A Hundred Spires

Prague keeps its hundred spires the way a December sky keeps its early dark — quietly, and all at once. From the bridge the city is a held breath: stone saints, the slow grey water, the castle gathering the last of the daylight on its hill.

By evening the cold sharpens everything. The market burns warm beneath the Gothic towers, the smell of trdelník and cinnamon hanging in the air, candied light spilling from a shop window onto the snow. The river goes black and doubles the lamps along its edge.

And later, above the scattered lights, a single tree glows — small against so much old stone, and somehow enough. You leave with the feeling that the city was never really yours to keep, only to stand inside for a while.