not so melancholy after all (III)

Tags

Central and Eastern Europe, Czech Republic, Czeska Republicka, Mickey Mouse plush, Prague, Prague Castle, Prague panorama, Prague St George's Basilica, Praha, St Vitus Cathedral, travel

Our luck turned in the afternoon, for the sky cleared and revealed how splendid Prague could be.
We climbed to Prague Castle just in time to see the guards change shifts.

St Vitus Cathedral and its shadow dominated the top. The cathedral was immense; unnervingly so. If it had spoken, its voice would have been deafening, and even its silence was thunderous beyond comprehension. Who could have laid the intricate bridges like insect legs, or carved its spires to geometric perfection? Surely it could not have been built stone by stone. Much more likely that it had been seamlessly poured through a mold and cast into shape. It looked heavy enough to be all solid inside. I don’t think anything could compare, not the rectangular symmetry of Notre Dame or the bland stones of Rome, Florence and Milan (although I have yet to experience the sights I dismiss so lightly now). There was so much of it and the more I looked, the more magnified it became, until it was too big for my eyes, for the square and for the hill. It should have had its own mountaintop to stand on.

The palace looked drab and uninteresting next to the cathedral. It was beautiful inside, though.St George’s Basilica across the square had a skeletal green memento mori in its crypt.

There were important-looking government buildings on our way down the hill.

 And finally, a backward glance at the cathedral. The throng of buildings at its feet only served to set off its matchlessness.