Surrealism 101 at 1 am

Last night was free museum night in bohemia and it was surreal. Over 50 culturally gothic places stayed open until the early hours of Sunday morning attracting thousands, who wandered through this ancient city, never opening their wallets, much.

Choices ranged from Spanish synogogues, Baroque concert halls and hip hop galleries with vaulted ceilings and turreted balconies. Our plan was to hit some of these places, chauffered around on free buses and end up at the 1000 year old castle on the hill. Though the plan changed frequently (there was just too much to do) and though my feet were willing, we finally just made a beeline for the castle.

It was a balmy night and there were hundreds of people milling about, the party atmosphere thick with locals who wanted to see the castle rooms that are often under lock and key. It took 800 years to build the cathedral and castle complex, a jig saw of old stone and marbled complexes. Palace intrigues and palace plagues along with the history of baroque lives lived so long ago. Its a wonder that humans are compelled to build huge gothic edifices, storing the treasures of their age, and here we are so many hundreds of years later, getting a glimpse of
high culure, knights and their ladies, in modern times.

We came out and strolled into the old city of Mala Strana, a soft summer night, with hordes of revelers still out and about. We found a many floored nightclub below the castle. Sitting there drinking martinis high up on the terrace, illuminated by the turrets above, I remembered the story that it was the Rolling Stones who paid for the castle to be lit from below when they played here in l990. Now it sits like a crown jewel, an ancient silouette in the summer night sky.

Funny thing - old Mick was singing 'little red rooster' on the big speakers behind us, as we quaffed down vodkatinis and marveled once again that this place is such that you can have the best of both worlds, old and new in one cultured place.