At the top of the harbour was a sculpture by the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa. A seated figure with his knees drawn up against his chest, made up of white letters knitted together into a transparent skin.

From a distance, it looked for the world like a mound of bleached coral.

“It’s called Nomade,” Mimi told me. “Plensa is supposed to be suggesting the constructive potential of an alphabet. As a writer, you should understand that.”

The sculpture was hollow. You could stand inside or climb up on the letters.

“What do you think?” Mimi asked me. “Does the world seem different when you look at it through language?”

Even from halfway up the structure, the sky over the sea didn’t look any less blue. The town in the distance didn’t look any less touristy. The flotilla of sailboats, cabin cruisers, and mega-yachts stacked up in the harbour didn’t look any less ostentatious.

“You see that?”

There was an enormous yacht parked in the harbour with a coal-black hull and a bright white superstructure. On the side of the hull at the water line, someone had spray-painted, “Know Me for What I Am” in sloppy red letters.

“Someone was determined.”

I thought about it for a moment. “You’d have to have a boat to do that.”

“Yacht graffiti.” Mimi wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. “Another heartbreaking First World problem.”

The ship sat high in the water, so you couldn’t see if there was anyone on deck. All the windows were blacked out, so you couldn’t tell if there was anyone home. I suspected that the ship had a helicopter pad, possibly two, and a complement of swimming pools, but you would have had to have been in the hills above Antibes, looking down on the marina, to be sure.

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE. We debate whether to walk up to the castle or take the tram.

I vote for the tram.

“Exercise wouldn’t hurt us,” says Mimi.

“It’s too hot,” I counter. “You were right about the hat.”

The hill is steeper than I thought, and I’m glad we’re taking the tram. It reminds me a bit of the cable cars in San Francisco.

When we get to the castle, I point to a sign at the entrance. “Three hundred and fifty to get in?”

Mimi snorts. “Bird, that’s 350 Czech crowns. It’s about twenty dollars Canadian. And that’s for Circuit A. There’s also Circuit B and Circuit C, which are cheaper.”

“So, we get the cheap tickets?”

“If we get the cheap tickets, we could miss something.”

“Such as another church.”

“That’s the spirit.” Mimi tucks the guidebook into her pack and heads to the ticket booth. “Let’s get going before the tourists show up.”

St. Vitus Cathedral is just inside the main entrance. There is an Asian couple on the front steps, getting their picture taken.