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Jan. 4th, 2019 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landingtreeSitting in Prague airport waiting for check in to open for my flight home. Charlotte is following tomorrow, leaving before I'll have arrived. These have been a very good few days - we've more and more got the hang of Prague as we've gone along.
When I was going to our apartment for the first time I walked several times around the square trying to make sense of the street signs and find it, going into and out of a dark empty commercial/residential courtyard, typing my entry code into several wrong keypads, and managing to fail to follow the pointing fingers or directions of no fewer than three friendly locals. The crepe shop from which I finally got both dinner and a landmark I could use was never again open when we tried it, morning or evening - perhaps it only helps people in particular need.
I've become attached to the apartment and Zizkov. There was time for it to start feeling homey. We had a regular and very tasty dinner place (Lavicka, the one with the cosh ragout). Left from our door, along past the side of the square and up a few steps was the main street on which Lavicka was, and a fruit shop and bakery, and a tram stop. On up the gentle hill six or seven blocks (between four-storey apartment buildings, some in pastels, some soot-darkwned like so much of the older pale stone has been, many with statues, faces, decorations on them - and no gaps between them, one face against the cold), past the landmarks of presumed-brothel, nightclub, roundabout planted with long grasses cinched up in leaning bundles, with the communications tower on the left (ugly, I thought at first, but I became fond of it, and it was a very useful landmark the time I was walking home from some way away without a map), was the suburb's main square, great big church with the clock in the wide chest of the tower instead of the head, Christmas market, metro station.
(The metro lines are a long way below the city. Tall rapid escalators which made me momentarily miss skiing, thinking of ski lifts. In Athens the wide platforms were on either sides of rails running trains in both directions, and the trains came curving out of wide dark tunnels looking distinctly threatening. Here, the platforms are between the rails, with a line of pillars to pass through on either side to get to the rails you want, and concave and convex circles in metallic colours like unusually large dalek components decorate the walls begind the rails. The tunnels are narrow enough that a wind presages each train, and when the train arrives its lamp-eyes make running curves of light on the shiny concavities and convexities. It all feels much more comfortable and benign. Doesn't hurt that in Prague the trains come more than twice as often, either. We never had a wait longer than four minutes).
At the other side of the little square outside our window run a road which, taken right, leads to a large rectangular graveyard, earliest graves from the early 19th century - and many of those still tended. Graves grown with ivy, or covered in pine branches. In that direction is a mall, also, just as dull as the malls at home. Taken left, the street points at the war memorial on the low hill we could see from our windows. Largest equine statue in Europe, apparently, and I can believe it. It looks rather savage. The near side of that hill is good for walking, set up for cyclists. I got some of my first direct sunlight in Prague there, on day three or four, which made me realise for the first time how low the sun stays here. Four or five palms off the zenith at noon, and four o'clock is sunset - or was, when we arrived. Days have begun to lengthen. On thebfar side of the hill, Charlotte and I foundour way onto a mess of small paths whose 'keep out' ribbons had mostly fallen down. We didn't notice the first we passed, if there was one at all. Below that side of the hill runs the rail line, on the other side of which is the suburb of Karlin. We passed under the rails on the end of the hill which is left when faced from our apartment, and walked back rightwards through a gradual shading from rundown into hip. A church of St Wenceslas there with amazing arched doors each composed of five patterns of arch and five kinds of capital on the ornamental columns, nested from smallest to largest. I would have liked to wander around inside more, but it was in use: unlike in Greece, most of the historical buildings here are also functional.
My plane is boarding. The rest of this post will follow when I next have both wifi and a working mind, which may or may not be next airport.
When I was going to our apartment for the first time I walked several times around the square trying to make sense of the street signs and find it, going into and out of a dark empty commercial/residential courtyard, typing my entry code into several wrong keypads, and managing to fail to follow the pointing fingers or directions of no fewer than three friendly locals. The crepe shop from which I finally got both dinner and a landmark I could use was never again open when we tried it, morning or evening - perhaps it only helps people in particular need.
I've become attached to the apartment and Zizkov. There was time for it to start feeling homey. We had a regular and very tasty dinner place (Lavicka, the one with the cosh ragout). Left from our door, along past the side of the square and up a few steps was the main street on which Lavicka was, and a fruit shop and bakery, and a tram stop. On up the gentle hill six or seven blocks (between four-storey apartment buildings, some in pastels, some soot-darkwned like so much of the older pale stone has been, many with statues, faces, decorations on them - and no gaps between them, one face against the cold), past the landmarks of presumed-brothel, nightclub, roundabout planted with long grasses cinched up in leaning bundles, with the communications tower on the left (ugly, I thought at first, but I became fond of it, and it was a very useful landmark the time I was walking home from some way away without a map), was the suburb's main square, great big church with the clock in the wide chest of the tower instead of the head, Christmas market, metro station.
(The metro lines are a long way below the city. Tall rapid escalators which made me momentarily miss skiing, thinking of ski lifts. In Athens the wide platforms were on either sides of rails running trains in both directions, and the trains came curving out of wide dark tunnels looking distinctly threatening. Here, the platforms are between the rails, with a line of pillars to pass through on either side to get to the rails you want, and concave and convex circles in metallic colours like unusually large dalek components decorate the walls begind the rails. The tunnels are narrow enough that a wind presages each train, and when the train arrives its lamp-eyes make running curves of light on the shiny concavities and convexities. It all feels much more comfortable and benign. Doesn't hurt that in Prague the trains come more than twice as often, either. We never had a wait longer than four minutes).
At the other side of the little square outside our window run a road which, taken right, leads to a large rectangular graveyard, earliest graves from the early 19th century - and many of those still tended. Graves grown with ivy, or covered in pine branches. In that direction is a mall, also, just as dull as the malls at home. Taken left, the street points at the war memorial on the low hill we could see from our windows. Largest equine statue in Europe, apparently, and I can believe it. It looks rather savage. The near side of that hill is good for walking, set up for cyclists. I got some of my first direct sunlight in Prague there, on day three or four, which made me realise for the first time how low the sun stays here. Four or five palms off the zenith at noon, and four o'clock is sunset - or was, when we arrived. Days have begun to lengthen. On thebfar side of the hill, Charlotte and I foundour way onto a mess of small paths whose 'keep out' ribbons had mostly fallen down. We didn't notice the first we passed, if there was one at all. Below that side of the hill runs the rail line, on the other side of which is the suburb of Karlin. We passed under the rails on the end of the hill which is left when faced from our apartment, and walked back rightwards through a gradual shading from rundown into hip. A church of St Wenceslas there with amazing arched doors each composed of five patterns of arch and five kinds of capital on the ornamental columns, nested from smallest to largest. I would have liked to wander around inside more, but it was in use: unlike in Greece, most of the historical buildings here are also functional.
My plane is boarding. The rest of this post will follow when I next have both wifi and a working mind, which may or may not be next airport.
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Date: 2019-01-04 10:29 pm (UTC)