Cherubs for Africa, flying buttresses, gargoyles and high gothic cheek by jowl with art nouveau and art deco, saints you’ve never heard of before (Ludmilla, anyone? Adelbert?), Elvis Matrushka dolls, a wax Jesus who has 70 changes of clothing, towers, onion domes, gold-leaf and acres and acres of chrystal all crammed into several square inches of world heritage space. I did the tourist thing in Prague, and I did it on the feast of St Nicholas when the devils were out with their battery-powered flashing red horns, dragging the bad children to hell.
Quick memory consult: Prague? Oh yes. Prague Spring of 1968, communist tanks in response (see the bullet marks on the neo-renaissance pillars of the National Museum); Prague of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Prague of the Czech Republic, used to be Czechoslovakia but was separated very peacefully and without any of the wretchedness of Yugoslavia.
Long memory consult: Prague of a thousand years, Prague seat of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in the 14th century; Prague centre of Bohemia then and now.
Writing Across Genres 