Page 112 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2025 THAILAND

loudspeakers, in Czech, and music began. A
ers, so we ditched at intermission.
As soon as we were back out on the
street, we could see the crowd had swollen.
People were now lining the Manes Bridge,
which extended across the river from the
Rudolfinum, and were focused on the river.
The gathering on the Charles had grown as
well. A group of ceremonial boats, like
gondolas, bearing boatmen in colorful pe-
riod costumes, zigzagged on the water. The
night air was crisp and a breeze blew up
the river, but there was no threat of rain.
Soon, with our energy renewed, we
were swept up in another river, of people
moving toward whatever they had come to
see. We crossed the Vltava and followed a
group of locals along narrow, cobblestone
lanes to a spot at a wall just overlooking
the river. There, directly across from where
we stood, an orchestra and chorus had as-
sembled on a platform or barge on the
river’s surface. Buildings behind the stage
were illuminated in white, red and blue. —
the Czech national colors — and the
Charles Bridge, a city monument, was
spot-lit with gold stars. It was brimming
with people.
A voice boomed over the scene from
112 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER 2025
chorus sang to orchestral accompaniment.
We could not make out the meaning, but it
had a solemn, patriotic sound. As the music
swelled, lights and torches punctuated key
moments. Well-packed boats swayed back
and forth on the Vltava in a world awash in
music.
We had left our concert reluctantly and
were rewarded with this musical experi-
ence. What we had chanced into, we
learned later, was the celebration of the
feast day of Saint John Nepomuk, a patron
saint of Bohemia. This 14th-century figure,
a high official in the Prague Archdiocese,
had run afoul of his king, Wenceslaus IV,
by refusing to divulge secrets told to him
by the queen in confession. The king sus-
pected his wife of extracurricular hanky-
panky and ordered John to divulge what
she had revealed to him. A parallel account
says that John had supported a candidate
for a bishopric whom the king did not fa-
vor, angering Wenceslaus. What parts of
these stories are fact and what parts fic-
tion is debated, but regardless, John was
tortured and thrown into the Vltava, in
1393. Because of this watery demise, he is
recognized as a protector from drowning
and floods and guardian of the seal of the
confessional. On the Charles Bridge stands
a statue of Saint John not far from where
he was thrown off — one of the span’s 30
such sculptures — his face encircled by a
star-studded halo. His defiance of a tyrant
has earned him a special place in the
hearts of the Czech people, who have en-
dured and resisted despots for too much
of their history. Saint John’s remains are
interred in a massive silver tomb in Saint
Vitus Cathedral, on the grounds of Prague
Castle.
The story of Saint John’s martyrdom
runs parallel to that of another religious
figure, Jan Hus, who similarly became a
champion for Bohemian causes. In contrast
to Saint John, however, Hus disagreed with
some common church teachings and de-