What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 21 October 2023.

U Zlaté Studně translates as ‘At the Golden Well’.

‘So, where’s the well?’, I heard you ask. And, erm, it isn’t. Or, at least, not anymore, and I don’t know when/if it existed.

Although an actual well isn’t here, if you zoom in on the façade of this building, also called U Zlaté Studně, you may see something.

(Quality of photo entirely indicative of the fact that I took photos for this thread before I wrote it)

In the Book of John, Jesus, on what is now the Third Sunday in Lent, went to a town called Sychar, and found a well. He was thirsty, so he headed there for water.

A woman from Samaria – i.e. a Samaritan (Samaritánka, if we’re being Czech about it) was there, wanting to draw water.

Their conversation is the topic of this gospel classic, which was also covered by Nick Cave, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary:

And there’s even a Czech version of this number, from 1978, although it’s not about a well and the nameless woman is now called Ráchel:

Anyway, said hotel is now supposedly one of the greatest in the world, having been voted as such in 2011 (3rd best in the world, and best in Europe, in 2016, too): https://goldenwell.cz

And you just *know* that somebody wrote this after getting incredibly exasperated with one too many lost tourists:

I have to post the Peter, Paul and Mary version, too, because it’s just great: