I am a little surprised how few people know of the history of defenestrations in this city. I did not spend a lot of time at open windows. If folks were on the outs with the prevailing religion or political will, why, someone would toss them out of windows high and low. One of these events in the 1600s precipitated the Thirty Years War, which took the population of Prague down by about 100,000. During that same sad event, Count Waldenstein, whose castle dominates the Old Town Hill, fled to the Austrian border, to no avail. Soldier of fortune Devereux chased him there and ran him through with a pike.
But what a beautiful city. Charles IV, the first Holy Roman emperor, built this city after moving here from Vienna to wed his beautiful Czech princess. Things went well for the Empire, and Charles hired hundreds of Italian and French architects and painters. The result is all around, enormous stately rococo, baroque, and some neo-gothic public buildings and churches. The Vltava River (Smetana's Die Moldau, the German name, comes to mind) bisects the town in a lovely arc. Several bridges span the river, including the Charles Bridge. Poor St. John Nepomuk was thrown off this bridge to his death in the late 1300s for failing to reveal confessional secrets of the Queen of Bohemia. The instigator? The supposedly 'good' King Wenceslas.
Which brings me to another moment of wonderment. Remember the Christmas Carol? Yes, the one that goes "Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the feast of Stephen, etc.". Well, Wenceslas was assassinated at the orders of his brother. Not sure what that was all about. But also, St. Stephen ended poorly. Stoned to death in mid speech by Jewish elders who he harangued about their old fashioned religion. I guess the kiddies would have nightmares if we pointed out the truth behind the Christmas jingle.
Jews have not been forgotten here. 3,800 were slaughtered in a sort of religious ecstasy on Easter Sunday in 1389. Of the 130,000 Jews in Czechoslovakia in 1939, approximately 10,000 survived to liberation in 1945. More on this a little later. There is a fabulous Jewish neighborhood right in the middle of Prague. Unfortunately for us, we didn't get around to visiting it until it was shut down during Sukkot. Instead we went to Theresienstadt for a real downer of a day in early October. But I get ahead of myself.
At any rate, back to Prague. Our bicycle group is gathering. Good friends Betsy and George are here, and we are doing stuff. They have one free day and we have five (we are coming back here after another trip), so negotiating what to do is problematical. Until we decided that beer drinking is a necessary duty. We also went to a great symphonic performance of Mahler's Second, by the Prague Symphony (there are two great symphony orchestras here, the second being the 117 year-old Czech National Symphony).
Before the evening's activities we hiked around, admiring all of the buildings, and even climbing up the Astronomer's Clock tower (OK, in an elevator). A later ruler, Rudolph II, loved astrology and imported Tycho Brahe, who was best known for some of the earliest accurate observations of comet movement. He was also an instrument designer. But Rudolph loved him because he went along the ruler's love of Astrology. Brahe showed up without a nose, which he lost in a duel in Holland. He died of the plague in 1601. Then Rudolph imported Johannes Kepler, a much more serious scientist, whose laws of planetary motion still astonish beginning students of physics.
After the symphony we walked home to our hotel. While crossing one of the bridges over the Vltava all heck broke loose. We had wandered into the beginning of a mighty fireworks display. While Mary, George and Betsy admired to activity from mid-span, I high-tailed it to the river bank.
