“Fairy-tale city. From the air, red rooftops hug a kink in a dark river, and by night the forested hills appear as spans of black nothing against the dazzle of the lit castle, the spiking Gothic towers, the domes great and small. The river captures all the lights and teases them out, long and wavering, and the side-slashing rain blurs it all to a dream” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

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Hi everyone. Back in 2014 I did my first every Daughter of Smoke and Bone tour of Prague post. I absolutely adored doing this this post because it brings two of my favourite things together - Prague and Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

As I returned to Prague this year, I thought I would bring you some more Prague pictures in a Daughter of Smoke and Bone series way. New pictures, new quotes, new related information.

As I have said before, I cannot describe Prague in any way that does it justice - but Laini Taylor certainly can! All quotes in this post are from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor. If you missed my previous post, you can find it here.

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“Like in Prague, spires pointed to the heavens, one for each of the godstars—the godstars that had ordained seraphim as guardians of the land and all its creatures” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

Charles Bridge

“The Charles Bridge is one of those places that never gets old. Day or night, sun or snow, it’s always different, the view on both banks of the Vltava like something something out of a medieval engraving. On second thought, it actually does get old when it’s crammed with tourists, which is pretty much all sunlit hours for most of the year, but it’s quiet now, just a few scattered folk hurrying both ways between the rows of statues, like running a gauntlet of saints” - Night of Cake and Puppets

 

“The Charles Bridge arcs in the backdrop, its lampposts ghostly” - Night of Cake and Puppets

 

Charles Bridge in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Karou crossed the Charles bridge many times throughout DoSaB during her time in Prague.
• Charles Bridge was where Zuzana had her giant puppeteer set up, and she became a discarded, but amazingly awesome marionette.
• Mik sometimes performed on the Charles Bridge for change.
• Akiva also watched Karou (and Zuzana and Mik) on the Charles Bridge before his fight very public with Karou.
• The Charles Bridge is where everything about his past and present clicked for Akiva - where he realised why Brimstone had sent Karou the wishbone and who Karou really was.
• But most importantly, this is where the fight happened. Yes, that fight. Where Akiva, Liraz and Hazael exposed themselves and brothers and sister fought over one blue-haired girl.

 

“Satellites had even been tasked to surveil the Charles Bridge, in case the… visitors… returned” - Days of Blood and Starlight

(or are they really keeping an eye out for more angels?)

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Jewish Quarter

“a medieval ghetto that had given way to a dense concentration of Art Nouveau apartment buildings as pretty as cakes” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

The Jewish Quarter in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Josefov (Jewish Quarter) is where Brimstone’s door in Prague was located.
• Brimstone only opened both doors to the vestibule once, the day he threw Karou out into the freezing street.
• A mysterious black handprint was found on Brimstone’s door once handprints started showing up across the world.

 

Karlova

“ the major pedestrian route between the bridge and Old Town Square, and tourists continued thick as fish” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

Karlova in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Kaz’s new vampire tour went along Karlova
• Karou felt someone following her along Karlova. She used her knowledge of the “cobbled maze of Old Town” to lure out her stalker.
• This is where Karou found a hiding spot from her stalker, to find herself stuck with in the same space as Svetla.
• Karlova is where Karou and Akiva had their (very public) mid-air fight.

 

National Marionette Theatre

“There are marionettes, and there are marionettes. The Czech Republic has a long history of puppetry as art; it’s a part of our national character, and puppets are part of the set-dressing of Prague. They’re everywhere: hanging in shop windows, museums, theaters, street stalls. And most of what you see? By far most of what you see –particularly in shops like this –are not artisanal puppets from masters’ workshops, like the ones at the theater” - Night of Cake and Puppets

 

The National Marionette Theatre in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Zuzana worked at the National Marionette Theatre as an assistant to the theatres puppeteers.
• This is where Zuz met Mik - the “handsome new violinist in the orchestra“.
• The National Maronette Theatre is “in the shadow of the Church of St. Nicholas”.

 

Kampa / Devil’s Stream

“The Devil’s Stream is the canal where the Vltava flows around the Kampa, the island on the Malá Strana side of the river” - Night of Cake and Puppets

 

Devil’s Stream in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Karou and Zuz where constantly near the Devil’s Stream. Even Kishmish frequented there. That is because Poison Kitchen is nearby! The girl’s favourite café filled with gas masks and coffins is located beyond a walled graveyard down by Devil’s Stream.

Devil’s Stream in Night of Cake and Puppets:

• Zuz had a “crudely drawn map of Kampa” but did not know the exact location she was supposed to go.
• Devil’s Stream is where it all started for Zuzana and Mik. Thanks to some treasure maps, our favourite rabid fairy and violin boy finally found each other at Devil’s Stream.

National Museum

“Karou—the “Tooth Phantom,” as they were calling her, little guessing that she and “the Girl on the Bridge” were one and the same—had apparently, at some point in her string of crimes, hit the National Museum” - Days of Blood and Starlight

 

The National Museum in Days of Blood and Starlight:

• Karou had been caught on camera breaking into the National Museum to steal some teeth from a Siberian Tiger.
• Zuz recognized Karou from the footage.
• Zuz was not happy with Karou’s antics, in fact, the little rabid fairy was furious. But not because she was breaking and entering, or even stealing… Zuz’s reaction was “How could she be here and not come see us?”.

 

Trams

“On the riverfront thoroughfare, trams and buses roard past, ground the day in the twenty-first century, but in the quieter lanes, the wintry peace might have hailed from another time” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

Trams in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• Karou sometimes used trams as a mode of transportation around Prague, when she didn’t want to walk or fly :)
• Karou thought about getting a moped so she didn’t have use trams anymore.
• Karou used the tram to get to Brimstone’s door “Karou crossed the Charles Bridge and took the tram north to the Jewish Quarter”.

 

Brimstone’s Door

“The plain metal door didn’t look like anything special, and in and of itself, it wasn’t. If you opened it from without, it revealed only a mildewed laundry room. But Karou didn’t open it. She knocked and waited, because when the door was opened from within , it had the potential to lead someplace quite different” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

Brimstone’s Door in Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

• The plain metal door in the Jewish Quarter was Karou’s Prague entrance into the vestibule, and to Brimstone.
• Karou used this door many times, as did Kishmish.
• The only time that both the external door and internal door were opened at the same time is when Brimstone shoved her out and slammed the door.
• … That is when she noticed the black handprint.

 

“She stared at the door - unsurprised now to see a black handprint on its surface - and thought surely it must open” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

“At the same moment, though Karou didn’t know it, across the world, at every door emblazoned with the black handprint, fires raged. They couldn’t be doused, and yet they didn’t spread” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

“The streets of Prague were a fantasia scarcely touched by the twenty-first century—or the twentieth or nineteenth, for that matter. It was a city of alchemists and dreamers, its medieval cobbles once trod by golems, mystics, invading armies. Tall houses glowed goldenrod and carmine and eggshell blue, embellished with Rococo plasterwork and capped in roofs of uniform red. Baroque cupolas were the soft green of antique copper, and Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels. The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks. Thugs wore Mozart wigs and pushed chamber music on street corners, and marionettes hung in windows, making the whole city seem like a theatre with unseen puppeteers crouched behind velvet” - Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

I hope you enjoyed my stroll through the Prague, the Daughter of Smoke and Bone way!!!