Rhapsody Under a Bohemian Moon (Published in the National Post)

 

 

The fair is in full swing in Cesky Krumlov’s Svornosti Square. Amongst jugglers and barking dogs, minstrels from as far away as Prague vie for attention, while an old gypsy woman surveys the crowds. The air is filled with the aroma of sausages and slabs of meat sizzling on blazing fires. At rough wooden booths crammed cheek-by-jowl, vendors hawk cups of mead. Maidens twirl their skirts and bat eyelashes at young men lounging against the statue in the middle of the square. And, across the river, a pair of bears in the moat protects the castle from the rabble below.

           

If I cock my head at just the right angle, I can convince myself that I have arrived in this Czech town right smack in the Middle Ages. But while the air is decidedly medieval, it's the 21^st century and the swarming throngs that fill the streets are from Germany and Japan, the U.S. and Australia.         

           

The Czech Republic’s strategic position in the centre of Europe on the crossroads between east and west, north and south, and its wealth of silver and gold mines and semi-precious stones produced a rich and storied history. Its legacy of castles, more per square kilometre than almost anywhere else on earth, and stunning town squares, unchanged for hundreds of years, had the good fortune to largely survive the destruction of the Second World War and the neglect of 40 years of Communist rule.

             

After the fall of Communism, the United Nations, through its cultural agency, UNESCO, moved quickly to recognize the significance of the architectural riches in this part of Europe. Since the early 1990s, UNESCO has placed 12 Czech sites - town centres, churches, cultural landscapes and folk villages - on their World Heritage List and is considering another 11 sites for this designation.

           

Cesky Krumlov, in the southwest corner of the country, was one of the first Czech towns designated by UNESCO.  And little wonder. In the Middle Ages, the town and its castle towering above it on a rocky hill were the residence of the most powerful noble family in Bohemia, the Rozmberks, Lords of the Rose. After its heyday between the 13th and 16th centuries, the town fell largely into obscurity for several centuries. As a result, its original character was preserved and Cesky Krumlov is now recognized as one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval towns.

           

In the early 1500s, Lord Wilhelm of Rozmberk  travelled with a group of Bohemian nobles to Genoa. They came back enamoured with Renaissance style. Soon their towns were filled with Italian plasterers and masons, painters and sculptors in a frantic bid to embellish their towns more extravagantly than those of their rivals. 

           

To this day, the streets of Cesky Krumlov showcase the latest in 16th-century fashion - plaster façades with painted scenes, sgraffito (designs etched into the plaster). But inside, as you duck under Gothic arches, you realize that these buildings are actually much older.

           

Most visitors pass through Cesky Krumlov quickly, steered by tour guides through the castle and the old town. But we stayed for five days - I, a traveller wanting to breathe in deeply the romance of the Middle Ages, and my photographer husband who understands that only with time and exploration can you hope to find the soul of a place.

           

The Vltava River, which determined the town’s layout, takes its own time to meander through this valley, completing two and a half s-curves before heading northward in the direction of Prague. Across the river, the castle, the second-largest in the country, lords its majesty over the Old Town below, a warren of meandering alleys and ancient buildings crowded onto the inner part of one of the curves.

           

In my mind there are two kinds of castles.  Some demand a thorough visit. Others better engage the imagination from outside without the mind-numbing detail of a guided tour. I put Cesky Krumlov’s castle firmly into the latter category. 

           

And so, in my mind’s most elaborate finery, I rode in an open carriage through the vaulted passageways from one castle courtyard to the next. From the covered bridge, I was the lord surveying my town beneath with its wisps of smoke curling above the jumble of red roofs. In the secluded formality of the castle garden, I understood how a bewildered noblewoman could have queried in all sincerity, “If there’s no bread, then why don’t the peasants eat cake?” 

           

And when I came upon the Bellaria summer palace, its wedding-cake balconies now used as a stage for outdoor theatre, my reverie took a turn toward the lyrical. I became the director of a magnificent production of Cinderella, complete with symphony orchestra and, of course, a glittering slipper made of the finest Czech crystal.

             

But, alas, we were ordinary wandering travellers. Our place was in the town below where such finery was unknown to the unwashed hordes and where life teemed in all its bawdiness. 

           

We elbowed our way to the front of the audience to be entertained by a troupe of gypsies. We guzzled cups of burcak, the eagerly anticipated half-fermented grape juice of the Czech harvest season. We jumped aside as a horse-drawn wagon rattled across the square.

           

Cesky Krumlov never feels so medieval as at night. We roamed narrow alleys lit by lamplight glistening unevenly off cobblestones pushed askew by centuries of footsteps. In vaulted pubs, we dined on Bohemian specialties - pork knee and roast duck cooked over open flames in ancient “black kitchens,” washed down with tall glasses of Eggenberg beer, brewed below the castle for 400 years.

           

We had arrived at the height of St. Wenceslas celebrations, held the weekend before September 28 to honour the Czech Republic’s patron saint. Since the fall of Communism, the Czechs have embraced with enthusiasm the joy of festivals. Cesky Krumlov’s Celebrations of the Rose at the summer solstice, its International Music Festival in July and August and Jazz at Summer’s End are just the beginning.

           

Festival or not, the days in Cesky Krumlov sped by. There was always another corner to discover, another scenario to imagine. After so much tripping through the centuries, eventually I could restrain my curiosity no longer. I had to know what had remained a mystery to generations of peasants - just what splendours were inside the castle above? 

           

No guided tour, though. I bought the book. Its photos revealed riches unimaginable to medieval townsfolk: the masquerade hall where powerful lords danced with bejewelled ladies beneath its Rococo paintings, the tapestry-filled parlour where Princess Eleonore, perched on a silk chair, sipped tea from dainty Chinese porcelain. 

           

And in the Eggenberg hall, a golden coach. 

           

...Made from a pumpkin by the flick of a wand? The fantasy was complete.

 

© Copyright 2006: Sharon Blomfield