Enchanting Old Town Prague Czechoslovakia Offers The Perfect Stop For The Longtime Traveler Looking For A Reminder Of A Romantic Past

Only a few years ago, before the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989, buildings all over Prague were covered with scaffolding. The effect was sad and dour.

No longer. This historic Czech city is once again an incredibly beautiful “in” place for hordes of Europeans and Americans. As a German newspaper put it: “Tourists are glued to the Charles Bridge like wasps on plum cake.”

The first and most central place they visit is the Old Town Square. Fantasy towers thrust wire-thin spires skyward, pierced with shiny gold balls as though an angel were juggling in heaven. This is the Gothic Tyn Church, one of the may architectural gems that soar into the air in a fascinating blend of Renaissance, Gothic and Baroque influences that give this Central-European version of Paris its unique profile.

If you’re walking to the square, you’ll pass the refurbished Estates Theatre, where Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” was an unparalleled success and where his “Don Giovanni” made its world premiere. Film director Milos Forman set the concert scenes of “Amadeus” here, and Mozart’s Prague connection lends cultural mystique to the city. Wherever you go, you’ll see colorful billboard columns that celebrate Mozart in operas, concerts, and even marionette productions.

But for now, the ethereal gold balls draw you like beacons. Suddenly, the immense marketplace, dating from the 12th century, opens up and you enter the picture-book heart of Prague with its buildings amazingly intact. Because the Czechs offered no resistance to Hitler when he marched into the Sudetanland and then occupied all of Czechoslovakia, there is little war damage in this ancient gathering place.

Fairy-tale facades unveil an eclectic mixture of styles that reveal the multitudinous layers of this city’s history. A brilliantly white Baroque church, St. Nicholas, with green onion-shaped towers offsets a rococo palace such as the Golz-Kinsky with its swirling pink carvings of garlands.

A Venetian-Renaissance bell tower with pointed filigree windows rises beside the brown and grey Gothic Tyn Church, echoed by the similarly-styled Old Town Hall across the square with pronged gold balls and rounded oriel windows.

Around these dominant structures lies a paintbrush sweep of pink, soft green, blue, white, tan, rust or mustard-colored houses, some with scalloped roofs or rich paintings on their charming surfaces. This is a place to lose yourself for hours.

On the lower part of the Old Town Hall tower, an amazing three-story astronomical clock, part of the building’s architecture, bongs out the hour with its procession of theatrics as crowds of people watch the drama of this 15th-century marvel. Three intricately designed, large gold circles, two of them superimposed, tell the time and show the movement of the sun and moon through the zodiac, expressing the geocentric views of the era. The calendar also shows lovely scenes from country life that symbolize the 12 months.

But it is the upper part that especially intrigues the tourists. As the clock chimes, a skeletal figure of Death rings the death knell by turning an hourglass upside down. To his right, a Turk in a turban wags his head. Twelve apostles move behind two small windows near the top of the structure, as though on an assembly line, stopping just long enough to show their serious faces, religious robes and crosses. Finally, a golden cockerel flaps its wings and crows above them.

The monumental clock is no surprise when you learn something of the mystical leanings of Prague, especially in the eccentric Emperor Rudolph IIs court, where astrology was all the rage. So was alchemy, mathematics and art collecting; keeping oddities such as mandrake root fetishes that screamed when pricked, two-headed monsters and iron nails said to come from Noah’s Ark; and searching for the Philosopher’s Stone.

The stone was thought to offer complete knowledge and the possibility of eternal life, as well as carrying the ability to turn lead or other base metals into gold. The legend of Dr. Faustus, who tried to make gold by forging a pact with the Devil, was probably based on the life of a Prague alchemist named Mladota.

Rudolph II, a Hapsburg Emperor in an age that mixed Renaissance reason with Baroque mysticism, appointed to his court a rich assortment of first-class scientists, quasi-scientists and even quacks who fed his obsessions. One of the most famous scientists was Johannes Kepler, who charted the motion of planets around the sun after the theories of Copernicus showed that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

And - like the motion of heavenly orbs - constellations of crowds revolve around the Old Town Square, watching artisans forging bells, woodcarvers chiseling designs into blocks of wood and hawkers displaying everything from wart-nosed marionettes to Rembrandt-style velvet artists’ hats.

Outdoor cafes abound, where you can buy famous, fresh Czech beers, such as Pilsen, or indulge in a crisp duck dinner. Horse-drawn wagons filled with sight-seers clatter toward buildings painted like white Greek friezes, bands play intermittently and almost nothing moves like clockwork unless it’s a guided tour.

In the middle of this immense space, a large bronze statue of the religious reformer and martyr Jan Hus - founder of the Protestant Hussite faith - surges upward in long robes, with allegorical figures of “the crushed and the defiant” at his sides, while throngs of visitors sit on benches near his feet. It’s a kind of Czech Trafalgar quare.

For all the Hans Christian Andersen look, this gigantic square has seen many hard times: burnings at the stake, decapitations, arrivals of Nazi and Soviet tanks and “defenestrations” - a Prague habit of throwing political and religious enemies out of windows.

The latter began in 1419 when an angry mob threw the town counsels out the window of the Old Town Hall when they refused to free a group of arrested Hussites.

During the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Emperor, Ferdinand II, ordered 27 decapitations in front of the Hall in 1621 as revenge against the unlucky Protestant nobles who had started an uprising.

Some of the Square’s striking buildings serve as museums. The Golz-Kinsky palace contains the National Gallery’s graphics collection; recently, it has been displaying Rembrandt’s etchings. The Bell Tower shows contemporary art and holds concerts. The Baroque St. Nicholas church - with its rounded, yet gracefully undulating white and gold interior, painted dome and unpillared, floating space - is the venue for some splendidly resonant concerts. And everywhere in Prague, as in the buildings around this square, the sound of classical music reverberates from bookstores, classical CD stores and even classical CD stands.

Prague never forgets the composers it nurtured - Dvorak, Smetana and Mozart, especially - nor its love of music, for Bohemian musicians were numerous and in great demand all over Europe. Indeed, the word “Bohemian” grew out of this part of the world.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO: Getting there: Several major airlines fly to Prague, including Delta. Trains connect from major cities in Europe, such as Berlin, Hamburg (which has an overnight train), and many others. More information: The government tourist office is CEDOK, with its U.S. bureau at 10 E. 40th St., New York, NY, 10016; phone (212) 689-9720. Either through the New York office or its offices in Prague, you can arrange housing, tours in or around Prague, and tickets to concerts, plays and theater. Recommended reading: Two of the best guidebooks to Prague, from the standpoint of fascinating reading and loads of helpful information, are “Insight Guides Prague” and “Cadogan City Guides Prague.” Sightseeing: Karlstejn Castle, Kunta Hora, Telc, Terezin and Bohemian castles make good choices for excursions. Don’t miss the famous Black Theatre of Prague, a mime theatre against a black velvet backdrop with astonishing technological feats that add to this surreal experience. Lodging: In the United States, Golden Spire Service can book inexpensive B&Bs in the Old Town. Phone: 202-337-7242. Good expensive hotels include the Adria, Grand Hotel Europa (somewhat less expensive and more historic), and the huge Prague Intercontinental. Getting around: Many taxi drivers, formerly regulated by the state, now try to gouge tourists. Ask the price in advance and don’t be afraid to negotiate. Anything more than about 80 crowns is probably too much, but you may have to settle for 150. Transportation by subway and tram is fairly easy and cheap.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Story and photos by Eleanor Keats Special to Travel