kept cemetery claims some of the greatest Czech writers and musicians. And as we look diagonally across the river to Prague castle (a mere newcomer of about 1550), we note that Vysehrad manages to enshrine the immortal heart and spirit of Bohemia without so much as a coffee-stall to spoil the effect.

No tower-blocks. Plenty of towers. Tall tent-shaped ones that place a Bohemian stamp on the Prague skyline. Massive green domes, heavy with Baroque tracery. Onion-style turrets topped with sparkling gold paintwork. And all manner of charming little conceits that enliven the roofs of otherwise unremarkable shops and hotels. ‘The city of a hundred spires’ is an understatement indeed. (I don’t know what ought to be done to a Canadian woman who said it was like Disneyland.)

The cherished favourite is the tower of the Old Town Hall, dating from 1470, with its ingenious astronomical clock, above which the twelve Apostles make an hourly appearance. Prague may have higher viewpoints than this, but nothing can match the intimate panorama of Old Town Square, with centuries-old landmarks that seem close enough to touch.

Almost all of the Old Town is now a pedestrian zone, ideal for just strolling and marveling at the survival of a major medieval capital. Your guide will apologise about the scaffolding, but everything looks very well-kept to me, and it is a joy to study the endless facades in their original colours. The fresh apple-green of Mozart’s Tyl Theatre, where The Magic Flute opened. That thunder-grey, laced with white, that dignifies the town square. The special cognac colour, favoured by the Empress Maria-Theresa, that paints a hundred lanes all over Prague. And best of all, the pinks and crimsons, equally satisfying whether new or faded, taking on subtle new shades as the sun moves round.

To reach the vast high-lying castle, you must cross over Charles Bridge, which is also pedestrians-only. Why the crossing itself has to be such a widely-photographed ritual I have never understood. True, no other bridge gives you a massive stone saint every few paces and one of those tall Gothic towers at each end. And built in 1357, it’s one of the oldest bridges in Europe. Personally I keep up a brisk pace until the first wrought-iron lantern tells me that I am in the Little Quarter, a picturesque maze of small palaces and churches, winding lanes and firelit taverns, all crouched below the awe-inspiring mass of the castle and the soaring splendour of St. Vitus Cathedral. It is from that high frontage that the periodic ‘defenestrations of Prague’ have been carried out, a tempting way to dispose of the enemy, perhaps while he is admiring the view over the river.

As I crossed one of these little squares early on a Sunday morning, the perfect silence was broken only by a few notes from a piano, rather amateur, probably a child practising - to me a welcome change from ghetto-blasters. Fine music has always been in their blood and bones, but a separate Czech style did not appear until about 1850, apparently sparked off by an insult Smetana received from a Viennese conductor who dismissed the Czechs as a nation of fiddle-players. Furious, he stormed off, determined to write music of international standing, in which he was warmly encouraged by Lizst.

From this one moment of resolution, there issued a flood of choral work, quartets, great symphonic cycles and the ever-popular Bartered Bride which went on to inspire his pupil Dvorak and in turn the latter’s son-in-law Josef Suk. And now I have just heard Josef Suk the Younger, a fine muscular violinist, giving us a Beethoven sonata at the Dvorak Hall. It is pleasing to touch hands with such a glorious musical tradition. And once a year, at lilac time, thousands of music-lovers do the same, as the Prague Spring Festival bursts into life.

Before you let the word Bohemia lead you into dark forests of mythology, with outlandish herbs twining round moonlit ruins, let us note that the local scenery, although very pleasant, is no more exotic than Germany, even in the mountains. (For the real inky peaks, you have to head South-east out of Bohemia into the High Tatras.) A day-trip from Prague will tend to yield curiosities rather than splendours - the secret cellars of Plzen, the village butcher’s shop where Dvorak was born, a picturesque hill-town here, a medieval stone bridge there - until you pick out the far turrets of Cesky Krumlov.

It is impossible to exaggerate the magic of this extraordinary little Gothic town that time and change have by-passed for nearly seven centuries. The square is straight from a fairy-story, and the lanes around it still meander along their original course. Historically this means poverty and neglect, the wealth having been concentrated on the castle. Visitors now reap the benefit of both. The castle rock sweeps dramatically up from the banks of the Vltava to a great Renaissance chateau, topped by the most imposing tower in Bohemia, a miracle of miniature columns and castellations, a spellbinding sight for miles around. Among the many treasures inside is Europe’s oldest working theatre, with all stage equipment lovingly restored in solid timber after the original installations of 1766.

Although it is tempting to take in the three famous watering towns in one day, they each make for a satisfying stopover, so why not choose your spa? Smallest and most genteel is Franzbad, whose minerals happen to cure a lot of gynaecological ailments, so well-off widows tend to predominate, attended at a respectful distance by a retinue of hopeful widowers. Most scenic is Marienbad, lost in a dense wooded valley and full of grand Edwardian hotels. (I am wary of calling foreign places Edwardian, but the regular visits of a certain gourmet monarch justify it here.) Bigger than both is Carlsbad, with a good record in digestive and cardio-vascular treatments, but so popular as a festival and conference town that only about one visitor in ten is taking the cure. (I use these old German names advisedly; no tourist is ever going to pronounce Frantiskovy Lazne when he can get by with Franzbad.)

Finally, if you have only half a day to spare, you’re just in time to see Karlstejn, originally built to house Charles IV’s jewels, and still gem-like in its perfect preservation. It was first pointed out to me from a train by a beautiful dark Czech girl sitting opposite. High on a hill, the castle looked like a Gothic mirage glinting in the evening sun, and next time the train stopped, I handed her a pen and asked her to write down its name. This brought a sharp protest from a suspicious-looking peasant beside her, and she had to explain the innocence of the request. Just a possessive father doing his bit? I doubt it. More like an old Czech who had simply learned to mistrust foreigners with pens. And after being inspected, spied on and chivvied around by Russians, Austrians, Nazis and Russians again, who can blame them?

Strolling up the centre boulevard of Wenceslas Square, I can immediately hear two kinds of nightlife, pre- and post-Communist. My right ear takes in the scrambled megawatts of a first-floor disco at the Kavarna Praha, pulsing with mauve lights. My left ear is enchanted by an old German cabaret number churned out on two scratchy fiddles and a creaking grand. I head left, making me ‘firmly middle-aged’, as Denis Norden used to joke. But until things really change, there is bound to be a nostalgic element in a visit to Prague. And this tiled and mirrored ground-floor café at the Grand Hotel Europa is a welcome part of it.

Up to now, Prague has been something of a cult destination - a rare Gothic musical-box, almost more interesting for its imperfections. But now there is the novelty and excitement of taking part in a great renaissance - symbolised vividly by the triumphant return of the Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik after forty-two years’ exile.

Doctors shook their heads over this heartbroken wreck of a man, arthritic and half-paralysed, who had become merely the object of sad retrospective salutes. But now, who is that athletic figure on the podium, galvanising the Czech Philharmonic into life on the first night of the festival? It is Kubelik, magically re-born like Prague itself - deeply spiritual, stubbornly indestructible - of which Mozart said that it was only city that understood him

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