prague: a city in air conditioning denial

A Walk Around Prague. Lauren was not feeling great the last couple days, as she seems to have contracted a zima, which is Czech for head cold, and not the 1990's citrus-alcohol drink abomination.  So, she stayed in the flat to rest up, watch some Friends on Netflix and do some important work on Photoshop. Down one teenager, the three of us set out on Tuesday. Our planned first stop was the Jerusalem Synagogue, built in the early 20th Century, well outside the Jewish Quarter. Its outside is Moorish in design and inside is Art Nouveau, and it is supposed to be worth a look see. So armed with oversized off-brand Czech apple juice, we made the long walk to that part of town. Only when we arrived, the front of the building looked like a construction zone and there were signs indicating the synagogue was closed until Monday, without further explanation. No notice on the website or in Google maps. Nada. I'm sure they'll be hearing from some angry Jews over the course of this week.

Astronomical Clock. As we were walking back toward the Jewish Quarter, I noticed it was getting close to noon. Someone close to Keri had regaled her with stories of the magical Astronomical Clock show, an unforgettable performance that included, among other things, someone playing a trumpet. So, we made sure we were assembled with several hundred other tourists as the clock struck noon. We saw no trumpeter; rather, we got about 20 seconds of a clock show that was as confusing as it was underwhelming. First, a word about the clock itself. Built in 1410 by a clockmaker and mathematician/astronomer, the clock is quite an achievement, not only telling accurate time, but marking daily sunrise and sunset times and employing a method of timekeeping that allows astronomers to know where to set their telescopes to find specific stars on any given night.

Back to the show. On the hour, twelve apostles appear and rotate through two gates above the clock face. In addition, there are eight characters, each representing an individual characteristic that was thought to be good -- or bad -- in the 15th Century. The good traits are manifested through the angel, philosopher, astronomer and chronicler, and those characters are visible at all times. On the hour, for the show, a skeleton representing impending death rings a bell, and three other unseemly characters appear, representing vanity, greed, and lust. It should be noted that, given the era the clock was built, greed was synonymous with usury, which itself meant Jews, and the character picked to embody lust is clearly Turkish. All this actually makes the clock sound pretty interesting if kind of racist, which it is. I learned pretty much all of this with a couple hours poking around the internet, and none of it during the 20 seconds when very little happens.

Owen did his best to make up for the lack of excitement by challenging to a fight a large panda on the Old Town Square. Pictured here is the moment before the panda got his licks in.

Maisel Synagogue. Another of Prague's old synagogues, the Maisel Synagogue, is a 16th Century building that now serves as a museum, focused on Jews in Bohemia between the 10th and 18th Centuries. Jewish history here is similar to other parts of Central Europe -- orders of protection interspersed with local expulsions and pogroms, employment limited to money lending, restrictions on where you could live, with full legal protections coming at the end of the 18th Century. After 1215, Jews were required in most places to have some item of clothing that would distinguish them as such -- a yellow hat or circle on clothing, or this 17th Century ruffled neckpiece. The yellow hat or circle, okay. But this ruffle thing is just adding insult to injury.

Prague Castle. Dating back to the Ninth Century, the Prague Castle is really more palace than castle now, and serves as the offices for the president of the Czech Republic. King Charles IV (1346-78) is credited with turning a rather middling hilltop castle into a formidable fortress and beginning construction on the impressive St. Vitus Cathedral, which took nearly 700 years to complete and whose tower stands well above the castle buildings. During his reign, the castle gained a reputation as an important fortress for the Habsburg rulers.

As time passed, so did the general utility of castles. This castle's defenses were overcome several times, including at the end of the Thirty Years' War (1648), when Swedish forces looted the joint. Sometime after that, the Habsburgs decided that the site would function much better as a royal palace, so away went the moat and series of defensive walls, in their place were put large courtyards and buildings done very much in the style Empress Maria Theresa used in Vienna. That is pretty much how it looks today.

The Czech Resistance is Alive and Well. We toured the Prague Castle and surrounding areas in a group of 20. Our guide, Tijo, is from a small town in the north of the Netherlands but has lived in Prague for ten years. Like several others we have been in contact with, he offered unsolicited his disdain for the prime minister, Andrej Babis and the person who appointed him, President Milos Zeman. Tijo did not hold back, describing the prime minister as a corrupt con man who would be indicted but for immunity protection while in office and the president as a faux populist who lost 80% of the vote in Prague but won re-election last year by, in his words, appealing to the Islamophobia of the voters in rural communities. Someone standing next to him must have said something about our president at that point, as Tijo made explicit that he was not saying anything about any other country or their leaders (I thought the whole thing might go off the rails for a moment), before doubling back to hammer Babis and Zeman one more time, and expressing his admiration for a local artist who, days before the 2018 presidential election, placed a not-so-subtle message to Zeman in the river below the Castle, and finish with his regret that his adopted country seemed wholly unable to communicate in matters political. See, we're not so special, after all!

Pra-Ha(t as Hell). Those of you following the news may have noticed a massive heat wave hitting western and central Europe this week. Today was 98 in Prague, a city where most residents not only don't have air conditioning, but seem to be morally opposed to it. It is bizarre, and given the increase in summer temperatures in Europe, downright dangerous.

With the heat descending, finding things to do that involved air conditioning became the highest priority. There are not a lot of resources that are helpful in this regard. My favorite are the on-line comments telling you there is no need for air conditioning in Prague because it never gets that hot here. Very helpful. After some due diligence, I came up with a couple places that fit the bill. Before getting to those, and while the thermometer was still in the high 80's, I thought it best to round out our tour of the Jewish Quarter by going to two buildings I knew would not be cooled -- the Klausen Synagogue and the Jewish Ceremonial Hall, both of which are museums, focused on explaining Jewish observances. Semi-educated Jews that we are, the substantive content of the museums was of limited value, but both had some nice artifacts and the synagogue some pretty internal architecture.

The City of Prague Museum. As the temperatures rose, we were off to the air-conditioned City of Prague Museum, which sits on the edge of New Town and Old Town in a three-story museum-looking neo-Renaissance building. I'll not bury the lead any more. The air conditioning was fantastic, as they had installed in each room units with enough juice to cool even this sweat-prone animal on a hot day. The exhibitions were not on par with what we have seen in other museums, with pretty thin treatments of thousands of years of archaeological history and 800 years of recorded history here. Much more interesting was a separate exhibition on poverty in Prague, in particular poverty resulting from the industrial revolution and public responses to it. The problems associated with poverty -- child welfare, education, housing, health care, criminal justice -- appear here just as they do everywhere else, and the city's evolving approach to solutions was interesting to see laid out in museum form. I also liked this statute, who is reported to be Hercules, but looks to me much more like Hunter Pence.

Lunch Success! As has been written on these pages before meal time is not always easy. Between Keri's food allergies, Lauren's gastroparesis and Owen's general objection to anything not hamburger or pasta with butter, we are not, in this way, well suited to efficient traveling. Today, however, we hit the jackpot. Lauren was still on the injured list, so there were only three people to satisfy. Somehow, we stumbled into the basement of a mall where next to each other was a taco place for Owen, a sushi place for me and a healthy make-your-salad-from scratch place for Keri. I doubt we will get that lucky again but I was glad the food gods were smiling upon us today.

Cold War Museum. Between 1945 and 1989, Czechoslovakia was behind the Iron Curtain, sharing a long border with the capitalist pigs of the west (aka the Austrians). As such, the Czechs and Soviets thought this place was on the front lines, and prepared for the possibility of war. Among other things, the Czechs built more than 2,600 bomb shelters, many designed to withstand a nuclear attack, and provide safe space for a couple weeks post-attack. One such shelter, built under the Hotel Jalta, now serves as the Cold War Museum.

A young woman dressed as a Communist-era Czechoslovakian solider met us and several others in the lobby of the hotel and escorted us down several flights of stairs into the shelter. She began by showing us the design of the air filtration system, followed by several rooms where the necessary filtration machinery still sits -- and functions. She then walked us through a number of other rooms, filled with gas masks, radio equipment, firearms, and the height of 1960's technology -- a telex machine. Perhaps most interesting was the "surgery room," which is as troubling as it sounds -- a room with a surgical table and dentist chair 30 feet below ground with 1950's state Czechoslovakian surgical equipment, just in case you are in need of surgical intervention after a nuclear attack. Keri was most taken with this set of illustrations on the wall, providing instruction for one person man how to help another person man become decontaminated after exposure to some radioactive material. Keri accurately attributes this as the inspiration for this classic Saturday Night Live sketch.

A great, very different kind of museum. Walking through those cramped rooms with the original equipment and most of the original set-up provides an important, and powerful perspective on the seriousness with which our Cold War foes took the entire enterprise.

Would it Surprise You if . . . ? I referred at the top to Lauren's important work over the last two days. Not one to waste her time, she decided to entertain the rest of us by Photoshopping a photo of Bear, our two-year old dog, when he was six weeks, into a series of situations, including making appearances at various places we have travelled this month. The inspiration for this comes from Owen's asking me: "Would it surprise you if Chubby Cuddles . . . . " Chubby Cuddles is how we refer to that version of Bear and Owen finishes the question with all manner of ridiculousness, such as "Would you be surprised if Chubby Cuddles was in that baby carriage?" or "Would you be surprised if Chubby Cuddles was driving this train?" See what you are missing. Here, Lauren depicts Chubby Cuddles in Paris, complete with beret, mustache and a sky filled with pigeons, his bird of choice.

Thumb's Up for Prague. We had a short visit here, one interrupted by miserably hot weather, but we very much enjoyed all that we saw and ate, and the people we met. I would like to come back here at some point, as I feel there is still more to experience.