Has anyone ever revisited a city where they felt they had seen everything? I have visited Prague many times and seen a lot of the main sights. So when I was last in Prague I went out looking for some hidden gems, some small little details to the city that make the city even cooler, to find some of the weirdest and most unusual sights Prague has to offer.
Idiom
Idiom is an art installation where hundreds of books are stacked in a cylindrical tower in the Prague Municipal Library. When you look inside two mirrors placed at the top and the bottom creates the illusion that the tower never ends.
Traffic Light Alley
This lane is the narrowest street in Prague. Only one person can fit down the alley at a time. So to stop confusion someone has installed traffic lights on either end of the alleyway.
Pissing Statue
In a quaint square is a statue of two men pissing. Proudy, consists of two bronze men who robotically waggle their metal junk around. You can send a text to a number on a plaque near the statue and the statues will spell out the text message with their pee. Definitely different!
The Cloak Of Conscience
Outside the opera house stands a creepy-looking statue named The Cloak of Conscience. It is a faceless figure hooded that first appeared in Chromy’s painting ‘To Be Or Not To BE’. This hooded man was inspired by Mozart’s Opera ‘Don Giovanni’. The statue is outside the opera house in memory of the first time Don Giovanni was played in Prague's Opera House. There is a copy in Salzburg that I had seen before in honour of where Mozart was born.
The Lennon Wall
The Lennon Wall, a wall surrounding the Maltese Order, in the 1960s in protest against the regime messages against it appeared and by the 1980s John Lennon's face appeared, a symbol of peace and stayed ever since. The wall now is covered with Lennon-inspired graffiti and Beatles song lyrics.
Sigmund Freud
Dangling above a cobbled stone street, a statue appears hanging looking like a suicide attempt but in fact, it was a random statue of Sigmund Freud created by David Cerny to provoke. It was a statement about intellectualism in the 20th century and Cerny’s uncertainty about it.
Pink Soviet Tank
David Cerny gained public attention in 1991 when he painted a monument of a soviet tank pink. The tank was in memory of the Prague Spring. He was arrested but the tank kept getting painted pink. The tank is currently painted in the colours of the Ukraine Flag to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Zizkov Tower
The Zizkov Tower is a Soviet erected tower over 700 feet tall and was considered one of the ugliest buildings in the world and now is one of the weirdest. In 2000 Czech sculptor David Černý attached giant crawling babies onto the side of the tower. The babies have barcodes instead of faces. Weird!
Memorial to Communism
From 1948 to 1989 the country was ruled by a communist regime and the victims during this time are remembered in this memorial. The memorial consisted of a copy of a fed-up-looking statue but each copy loses a piece of the statue slowly deteriorating. I feel the memorial is touching and depicts the suffering and despair well.
Charles Bridge Penguins
Looking out onto the river looking out to Charles Bridge is a line of 34 penguins. These adorable yellow Penguin statues come with a warning against the dangers of climate change and plastic consumption. The yellow penguins were created by Cracking Art Group (an art movement based in Milan) and made from recycled bottles. The group says “Despite being loved by many, this animal is constantly endangered by human technological progress that brings wellness to man but damage to the planet.”
R2D2
A ventilation shaft in a Folimanka park attached to a bunker is no ordinary ventilation shaft, it has been painted like R2D2. R2D2 was created by a group of unknown street artists. The Mayor of Prague 2 District has said that although illegal graffiti is not supported, the decor on the shaft is an improvement and no action will be taken by the authorities. So it would seem R2D2 is here to stay.
