Ma Vlast Redux

Vysehrad is one place that I've thought about a lot since leaving Prague, definitely one of my favorite spots, an old fortress on the river in the south east of the city. Legend has it that Queen Libuse stood on the hill there and fancied building herself a nice gaff in the valley, and, hence, Prague was born. There are still the remnants of both the fourteenth and seventeenth century embattlements, a beautiful park, and a Gothic cathedral, Saint Peter and Paul with a cemetery that has most of the luminaries of Czech art squeezed in.

The views are outstanding, to the South, and to the North towards Prague castle, even from the concrete edifice of the 1970s metro station and what used to be the Communist parliament building (now I think an office complex with huge ads for Panasonic etc splayed across it). We saw a Laterna Magika show there in the late eighties, a retelling of the Odyssey, when it was still the parliament building. Laterna Magika were this innovative theatre company in the 60s, one of the first to use multimedia in theatre in Europe, but by the 80s (and certainly now) the shtick had grown thin. But to a hick like me, seeing Ulysses hanging up over the stage and sticking his spear into a projection of a Cyclops - sticking it into the screen - and having blood come out, was pretty shocking.

Vysehrad was always a haven, because it's a little off the tourist track, and there is this amazing underground complex ("a gothic cellar") of tunnels and rooms with vaulted ceilings and statues - we were there for a launch once and they had torches all along the tunnels. When you came out into the daylight, there was a table with free beer.

The cemetery is lovely, too, partially because the main period of interrment was the fin-de-siecle and the inter-war period, so a lot of the statues are far more interesting than the usual Catholic kitsch (my photos won't upload). It started getting misty when I was there, and at one, while I was mooching round looking for Karel Capek's grave (he invented the word "robot" in his play RUR), the bell-ringers at the cathedral started playing "Ma vlast."

Smetana, needless to say, is buried there too. Consigned to eternity to listen to the tune. Serves you right, Bedrich, that's what art does to you.

Two graves were for sale; "I'm selling a grave" their signs said, with the mobile phone numbers underneath.