My Blog Awards

DaithaiC in all too typical pose

Blogging is often seen as a lonely furrow but I don’t know how. Through the excellent London Blogger’s Meetup I have met many of my contemporaries at the edge of Citizen Journalism and not met a lonely soul amongst them. People often ask how do you find the time. Why? Nobody asks people how they find time to go to the hairdresser, play golf, go to happy clappy churches, pubs, concerts, Rugby clubs, or work late at the office destroying human lives. Why pick on Bloggers? In fact Bloggers are altruistic, edgy, interesting people with something to share. They also represent Freedom from the Press – an important concept as our media gets taken over by malevolent vested interests with far from hidden agenda.



Sure there are the strange ones in this unfiltered land. I don’t do rants or attempt character assassination as life is short and we owe it to ourselves and others to behave with decency. But Internet land is full of Blobs of Bile who are like demented alcoholics transferring their own self loathing onto others. Then there are dark obsessive’s out there. There is the sad sex stuff largely generated by the second biggest industry in the US. I did a short Blog in support of Brooke Magnanti better known as by her blogging nom de plume “Belle de Jour” and sure enough in piled the prurient. Then there are the wacko conspiracy theorists that seem to always end up in the cul-de-sac of anti Semitism. So for the short piece I did on Gerry Rafferty when he died (Catholic, Irish father, Scottish mother) in piled the searches *Gerry Rafferty Jewish?*. Until the Saddo Firewall is invented leave them to it I say.

So before presenting my Blog Awards this is time to reflect on the success of the Daithai C Blog. First what would I do differently? Well not have a stupid name for a start which means nothing to readers – my name in Gaelic but spelt slightly wrongly so as to make it easy to register on bookmarking and repeater sites! Seemed clever at the time! Also Blogs tend to be specialist to align with readers and advertisers but this one at its kindest must be described as non-specialist! It covers my first love Architecture but also Travel, Transport, Politics and Irish affairs, and then some! It started off in 2007 because I was curious and ignorant about blogging and was fed up being in conversations which I didn’t quite understand.



So I took some travel guides I had done and slapped then on to see what would happen, the first one being the Ibis Moussafir in Marrakech in August 2007. Now over 550 contributions later it has been something of a phenomenon. Over this weekend alone over 2,000 people will have read something from the Blog. It is followed on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Multiply and much more. It is referenced, blogrolled, backlinked and quoted on many other sites. And as I believe in the concept of an open Internet there are no copyright or ownership claims on the site, all the material is freely available to link and quote. It has reached not just the mainstream but places at the very end of the known world such as Ulan Bator and Wolverhampton.



So in the principle of caring and sharing and inspired by my Blog Buddy MuMu Daithai C now makes his very first Blog Awards on to Blogs which I like, reference and which keep me going. Thanks again for all your encouragement, comments, feedback and kind words of support over the years.

Here are the lucky winners of the DC’s inaugural Lovely Blog award.




1. http://www.missus-emm.com/index.html: Missus Emm; A South African with a passion living in London and being a citizen of the world.

2. http://www.thegirlinthecafe.com Ingrid is Dutch, an old bloggy buddy was living in London, is obsessed with Bill Nighy and captures the zeitgeist of Cafe Society in her always stylish blog with her own wonderful photography. She has now relocated back to Holland but we look forward to The Girl still being part of our life.

3. http://www.photopol.com Póló is an inhabitant of my home town of Dear Dirty Dublin and a genuine authority on much of interest. Photopol started off as a photo blog but now you will find history, politics, a religious (sic) blog and even a Gaelic language blog, An Cnagaire! (The Knocker)

Now each winner can pass it on to 3 other blogs…Enjoy!



And for the versatile blog award:

1. http://quiz.eblana.eu/ A Parisian phenomenon! My buddy Páraic Maguire is Mr Quiz in Paris and runs the best little Pub Quiz in Paris at The Green Linnet, 8 avenue Victoria, 75004 Paris (metro Hôtel de Ville or Châtelet) every Wednesday, 9.30 pm. It is a phenomenon in a land where such things are unknown and the Quiz like the site is in both English and French.

2. http://london-underground.blogspot.com/ Annie Mole’s single minded obsession with what is going on under London.

3. http://torytroll.blogspot.com/ Adam Bienkov’s on the money London political Blog which has broken many major stories.

4. http://mumugb.blogspot.com/ MuMu’s perspective on being a French Yummy Mummy who loves living in London but finds the natives strange!

5. http://secondaryadventures.blogspot.com/ The iPad Polyanna of Pimlico is the daughter of MuMu the aforementioned Yummy Mummy and both writes and perceives beyond her tender years.

6. http://www.smileforlondon.com A stylish site by creative people who are bringing art, the web and media together in new and exciting ways.

7. http://whatnottodoinloveandbusiness.com/ Sherrod’s beautiful site and stories. Great look and feel and does what it says on the label.



Now you guys need to pass the award to 7 other blogs and say 7 things about you that we don't know about you yet!

So in the spirit of this enterprise here are seven things you may not know about DaithaiC although the clues are in the Blogs!





1. I have Adolph Hitler to thank for being Irish
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/moonlight-sonata_14.html

2. James Joyce was a neighbour
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/james-joyce-and-me.html

3. I made basic mistakes in trying to chat up a Princess
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-not-to-make-first-impression.html

4. I organised the Boomtown Rats first concert
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/bob-geldof-and-me.html

5. I shovelled concrete with a descendant of the last Crusader King of Jerusalem
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/01/lady-miranda.html

6. I have a Great Uncle buried in the Ainse on the Hindenburg line
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-somme-personal-journey.html

7. I lived in Baggotonia around the corner from Raglan Road
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-raglan-roag.html

St. Pancras Reborn Part II

After a long dormant spell, George Gilbert Scott's magnificent Midland Grand Hotel is about to be re-opened - the jewel in the crown of the St Pancras railway redevelopment which has already seen the relocation of the Eurostar terminal. A triumph of neo-Gothic splendour, the red brick Grade I listed hotel has been painstakingly restored by architect Geoff Mann who worked with English Heritage to preserve as many of the original features as possible. Many of these date back to 1876 when the hotel first opened - making it the last and most extravagant of the great Victorian railway hotels. Grand and imposing though it was, the Midland Hotel was soon redundant - its fate doomed by the end of the railway boom and the lack of bathrooms (it had just eight bathrooms 300 rooms; an army of servants did the rest). It closed just 59 years after it opened. This magnificent high Gothic revival building was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the High Priest of Victorian Architecture, (he also designed the Foreign Office and the Albert Memorial) in 1865. It was purpose built as the Midland Grand Hotel, the rear joining Barlow's equally splendid single-span train shed.


St Pancras Midland Grand Hotel

Back in the early 1960s, high Victorian architecture was widely considered to be hideous, fit only for demolition. Many key buildings were lost. Next in line, the highest of high Victorian, were the smoke-blackened, sinister turrets of underused St Pancras, right next to dour old King’s Cross. With the railways long since nationalised and passenger numbers falling, what need for such duplication? So, in 1966, a merged station was mooted; the wrecking ball was readied.


St Pancras Chambers as British Rail's catering headquarters in the 1960's


By then, however, the tide was turning. The Beatles and the Kinks loved Victoriana, as did the cuddly poet and conservationist John Betjeman. St Pancras was duly listed as a Grade I building, on a par with the Tower of London. But, having saved it, nobody knew what to do with it. Whilst Betjeman’s name is associated with saving St. Pancras and he certainly was a supporter the campaigning and successful lobbying was done by Jane Fowler of the Victorian Society and the great Architectural Historian, Sir Nicholas Pevsner. Sir John was more heavily involved in trying to save Euston from the Philistines.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/euston-arch.html

When St. Pancras train station opened in 1868 there was no finer railway terminus anywhere in the world. The view down Pentonville Road towards the great gothic facade of the Midland Hotel at St. Pancras was one of the archetypal views of London.





Outside it spoke of the confidence of the Victorians and it was designed to make the public accept the new fangled rail travel as the way to go by associating it with images of past greatness. The Train Sheds were the Victorian’s cathedrals, stunning the public with their scale and the beauty of the engineering and frequently suffocating them with their sulphurous interiors! St Pancras Station is a celebration of Victorian architecture and engineering featuring two contrasting, exceptional Victorian structures, the train shed by W H Barlow & R M Ordish (1863-5) and the magnificent Midland Grand Hotel by Sir George Gilbert Scott (1868-74).

For the story of the rebirth of St. Pancras see;


http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-pancras-reborn.html

After nearly two decades of having only bats, rats and the occasional tramp as inhabitants, the former Midland Grand Hotel beside London’s St Pancras station is at last about to open its doors to paying guests in May, re-christened the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel London. The restoration of the grand Victorian-Gothic structure cost more than £150 million, but by all accounts it was money well spent. It is one of London’s most high profile restoration projects, and created within the former St. Pancras Chambers 67 residential apartments, a penthouse and a 244-bedroom Five Star Marriott Renaissance Hotel.







The Midland Grand Hotel, the salmon-coloured Gothic fantasia that introduces St Pancras station to London, should not by rights exist. It has spent more of its 127-year life as a problem, a failing building ill-suited to the purposes it was supposed to serve.


The hotel lounge 1907


Even at conception, its existence was rackety and perilous. As the author Simon Bradley recounted in his book on St Pancras, it was the last and most extravagant of the great Victorian railway hotels, costing 14 times more than its nearby rival the Great Northern. It opened when the railway boom was turning to bust, the 19th century's equivalent of the bursting of the dotcom bubble. A floor was shaved off the proposals in an effort to cut costs, and the lavish ornament cheapened. Oak was substituted with cheaper deal. For the completion of its interiors, its celebrated and workaholic architect Sir George Gilbert Scott was replaced with a more malleable practice.




The Dining Room 1907 and 2005

The Midland Grand still managed to be one of the most spectacular Gothic Revival buildings anywhere and, for a decade or two, the epitome of luxury. It represented industrial wealth in medieval form. Sanctified with the style of cathedrals, it was an exotic bloom grown out of the muck and coal of the industrial Midlands. Indeed the structure was fashioned from an amazing six million red bricks made from the clay of the Midlands of England and transported to London by rail. No doubt this fantasy in brick delighted the bones of one of Britain’s greatest architects and son of a bricklayer Sir John Soane who is interred in St Pancras Churchyard behind the station. Indeed the grandson of the architect George Gilbert Scott was Giles Gilbert Scott who designed the famous red telephone box based on Sir John Soane’s mausoleum and went on to design many famous buildings in red brick including Battersea and Bankside Power Stations (the latter now the Tate Modern) and the Guinness Brewery at Park Royal. We are not quiet finished with architectural trivia here for as an apprentice architect the writer Thomas Hardy was involved in the controversial clearing of part of the churchyard to build the railway tracks into St. Pancras.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/02/sir-john-soanes-museum_16.html

But the hotel business moved on and it faded from fashion - not least because its handsome rooms came without bathrooms. It closed in 1935, after which it became offices for the railway company. After the coming of British Rail, it became the base of the company's catering division, from which crimes against gastronomy were plotted for buffets across the land. Partitions, suspended ceilings and fluorescent lights sliced mercilessly through the hotel's florid detail.


Ceiling in main stairway



What at its opening was called “the most perfect in every possible respect in the world”, would be called “completely obsolete and hopeless” by one chairman of the railway company. Not even architectural historians liked it – they mostly thought it too flashy and vulgar, and could not forgive the way it obscured the more innovative steel structure of the station roof behind. They preferred simpler, more chaste stations, like King's Cross.

There were open attempts to demolish it, until a Grade I listing in 1967 meant it had to stay. In 1988, the office workers moved out, after the building was declared unsafe. In 1993-5, £9 million of public money was spent on restoring the exterior but the building remained unused.


Former booking office


Now, 75 years since it closed as a hotel, the arduous, expensive struggle to find it a prosperous future is nearly over. The conversion of one half of it into 67 apartments is now complete and this week the rest of it, together with a new rear extension, will open as a 245-bedroom Marriott Renaissance hotel, designed by the architects RHWL and Richard Griffiths. By any measure of value engineering, or cost-benefit analysis, it should not be there. The fact that it is can be attributed to the power of fantasy — a power whose effects can be measured in hundreds of millions of pounds.

I toured 'St Pancras Chambers' as the empty hotel had recently been known, during the Open London Weekend in 2005 and was deeply impressed not to say stunned by its musty grandeur. Important features we saw included the curved Dining Hall, the wonderful Grand Staircase, and the drawing room which is built across the West Front. The full richness of the interior will become apparent now the hotel is completed. The delightful staircases, curving dining rooms, and riotous stencilling and plasterwork will become visible. It is, however, already possible to see that, in the sheer fact of this building finally returning to active use, something extraordinary has happened.

In the years when the hotel was threatened, Sir John Betjeman said that the Midland Grand Hotel was “too beautiful and too romantic to survive”. He was wrong: it has survived for precisely these reasons. Beauty and romance will make people pay more for flats and hotel rooms, and have inspired huge efforts over decades on the building's behalf.





The building is also a rebuke to all those who wanted to demolish it in the name of efficiency and modernity. Fifty years ago they were many, but the idea now seems inconceivable. There are currently similar mutterings about a work of George Gilbert Scott's grandson Giles, Battersea Power Station. Anyone who doubts the wisdom of preserving the latter should go to St Pancras and see what an awkward pile of old bricks can do. If I was to single out one visionary responsible for this rebirth of the Grandest Dame amongst London Hotels it is Harry Handelsman of Manhattan Loft Corporation who was originally involved in 2005 in a joint venture to build the apartments but who ended up taking over nearly the entire project. His, and English Heritage’s, insistence in recreating the Victorian craftsmanship of the original has resulted in a truly stunning reincarnation. Welcome back St. Pancras. Welcome back to the Midland Grand Hotel. Welcome back the Golden Age of Railways.



For more on how the railways changed London (and then the world!) see;


http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html


CGI of the interior of the new Marriott Renaissance hotel

Dublin Homecoming

GPO, O'Connell Street, Dublin


The Dublin "Spike" (don't ask!) and the statue of Trade Union leader Jim Larkin asking the question "where can I get a taxi around here?"

I went back to the Fair City to see the parents and friends old and new. On the Friday met up in the Holy Grail of Irish traditional music O'Donoghue's in Merrion Row. This is a real unchanging Dublin pub – a long hardwood bar soaked with the sweat and beer of five generations, photos of real old patrons on the walls, a ticking clock and the laughter of old men, and an atmosphere of peace and timelessness.


Dublin Luas Tram

For more on the Dubliners and O'Donoghue's see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/farewell-ronnie-drew.html

We had a wonderful night in O'Donoghue's, proving that a stranger is a friend you haven't yet met. Love and respect to some special people, Jessie, Robert, Ann, Frances, Hugh and Nuala not to mention Con still behind the bar after 30 years!




O'Donoghue's Bar

It was a night of mixed emotions as we were meeting in honour of an old friend and talented musician who passed away in February 2009 and who used to play here. This was also where he met and proposed to his first wife Jessie who was here with us for the first time in 20 years and sang a song in his memory.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/02/gerard-cowan.html


Bagatelle's famous Dublin anthem "Summer in Dublin"



One personal pit stop was a return visit to Yamamori which is a popular Japanese restaurant located a stone's throw from some of Dublin's trendier pubs such as the Globe and Hogan's. It's a bright, airy and well-decorated affair, with large windows looking out onto South Great Georges Street. The food is hardly adventurous given Japanese standards, but always reliable, and with sushi, teriyaki and a variety of Japanese beers on the menu, it's an ideal spot for an early dinner. Yamamori also has a lunch menu with a range of noodle dishes that are certainly good value for money. This is very different from the normal UK Noodle Bar operation with a far longer menu incorporating Bento and Sushi dishes as well as the usual noodle and rice dishes.


Yamamori Noodles Still Life; "Bento Box with a Panama Hat"

There were random rambles around my hometown including meeting my good buddy Niall who had celebrated his 70th the day before and has done a great and altruistic service by restoring Martello Tower No. 7 in Killiney, Co. Dublin. It is the only Martello Tower in the world restored to its original condition and with working cannon. Niall also restored the surrounding gun emplacement and glacis so it can be seen in its original context.



For the story of Martello Towers see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/martello-towers.html


Molly Malone, carrying all before her


A rather big little person


The Boys are Back in Town, Phil Lynott outside Bruxelles, Harry Street

Finally on my random rambles in Foster Place I noticed that the Armoury of the Bank of Ireland had been converted into the Irish Waxworks display. Waxworks are not my thing but it is an interesting display if a bit like a Curate’s Egg, good in parts. However I was delighted to see the Armoury for the Bank of Ireland was originally the world’s first purpose designed parliament building. After the rebellion of 1798 the bank was given the right to raise its own militia to protect their premises, hence the Armoury.

For the story of the world's first purpose designed Parliament Building see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/irish-parliament-building.html


Armoury of the Bank of Ireland, now the Wax Museum


Dome of the Assembly Room in the Armoury

The National Wax Museum is a privately owned waxworks museum in Dublin, Ireland. On October 7, 2009, the museum officially re-opened (although it had been open to the public a number of weeks prior) following extensive renovation at its new location in the left flank of the Irish Houses of Parliament, at Foster Place. I am not a great fan of the genre and I really went in to see the building the Armoury. Having said that the Waxworks uses the space quiet well and it was interesting to see the use they had made of the old vaults under the building – they are now billed as “The Time Vaults of Irish History”.


Waxworks of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh, in real life the best of enemies!

However much of the displays are aimed at the kiddies and the view of Irish History given by the exhibits was that bit too simplistic and one sided for me. The “Grand Finale” leads to the assembly room of the Armoury which has a fine glass domed ceiling and is devoted to Irish musicians – I wasn’t impressed that yours truly wasn’t mentioned by name for organising the Boomtown Rats first concert as much of the display is concerned with one Robert Geldof, late of the Boomtown Rats and of this town.



For my part in pop history / infamy see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/bob-geldof-and-me.html


Grafton Street, Dublin


Nothing new here, Riverdance playing for 3 months at the Gaiety Theatre

The biggest disappointment on this trip was a stroll down what was Dublin’s most fashionable and upmarket shopping street Grafton St. It is mentioned in Paddy Kavanagh’s famous allegorical poem of unrequited love “Raglan Road”;

“On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge" and also immortalised in Noel Purcell’s “Dublin Saunter” where he sang:
"Grafton Street's a wonderland with magic in the air . . ."

To read about Raglan Road and Paddy Kavanagh see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-raglan-roag.html


Buskers, Grafton Street


Sand sculpture Grafton Street

Well there is little magic in the air these days. When I was young the street had unique upmarket shops of which only the Jeweller’s “Weirs “gives an impression of what it was like. At the top on St. Stephen’s Green was the Dandelion Market full of short lets and really interesting shops which was a place of pilgrimage on a Saturday. Halfway along the street Bewley’s Café with its neo-Egyptian frontage didn’t need to advertise as they roasted coffee in the window and the scent wafting down Grafton Street drew you in. As Brendan Behan remarked it was an honour to have our most fashionable Street named after a “Right Royal Bastard.” The street was named after Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton, the illegitimate son of Charles II of England who owned land in the area. The street was developed from a then existing country lane by the Dawson family in 1708, after whom the parallel Dawson Street is named.


Thomas Davis statue and fountain College Green

It has lots of memories for me, from the Thunderbird Food Co. to The Diceman, Thom McGinty who I knew who was a wonderful mime artist to Captain America’s Food Company where a certain Chris De Burgh used to play. Well there is little magic any more as the “entertainers” are aimed squarely at the tourist pound and the shops by and large look like any part of a Clone Town British High Street and a not very upmarket one at that. It looks like short sighted greedy landlords have killed off this particular Golden Goose.

Images of Prague

St Vitus Cathedral

Matička Praha - 'little mother Prague' - was largely undamaged by WWII, and the cityscape is stunning. Its compact medieval centre remains an evocative maze of cobbled lanes, ancient courtyards, dark passages and churches beyond number, all watched over by an 1100-year-old castle. Kidnapped by communism for 40 years, Prague has become one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations and is undoubtedly the most magical.


Astronomical Clock

I first went to Prague in 1998 and this was the first time I had returned 11 years later in 2009 for the 20th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which cast off Communism. I was nervous about returning for when I first went I was bowled over by the sheer magnificence of Prague but also by the welcome, after so many years cut off they really made visitors welcome and they were a talented and engaging people who relished freedom. I remember the taxi driver who turned off his meter to bring us the long way around and show us where they had blown up the statue of Stalin in 1962. There were the string quartets playing in the street, the foaming steins of beer which cost 50p and much more.


Charles Bridge


Charles Tower






Church of Our Lady before Tyn


Old Town Square



But it was a country in transition and much of downtown Prague looked shabby as ownership of buildings was being sorted out and there were a few examples of the “Rosa Kleb” school of customer service. Well now Prague has certainly developed and is no longer cheap, indeed some items are clearly overpriced but it has lost none of its magical quality. We had some wonderful experiences from seeing Don Giovanni in the Estates theatre where Mozart premiered it 222 years ago this month, to hearing a wonderful recital in the amazing Baroque splendour of the Franciscan Church, to touring Prague in a vintage open top 1932 Praga car and to hearing some great jazz on the Jazz Boat whilst watching the wonderful riverscape on the Vltava.






Inter-war air cooled Tatra car

And the Czech people are as genuine and as engaging as ever. It is good to see people who relish their freedom and have embraced it with open arms. In 1938 Czechoslovakia was the only democratic country in Eastern Europe and it was betrayed by appeasers of the Nazi Racist State.




Model of stage of the Estates Theatre


Estates Theatre


Don Giovanni

When I went there in 1998 the people were clutching their new found freedoms with a vengeance, a talented proud people in this the capital of Mittel Europa and the only democracy in eastern Europe pre-war whose people found themselves cruelly betrayed in the aftermath of World War II.




Kafka Statue








Mala Strana (Little Quarter) & St. Nicholas Church


Baker Street Praha

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" (Praga mater urbium, or "Praha matka měst" in Czech), "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech. Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the political, cultural, and economic centre of the Czech state for more than 1100 years. For many decades during the Gothic and Renaissance eras, Prague was the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors and thus was also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.


Presidential Palace, Prague Castle


Maisel Synagogue


Hebrew Clock on the Jewish Town Hall in the Josefov


Jewish Ceremonial Hall


Josefov - The Jewish Quarter




Spanish Synagogue

Today, the city proper is home to more than 1.2 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 1.9 million. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, making the city one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 4.1 million international visitors annually, as of 2009.




Frank Gehry's "Dancing House"


Art Nouveau frontage of Paris Hotel






Jazz Boat

The Municipal House (Obecni Dum) is the premier Art Nouveau building in Prague and was completed in 1911. On 28th October 1918, the historic proclamation of the independent state of Czechoslovakia took place here. Situated on the site of the former Royal Court Palace, Municipal House is the main attraction on Republic Square which is just a few minutes’ walk from both the Old Town Square & Wenceslas Square. On the outside, this stunning building has intricate stone work, gold trimmings, stained glass windows and magnificent frescos. Inside, Municipal House is divided into several areas. It hosts some of the best classical concerts in Prague, there are regular exhibitions, and it houses the first-class Francouzska Restaurant.


St. Francis Church




Prague Ham!





On our last morning in Prague in 1998 we had arranged with our driver to go to the Petrin Hill to take in the vista of this inspiring city; Hradčany, the castle district, on a hill above the west bank; Malá Strana, the 13th-century 'Little Quarter', between the river and castle; Staré Mêsto, the gothic 'Old Town' on the Vltava's east bank; adjacent Josefov, the former Jewish ghetto; and Nové Mêsto or 'New Town,' (new in the 14th century), to the south and east of Staré Mêsto and straddling through it all the Vltava River, the Czech Republic's longest river. It was here Tereza, in the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” , by Milan Kundera climbs the grassy Petrin Hill “On her way up, she paused several times to look back: below her she saw the towers and bridges, the saints were shaking their fists and lifting their stone eyes to the clouds. It was the most beautiful city in the world.” But “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” first published in a French translation from Czech in 1984, is no love letter to the city; it is a message from a time of oppression, and one worth carrying for perspective on a trip through Prague. Milan Kundera submerges the reader in the undercurrents of political life, the rough passages of far-too-recent vintage and the personal repercussions of an invasive, claustrophobic time. Tereza is climbing Petrin in a dream — a dream in which she will be executed, but only if she convinces the executioners that she seeks death of her own free will. The novel returns again and again to Tereza’s harrowing dreams, simultaneously erotic and morbid.












Municipal House (Obecni Dum) Cafe

The driver told us he was taking us on a diversion and we looked at each other nervously for stories and warnings about unscrupulous taxis are legion in Prague. By the Vltava he stopped and asked us to get out and cross the road to see a plinth where a statue used to stand. He explained to us that this is where the Czechs had blown up a statue of Stalin years previously in 1962 and how proud he now was to be able to welcome us to a free city. Only those who have lost their freedom once can really appreciate what it means to be free.


Touring Prague in a 1932 Praga Convertible



See also;

The unbearable lightness of being

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/unbearable-lightness-of-being.html

Jewish Prague

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/jewish-prague.html

Art Nouveau Prague

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/art-nouveau-prague.html