From the far

View up to Prague Castle from the river

I have spent the last few days in Prague working on setting up a new business.  I have been out here a fair bit and got to really like the city.  Arriving this week was amazing as the sun has been shining all week.  The streets are bustling with lots of happy, sunny, smiley tourists and the city looks amazing.  I have managed to get a fair bit of walking done in the evening all over the city and tonight walked up to Prague Castle.  An amazing place.

I was amazed at Saint Vitus Cathedral.  It took my breath away, awe inspiring, just amazing.  It was like the building felt bigger than my brain was able to comprehend.  If I focussed on just one little bit my brain worked hard to think how I would go about creating it.  The creativity, knowledge, craftsmanship, dedication, patience just to create one tiny piece of this building.  You then try to comprehend the whole thing and it feels bigger than you can understand.  The fact that someone saw this in their mind and created and pieced it all together is awe inspiring.  The French Master Builder who designed the overall layout died before seeing it completed and a 23 year old architect took over and added their own ideas and flair to it creating the masterpiece we see today.

As I was looking at the castle and feeling vaguely proud as I thought I recognised the gothic style of architecture I was reminded of the Brian Sewell documentary I started watching last week the Naked Pilgrim.  It was good and not the kind of thing I would usually watch.  As an added bonus it also reminded me to got to the Brian Sewell Soundboard again which provides hours of entertainment.  His travels along the road to Santiago provide some humourous and touching commentary.  It was interesting to learn a bit about gothic architecture and seeing the cathedral today was immediately able to make the connections with Notre Dame and some of the other cathedrals along the way. I guess these were built at a similar time in a similar style.

Again I am faced with another subject I must learn more about .  I am largely ignorant when it comes to architecture.  But when you have one of those moments when you realise quite how ignorant you are, you really feel like you should do something about it.  I am sure I will do my usual and buy a book, mean to read it, swear to myself it is the next book on the list and then it will gradually fall to the bottom of the list.  It will then fall off the list completely and be one of those books that just sits on the shelf and sends guilt vibes at you and serves to remind you of the ignorance you still have that you tried to address with the purchasing of the book.