Month: June 2018

We took a few days off this week to rest and take care of some errands.  One of the more pressing issues was – buying a new pair of sneakers.  In the last 10 months I’ve worn out two pairs, I can’t imagine why.  I normally wear New Balance brand sneakers because they come in wide sizes but none of the brands in any of the shops in Budapest or Prague seem to be available in wide sizes so I settled for a pair of Nike’s that are about a half size too big.  It seems to be working for me for now.

The other pressing matter has been the computer.  Because we have so many photos we store them on an auxiliary hard drive and that drive has been acting up.  This morning it died so we had to buy a replacement.  Fortunately all of our photos are backed up in the cloud but it’s going to take a fews days to download all of them – almost 10,000 in number.

This respite gave me free time to play some tennis.  Our host recommended a club where his son takes lessons.  It’s a lovely club with tennis courts, badminton courts, beach volleyball courts and much more.  I think they even have canoes that you can rent to row on the river.  I hooked up with an older pro who used to coach the national boys team.  We had a lot of fun smacking little yellow balls.  If I had time for a third session I might actually have gotten my timing back but for now I just had to settle for taking out some of my agressions.  The prices were very reasonable: $45 for an hour on the red clay and that included the cost of the coach.  I also had my racket restrung with catgut, which cost about $35.  That compares favorably with New York where I used to pay around $90.

Sunday, June 24

We decided to go out late and take some night pictures.  The sun sets around 9:30 pm in these parts so we left the apartment at 9:00 pm and headed for the hill leading to Letenský Park.  It’s someplace we hadn’t been before.  At that elevation the park commands a nice view of the city.  Besides, it had been a few days since we climbed anything and we didn’t want to get out of practice.

There’s an interesting monument at the top of the hill.  It’s a large metronome and, of course, there’s an interesting story to go with it.  During the communist occupation the government decided to construct a statue of Stalin and place it on top of the hill.  The statute was to be the largest likeness of Stalin in the world.  Just about the time the statue was completed Stalin died.  The communist regime decided that Stalin was no longer a good model for their people and so they decided to kill the project and blow up the work.  The sculptor was so distraught that he killed himself.  The site where the statue was to have been is now home to a giant working metronome.  We have no idea why they chose a metronome but there it sits.  You can’t make this stuff up!

We walked around the park for a while.  By 10:30 pm it was fairly dark and we started taking pictures.  We walked from the park all around Prague Castle, across the Charles Bridge and then meandered south along the river.  We got some really nice shots.

(Prague Castle at Night)

Distance walked: 8.0 miles

Monday, June 25

After our late night we got a late start.  We decided we needed a jumpstart so we headed over to an interesting coffee shop called Republica Coffee.  The sign in the window advertised the brand of coffee they sell and it really caught our attention.  It was very good.

(An Interesting Brand Name)

We spent most of the afternoon strolling around the Old Town checking out the shops until we stopped for lunch at an interesting restaurant called The Cubist Café.  They have a beautiful assortment of homemade pastries in the window and it just draws you in.  Deborah had a chicken and avocado sandwich with wasabi mayo while I had pork ribs in a spicy rub with a side of mustard and horseradish.  Everything was so good we decided to try their pastries.  Deborah had crepes with plum jam and lemon creme while I had a donut with creme anglaise filling and white sugar icing.  We weren’t disappointed.

(Pork Ribs)

Distance walked: 4.7 miles

Tuesday, June 26

We traveled to Brno to see yet another Mucha exhibit.  Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic and about 2.5 hours southeast of Prague by train.  We arrived at 11:30 am and had plenty of time to walk the two miles to the exhibition center; our tickets were for 1:00 pm.

Since we arrived in Prague we’ve been hoping to see Mucha’s premier work: The Slav Epic.  We went to the museum at the Trade Fair Palace expecting to find it there but were disappointed that it had been moved.  The docents at the museum told us that it was in Brno.  We did a little research and found some interesting information.

The Slav Epic is a series of 20 massive paintings that Alfons Mucha did over a period of 18 years starting in 1910.  His plan was to donate the paintings to the city of Prague on the condition that they build a special pavilion to display them at their own expense.  They were displayed at the Trade Fair Palace for a while but for last fifty years or so the paintings have been on display in the city of Moravský Krumlov, which is near to Brno.  In 2010 the city of Prague requested that the paintings be returned and a legal battle ensued.  In the meantime, over the objections of the Mucha foundation (run by Mucha’s grandson) the paintings have gone on a tour where they spent several years in Japan.  According to all available sources the paintings are now on display in Brno.

The exhibition was in two parts.  The first part was a series of graphic works including posters, postcards, advertisements and furniture designs.  Interestingly enough these works were all from a single collection owned by Ivan Lendl who many of you may known as a tennis player from the 1980s and 90s.  Lendl was born in Czechoslovakia, emigrated to the US and became a citizen in 1992.  He has been collecting works by Mucha for many years and has the single greatest collection in the world.  In 2013 Lendl loaned his collection to the city of Prague but they have been moved to Brno as part of the current exhibition.

The second part of the exhibition was the Slav Epic.  These are giant canvases that cover the history of the Czech and Slavic people.  The paintings were displayed in a room the size of a large airplane hangar and they covered the walls from floor to ceiling.  It was a magnificent sight.  We were given pamphlets that explained much of the symbolism in the works which was very helpful.  It’s a shame that we can’t share pictures with you but no photography was permitted.

It saddens us to say that only nine of the 20 paintings in the series were on display.  When we asked the docents they said that the other 11 were on display at Municipal House in Prague.  We had recently been there and knew that wasn’t true.  Eventually we found out that the 11 paintings that were not in Brno will be on display in Prague starting in July of this year (we’ll be in Dresden by then 😢).  It’s not clear whether the nine that are currently on display in Brno will stay in Brno or will be moved.  It is likely that the courts will be involved in the final disposition of the entire matter.

We had several hours to kill before our train back to Prague so we spent our time exploring the old town where there are many old Gothic churches.  The Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was built in the 10th century and is considered the best preserved stylistically coherent church in Bohemia.  The big attraction is the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul with its grand towers which dates from the 14th century.  When we climbed the tower we discovered a passage from one tower to the next so we were able to see the Town from all sides.  Included in the price is a tour of the treasury where we could see inside the church from the second floor and had a close view of the beautiful stained glass windows.  Neither church permitted photography.

Distance walked: 10.9 miles

Thursday, June 28

If you thought that we’d seen all the worthwhile museums in Town you’d be wrong.  Today we bought a combination ticket that would allow us to see the exhibitions at the Sternberg Palace, the Schwarzenberg Palace and the Convent of Saint Agnes of Bohemia – all three for the price of two.

We started with the Sternberg Palace.  They specialize in European works from antiquity to the Baroque.  You could easily tell that the building once had been a magnificent showplace but that it had fallen on hard times.  Only a few of the rooms still had frescos or period decorations.  The collection featured the only Rembrandt in all of the Czech Republic and quite a number of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.

Next we visited the Schwarzenberg Palace.  This was another once grand nobleman’s home.  They had a special exhibit of ancient weaponry in the newly renovated attic.  The vast collection of pieces had been assembled from all over the continent and featured mostly European weapons.  There were displays of armor, cannon, swords, pistols and rifles from the 1300s through the 1700s.  They also had a number of original paintings depicting famous warriors and battles from that time period.  It was very impressive.

(Helmet from the Medieval Armor Collection)

The permanent collection features works from 1500s through the Baroque.  Many had been collected by Rudolf II, an avid art enthusiast and King of Bohemia in the late 1500s.  Perhaps our favorite works were the etchings by a Czech artist who studied and worked in Amsterdam.  His name was Jacques De Gheyn II.  His dates are 1565 – 1629.  It’s always fun to discover new artists.

Distance walked: 6.1 miles

Friday, June 29

Today, our last full day in Prague, we went to see the Convent of Saint Agnes of Bohemia.  Agnes, born in 1211, was the daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia.  She was cannonized for devoting her life to charity, piety and mortification of the flesh.  The convent where she lived is now a national museum displaying medieval works of art.  There is also a large Gothic church on the site where Saint Agnes and many royals of that era are buried.

The enormous collection spanned the time period from 1200 through the middle of the 1500s and included works primarily from Bohemia.  A large part of the collection were triptychs from churches that no longer exist.  Most were in excellent condition.  There was also a large collection of wooden sculptures – also from churches of the past.

One of our favorite displays was a series of portraits of saints created by Master Theodoricus in the late 14th century.  We also enjoyed touring the Gothic cathedral with its towering vaulted ceilings.  It’s hard not to be impressed by that.

(Saint Ambrose by Master Theodoricus)

Distance walked: 6.1 miles

Our time in Prague has come to an end.  We’ll see you next week in Dresden, Germany!

Tuesday, June 19

Municipal House is an Art Nouveau building right on the border between the Old Town and the New Town.  In spite of its name Municipal House is more than just an ordinary town hall.  It has a storied history.  In the middle ages the King’s court was moved from Prague Castle to a building on that site.  The king lived there surrounded by many of the high nobility.  In 1485 the court was moved back to Prague Castle and the site was abandoned until the early 20th century when the remnants of the old buildings were torn down.  The present day structure was opened in 1912.

The building was designed as a multipurpose center.  It contains a large concert hall (and several smaller ones), salons, ballrooms and civic offices.  Many of the most famous Czech artisans of the day contributed designs and works of art for the interior.  Most of the rooms can be rented out and are often used for private occasions like weddings, conferences and proms.

Our tour started in the large concert hall named for Bedřich Smetana, a Czech composer who is more famous within the country than some well known composers like Dvořák.  There is a huge organ over the stage with a large cameo of Smetana, balconies covered with frescos and period chandeliers.  When in session the national orchestra plays there regularly.  During the summer concerts are given almost daily by guest groups performing programs geared towards tourists.

Our tour took us through several charming ladies’ salons each decorated in a different style.  The first one we saw was in the French style.  Others were in Oriental or Art Nouveau styles.  The men’s salons were larger rooms with high ceilings.  Each was designed by a different artist.  Most of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with paintings and many had frescos on the ceilings.  The designation of men’s and ladies’ salons reflects their decorative style and has no bearing on who is allowed to enter.

Perhaps our favorite salon was the Lord Mayor’s Hall.  It was designed and decorated by Alfons Mucha.  He designed every aspect of the room including the furniture, drapery and light fixtures.  He even designed the covers on the heating vents.  The room has three sets of paintings.  The first is a large circular work that covers the ceiling.  Underneath are three murals representing Slavic youth and between them are eight smaller panels portraying civic virtues represented by Slavic historical figures.

(The Muchas in Lord Mayor’s Hall)

After the tour we went back to Den Noc, a pancake house that we’d been to before.  We thought it was important to revisit this restaurant because we neglected to take pictures that last time we were there.  We’re always thinking of you – our loyal readers! 😉  Deborah had the bacon, avocado and feta pancakes while I had the chive pancakes with bacon, cheese and sour cream.  We had cappuccinos with our food.  They make their coffee with beans from a local producer called, “Double Shot”, who also runs several cafés in Town.  Their coffee is strong and flavorful with very little bitterness.  We like it a lot.

(Pancakes for Lunch)

Next we headed back over to Saint James Basilica.  This time it was open.  It’s a grand Baroque style Catholic Church whose alter resembles a three story palazzo with balconies.  It was great to hear live organ music as we walked in.  The church has the largest instrument in The Czech Republic.  It has over 45,000 pipes.  The organ was originally built in 1705 and has been rebuilt and expanded many times.  The church is trying to raise 375,000 EUR for needed maintenance as many of its parts are in need of replacement.  The organ has a wonderful sound and we hope our small contribution will help speed them to their goal.

(Saint James Basilica)

There’s a famous artifact hanging high over the narthex of Saint James.  It’s a 400 year old mummified arm hanging from a meat hook (it seems like the Czechs love to suspend things in the air).  The story goes like this: when a thief tried to steal the jewels from a statue of the Virgin Mary the statue reached out and grabbed his arm.  He was unable to extricate himself.  Eventually the parishioners, many of whom were butchers, decided to cut off his arm.  As soon as the limb was severed the statue released the arm and returned to its normal state.  The arm was hung up in a conspicuous place as a remembrance and a warning.  It has been there ever since.

Distance walked: 2.5 miles

Wednesday, June 20

Today was zoo day.  The zoo is a good four mile walk from our apartment so we decided to kill to two birds with one stone and took the ferry.  It was a lovely ride lasting about one hour and ten minutes.  We even got to go through one of the locks.  It was a fascinating experience.  The canal was drained of about 15 feet of water in a just a few minutes.  When we entered the canal we were well above street level and when we exited the street was nowhere in sight.

We knew that we had to walk a little over half a mile to get to the zoo from the boat landing.  What we didn’t know was that there was a river in our way.  We didn’t see any bridges nearby and really didn’t want to swim for it.  We were about to despair when we noticed a small ferry.  The boatman shuttles people from one bank to other all day long.   The entire trip took about 20 seconds and didn’t cost anything.  It was a strange experience.

The zoo grounds are expansive and built on top a of a rather large hill.  It seemed smarter, since we had fresh legs, to climb to the top and work our way down.  What do you think we found at the top of the hill?  A chairlift!  We needed the exercise anyway.

One of the more interesting things that zoos are doing these days is building enclosures where you can enter into the animals habitat and get up close and personal.  This zoo had quite a few of them.  Many had birds of some kind and one even had fruit bats flying all around you (Deborah hated that one).  We really enjoyed the one containing seven large vultures.  Food had just been placed in their enclosure and it was fun to watch them eat.

The best enclosure, however, was called Lemur Island.  It was a very large enclosed space where lemurs run free.  At first we saw them crouching in the vegetation but soon they came right up to us, walked about, and even posed for pictures.  It was hard to resist petting them but staff were all around enforcing the rules against physical contact with the animals.  They were so much fun to watch we could have stayed there all afternoon.

(Lemur Island)

As usual we enjoyed seeing all of the babies.  There were two baby elephants, a bison, a gorilla, two sumatran tigers and several fur seals.  They were all energetic and seemed to enjoy frolicking.  What could be cuter than that?!

(Sumatran Tiger Cub Born in October)

We took the bus home.  It only took about 30 minutes.

Just as an aside, we’ve been getting a lot of activity on our blog so we started looking at some of the statistics on the web site.  We’ve had more than 500 different readers from over 19 countries including some surprising places like Kazakhstan, Belize and Vietnam.  As of today we have almost 100 people registered on our site each of whom gets an email version of every article we publish.  Apparently the most popular date/time to read our blog is Monday morning at 10:00 am.  Oh those weekend blues.  Most of the feedback we get is in terms of personal email rather than comments on the blog itself.  Our most requested feature: more photos of food.  We’ll try to do better!

Distance walked: 7.3 miles

Sunday, June 17

June 17th was Father’s Day in the United States.  We wanted to send another Father’s Day thank you to our wonderful fathers for all their love and support.  A special thanks is also appropriate to all our friends and family who are fathers, grandfathers, godfathers, stepfathers, uncles, brothers, etc. who are there every day helping to guide future generations.  Your love and hard work are greatly appreciated.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning here in Prague so we headed back down along the river towards Vyšehrad.  We had cut our previous trip short due to weather and today was our opportunity to see all of the things we missed.

We started by checking out the cemetery.  Many famous people including writers, musicians, artists and politicians are buried there.  The cemetery is rather large and we enjoyed seeing the many varied and interesting headstones and monuments all the while looking out for the grave sites of Smetana, Dvořák and Mucha.

(Grave of Bedřich Smetana)

Composers Smetana and Dvořák each have individual plots with rather impressive monuments.  We had been expecting the artist Alfons Mucha to be buried in a grand Art Deco monument but we found his final resting place in a large monument along with over a dozen other people.  It’s not clear why he doesn’t have a site of his own.

We continued through the beautifully manicured sculpture gardens to one of the many scenic overlooks.  The air was particularly clear so we took lots of photos.

The person manning the nearby information booth informed us that guided tours of the Gorlice (Underground) were available every hour so we killed some time by having lunch at a café on the grounds.  We shared an order of fish and chips.  It was very good and much better than we expected.

We arrived at the Gorlice about ten minutes early and were handed a couple of printed informational sheets in English.  The person told us that we needn’t wait for the tour and that we should just go by ourselves.  It was obvious he just didn’t feel like giving the tour.  That was fine with us.  We’d be able to take our time and see everything at a leisurely rate.

We entered what looked like a long narrow cave.  It was dark and lit by only a few lanterns.  We imagined how dark and dirty the space must have been hundreds of years ago when candles, torches and lamps would have been the only source of light.  The passage was a tunnel more than 30 feet below the main walls.  It was a long and winding route that was used to move people and equipment from place to place within the castle without exposing them to enemy attack.  Eventually we got to a large room with a towering three story barrel vaulted ceiling.  Many of the original sculptures that adorned the Charles Bridge in the early 1700s were stored there for safekeeping (the sculptures that can be seen on the bridge today are copies of the originals).

(Underground Tunnel)

The castle grounds are very beautiful and a perfect place to spend a day.  There are gardens, playgrounds, sculpture gardens and several chapels to see in addition to the Cathedral, cemetery and underground.  We particularly enjoyed the view from the parapets and the walkways along the bottom of the walls.  They also have a gallery but the current exhibit didn’t interest us.

After climbing down the hill we went in search of a fair that we’d seen on the other side of the river.  That morning, as we climbed the many stairs to enter the castle, we’d noticed dozens of tents and heard live music.  It seemed like something that was worth checking out.  It turned out to be a Cider Festival.  Most of the booths were selling cider based drinks, foods made with/cooked with cider and so forth.  We sampled a few snacks but didn’t find it too interesting.

Distance walked: 8.1 miles

Monday, June 18

We decided to check out nearby Saint James Church.  It’s a beautiful Baroque style church near Old Town Square.  When we got there we saw a sign saying that the church was closed on Mondays (we could read it – it was in Latin).  We’ll have to go back and see it another day.

Since we were in the neighborhood we headed over to a gallery that had three floors of exhibits each featuring either Dali, Warhol or Mucha.  We intended to see the Mucha exhibit.

Along the way we found a well known sculpture by David Černý.  It’s a depiction of King Wenceslas riding an upside-down dead horse hanging from the ceiling of the Lucerna Palace.  It’s a sarcastic reference to the famous equestrian statue of King Wenceslas in nearby Wenceslas Square.  This is the same artist who did the hanging Sigmund Freud.

(King Wenceslas by David Černý)

Unlike the Mucha museum that we had been to a few days ago, where we had seen many of his large scale posters, this exhibit focused on more of his functional artwork.  They had displays of menus, postcards, banknotes, stamps, book illustrations and household decorations like vases and lamps.  There were seven large rooms full of his works.  The gift shop had a nice selection of items for sale with his designs.

(Advertisement by Mucha)

Next we walked over to Municipal House with the idea of taking the tour.  On Mondays tours are only given in the late afternoon.  Since it was lunch time we consoled ourselves with a meal at one of Municipal House’s restaurants.  There are two lovely restaurants at the street level that are decorated in the Art Deco style but we went to the restaurant downstairs – it still had the Art Deco stained glass windows but was otherwise decorated as a Bavarian Beer Garden.  They had a popular Czech Pilsner on tap and we thought we might like it better than when we had tried it from a bottle.

Deborah ordered a traditional Czech potato soup and the Pilsner beer.  I ordered the beef goulash.  It came with sausage, fried onions and bread dumplings.  I decided to try the special dark lager that they were featuring this month.  As if that wasn’t enough they gave us a basket of different homemade breads.  It was all very tasty.  The dark lager was very good but the Pilsner was still a little too skunky for our taste.

 

(Potato Soup, Goulash and Beer)

Distance walked: 4.7 miles

Saturday, June 16

We took a guided tour to Kutná Hora, a city just over an hour East of Prague.  We were happy to see that the tour would be given by Ryan, the same person who’d lead the Free Tour and the Prague Castle tours that we had previously taken.  We liked Ryan a lot.  He’s a young Canadian who’s been in The Czech Republic for about three years.  He’s very knowledgeable about the city and its history and has a very entertaining delivery.  He also likes to talk about his two rabbits and needs no prompting to show off their pictures.😁

Around 10:30 am we boarded our bus and were on our way.  The traffic was terrible.  It took about two hours before we arrived at our first stop in Sedlec where we were going to see the Sedlec Ossuary.  If you remember our blog posting from Rome about the Capuchin Crypt you already know what we saw.  It was a church where all of the chapels were decorated with objects made from human bones.  The craftsmanship was very good and the objects were interesting but the overall effect was a little creepy.  This time we were permitted to take pictures.

(Chandelier Made of Human Bones)

The grounds originally held a Cistercian monastery that was founded in 1142.  In 1278 the abbot came back from Golgotha in Jerusalem with a jar of dirt which he sprinkled around the adjacent cemetery.  People began to believe that this was akin to being buried in the Holy Land causing the cemetery to become a desirable final resting place.  Over 30,000 people were known to have been interred there.  During recent work to repair the church’s foundation many more skeletons have been unearthed from an earlier burial ground.  It is supposed that the number will run into the thousands.

After a quick hop back on the bus we arrived in Kutná Hora.  Historically the city was well known for it’s silver mines.  The rather course and gruff miners did not get along too well with the monks so in 1388 they began construction on a grand Gothic style church of their own dedicated to Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners.  Construction was delayed many times over the years because of funding and wars and was not officially completed until 1995.  The final length is only about 1/3 of its originally intended size.  Saint Barbara’s Church is one of the most famous churches in Europe and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

(Saint Barbara’s Church)

The interior is a classic example of Gothic Cathedrals with high vaulted ceilings, a center aisle and chapels along the sides.  The ceiling over the main alter uses standard rib vaulting while the rest of the church uses less common and more exotic helix vaulting.  Most of the stained glass windows are from the early 20th century and are in the Art Deco style.  Situated high up in a balcony near the back of the church is a pipe organ with traditional wooden and lead/tin pipes.

(Interior Saint Barbara’s Church)

Nearby is a Jesuit college built in 1667.  Because the Jesuits missed their home town of Prague so much the walkway in front was designed to resemble the Charles Bridge where there is a magnificent view of the vineyards and the valley below.

Next we went to a restaurant where we had pre-ordered lunch.  Restaurant Dačický was founded as a brewery in the 16th century and has been operating as a traditional Czech restaurant for the past 200 years.  The food was excellent and the portions were huge.  Deborah ordered roast pork with bread dumplings and sweet red cabbage while I had goulash made with wild boar and gingerbread dumplings.  Of course we had to try the house beer.  Our choices were light (refers to color not to calories), dark (a sweeter beer) and mixed (a combination of the two).  We had the light beer.  It was very good and complimented our food perfectly.

(Wild Boar Goulash with Gingerbread Dumplings and Beer)

After lunch we walked through town and explored some places of note before boarding the bus for our return trip which lasted just over one hour.  Because of the morning traffic there was no time for us to explore Saint Barbara’s Church or the town on our own.  We’re considering going back to see these things at our leisure.

While we enjoyed the tour we had an interesting time getting tickets.  We booked two previous tours (the Free Walking Tour and the Prague Castle Tour) with a company called Sandeman and, at the conclusion of the castle tour, had received a code entitling us to a discount on any subsequent tours.  We had really enjoyed these tours so when we decided to go to Kutná Hora we figured that we’d book through Sandeman again.

When we tried to book the new tour the web site wouldn’t accept the discount code.  I emailed Ryan and he said it should work.  It didn’t.  We called Sandeman.  They told us that if we wanted the discount we had to book online; they couldn’t give us the discount over the phone.  Early the next day we walked over to the Sandeman tours meeting place and spoke with their agent.  He told us they had no knowledge of the discounts whatsoever but suggested we go over to their office and talk to the manager after 11:30 am.  We killed a few hours by touring the Old Town Hall, which we blogged about the other day, and at 1:30 pm headed over to the Sandeman office.

We spoke to the representative near the entry way and he said that we needed to go upstairs and talk to the manager.  We told our entire story to the manager and she told us that in order to use the discount code we had to book online.  We were going in circles.  The discussion got a little heated.  Finally she  said she would call her manager and get back to us.  We were being dismissed.  She had not even asked for our contact information.  Since the tour was the next day we insisted that she make the phone call while we waited.  She finally relented, made the phone call and entered the discount code on the web page for us.  The fee for the tour was in EUROs and we paid using a credit card.  She told us we would get an email with a confirmation and a receipt shortly.  It gets worse.

When we got the email we opened the receipt and found we’d been charged about $5.00 more than we should have been.  Instead of charging our credit card in EUROs as they should have done they converted the amount and charged our credit card in US Dollars.  Sandeman used an exchange rate of their own choosing that wound up costing us more than it should have.  It’s a  despicable practice.  It’s unlikely we’ll ever use their services again.

Distance walked: 5.0 miles

Thursday, June 14

Now that we’ve decided that we don’t universally hate beer we chose to take a tour of the Staropramen Brewery.  We made an online reservation for 1:00 pm.  We searched their website and the Internet in general for information regarding how much it would cost but couldn’t find any.  We concluded it was free.

As we walked along we ran into an interesting site – The Memorial to the Victims of Communism.  It’s a series of sculptures along the bottom of Petrin Hill.  There is an inscription that reads…

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is dedicated to all victims, not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism.

The inscription is pointed yet moving and the sculptures are very evocative.  We liked it very much.

(The Memorial to the Victims of Communism)

All the countries we’ve been in recently seem to have very different perspectives about the countries that occupied their territories: The Bulgarians hated the Turks, were initially friendly with the Nazis and got along well with the Soviets.  The Hungarians had few issues with the Turks, liked the Habsburgs and despised the Nazis and the Soviets.  The Czechs have nothing to say about the Turks and hated the Habsburgs, Nazis and the Soviets.  We find that very interesting.

We finally found the “staircase” down Petrin Hill just a few yards from the memorial.  It’s not a staircase at all.  It’s a section of crenelated wall that was likely a part of the old city’s fortifications.  What we thought were stairs was the parapet that runs along the top.  From a distance it really does look like a staircase.  It appears that we won’t be able to climb that one.

When we arrived at the brewery’s visitor center we were asked if we wanted to purchase a beer tasting along with the price of our ticket.  The tour was not free nor were there going to be any free samples.  We had some thoughts about leaving but decided to bite the bullet and paid for the tour and the tasting.  Total cost: $12.14.  It gets worse.

The “tour” turned out to be a series of short films about the history of the brewery.  Automated lights prompted us from room to room where we saw recreations of the brewmaster’s office, the brewmaster’s lab, a fermentation room and a bottling plant.  When we entered the fermentation room we thought we smelled something familiar.  After the narrator directed us to smell the hops we finally identified the smell – it smelled like our dogs’ ears when they had ear infections.  First skunks and now ear infections.  Remind us why people like beer again?

There was no guide, very little interesting information and no one to answer any questions.  We never even got to see the actual factory.  It was all very disappointing.

The “tour” ended in a pub/tasting room where we sampled four different brews.  We decided to order some food; we didn’t want to drink all that beer on an empty stomach.  Deborah ordered a pickled cheese plate and I ordered some goulash (the food was very good).  The four beers were premium (a blond beer), an unfiltered premium, granat (a semi-dark lager) and a dark lager.  We both favored the taste of the granat which, at 4.8%, had the highest alcohol content.  The brews were good but the brewery left us with a sour taste.

(Beer Tasting)

On the way home we found another Italian salumeria.  We bought several cheeses, some spicy salami and a loaf of bread.  The prices were much more reasonable than the salumeria we visited last week and the cheeses were much better quality.  We’ll definitely go back there again.

Still hungry we ventured into Ellory Café, a chocolate shop that advertised fondue.  It was one of those artisanal places.  You could see them making the chocolate right in front of your eyes.  The smell was overwhelming.  We should have split one but we ordered two fondues.  Typically you run out of chocolate well before you run out of things to dip.  Not in this case.  After we finished dipping the fruits and cookies we got two spoons and just ladled the rest into our mouths.  Did we forget to mention that it was wonderful?

Distance walked: 4.7 miles

Friday, June 15

This morning we went to the Old Town Hall in the Old Town Square.  The building was established in 1338 and is Prague’s oldest town hall.  For hundreds of years it was the seat of government, where the king held court and where the assembly met.  The building also includes a chapel, a municipal hall and council hall.

The building was constructed on top of five ancient houses that were built in the Gothic and Romanesque styles.  They now form the cellar of the Town Hall.  At one time the cellars were used as a prison for people awaiting execution.  During World War II the cellars were used as a field hospital for the resistance movement.  Our tour included a visit to these sights.

In 1410 an astronomical clock was installed at the top of the tower, which in it’s day, was the highest tower in Prague.  It has dials that represent the position of the sun and the moon.  Today it is the oldest functioning astronomical clock in the world.  Every hour all twelve apostles appear through mechanically operated doors.  We didn’t get to see the clock in action as it’s undergoing maintenance.  In it’s place there is an hourly projection showing the operation of the clock.  It’s said to be one of the most underwhelming sights in Town.

(Ceiling Mosaic – Main Vestibule)

We climbed to the observation desk on top of the tower by a series of sloping ramps.  It was a clear day and the view was excellent.  We took quite a few pictures of Prague Castle, Old Town Square and the surrounding areas.

For lunch we went to the Choco Café.  It’s supposed to have some of the best hot chocolate in Town.  European hot chocolate is very different from what we are used to.  It’s thick and rich and has a consistency similar to warm pudding.  Imagine melting a chocolate bar into a cup with a little milk.  We tried the dark and the milk chocolate varieties and consumed them with a slice of quiche and a caprese bruschetta.  Yeah, it was that good.

(Hot Chocolate)

Distance walked: 5.5 miles

Wednesday, June 13

Tonight we went to see Mozart’s opera, “The Marriage of Figaro” at the Estates Theater. We won’t keep you in suspense: it was fantastic!

The theater has had a long and interesting history since it’s opening in 1783.  Mozart’s opera, “Don Giovanni” premiered in this very theater in 1787 with Mozart as the conductor.  If you’ve seen the movie, “Amadeus” you might remember that this was the opera during which the emperor fell asleep.  Another Mozart opera, “La Clemensa di Tito” also premiered in this theater in celebration of the coronation of Emperor Leopold II.  It’s the only theater that Mozart performed in that’s still standing and it’s present day appearance is said to be almost identical to when it opened.  Several scenes from the movie, “Amadeus” were filmed inside.

The theater is smaller than we expected but it has an intimate rather than small feel.  There are only about 35 rows at the orchestra level but there are five balconies full of boxes.  We sat in row seven center orchestra and had the feeling that we were watching from our living room rather than a large auditorium.  The seats, made out of wood with velvet cushions, resembled ordinary chairs.

(A Beautiful Theater)

The story of Figaro is rather complex and there are a good many recitatives so we appreciated the subtitles that were in both Czech and English.  Virtually everyone in attendance was a tourist and English was spoken everywhere during the intermission.

The production was part of the Czech National Theater.  Every part of the performance was first rate.  The singers effortlessly filled the hall and turned phrases that even Mozart would have been proud of.  In lesser productions you will often hear ensembles performed as a group of individuals trying to outdo one another but this case the singers blended perfectly.  The wonderful acoustics no doubt helped.  The orchestra played skillfully and with impressive dynamics.  The balance was excellent.  The instruments never overpowered the singers.  We were so engrossed by the performance that we hardly noticed the conductor.  There was one basic set for the entire production with some interesting twists.  During the garden scene, for example, prop peacocks were pulled across the stage by ropes and at the feast they were eaten by the wedding guests.  Several times during scene changes performers would roam the audience performing small skits allowing the action to continue.  It was all very lighthearted; the opera is a comedy after all – no one dies!  All four leads did an outstanding job but special kudos to Marie Fajtová for her unbelievably fine portrayal of the Countess.

(View from the Balcony)

Two tickets costs us about $185.00 which is a lot more than we paid in other cities we’ve visited but since we enjoyed it so much we’ll probably wind up seeing more operas or concerts before we leave.  Deborah’s talking about seeing this one again!

*** Extra credit to anyone who gets the reference to Rafaello in the title of this post (yes, we think we’re amusing).

Distance walked: 1.0 miles

Tuesday, June 12

On our way to our first destination we walked past the place where we saw the  sculpture of a man hanging from an umbrella.  What did we notice this time?  Across the street we found his mate: a sculpture of a woman hanging from an umbrella.  New rule: we really have to look up more!

We continued down the river to a museum called The National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror.  First the background story…

In the late 1930s Hitler’s Germany was creating chaos throughout Europe and threatening war on many fronts.  Czechoslovakia had mobilized their armed forces in anticipation of a German attack.  In 1938, as an appeasement offering, England and France signed a pact with Germany and Italy called the Munich Agreement in which Czechoslovakia was given to Germany.  Czechoslovakia was not part of these negotiations.  When news of the agreement reached Czechoslovakia the government disbanded the army.  Many members of the military fled to fight with the Western powers.  This allowed German forces to annex the German speaking regions of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland.

The Czechoslovakian people were not happy with the occupation and resisted in many ways.  To counter the resistance Heinrich Himmler created a new post called the Director of Reich Main Security Office and staffed it with a man named Reinhard Heydrich.

Heydrich was an SS Obergruppenfüer and General of the Police.  He instituted harsh and brutal methods of suppressing Czech nationalism and resistance.  As a consequence the Czech government in exile together with British Special Operations devised Operation Anthropoid – a mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich.

Two Czech soldiers who had escaped to England parachuted into Prague with the aim of killing Heydrich on his way from his countryside home to his office in Prague Castle.  One soldier, Gabčík, stopped the car by standing in the road.  He tried to fire his machine gun but it jammed.  The second solider, Kubiš, threw a grenade that wounded Heydrich and himself.  The car managed to escape but Heydrich died of his wounds several days later.

The soldiers were betrayed by another resistance member and were found hiding in the basement crypt of the Saint Kryil and Methodius Cathedral.  They died resisting arrest.  With the help of their informant the Germans were able to discover many members of the resistance.  They arrested over 13,000 and executed hundreds along with their entire families.  Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the village of Lidice which the German’s completed destroyed.

The basement of the Church is now a National Memorial.  The entire story, along with many documents and photographs, is told through a series of displays.  The crypt contains memorial sculptures of several of the main participants of Operation Anthropoid including Gabčík and Kubiš.

(Memorials to Gabčík and Kubiš)

We also went upstairs to see the church.  It’s an Eastern Orthodox church that has been fully restored to its pre-war condition.  There are two trap doors, one in the front and one in the back, that lead to the crypt.  The carpets are rolled back in those areas to make them easy for visitors to find.  The bishop and church priests were executed for their role in hiding the soldiers.

A number of movies have been made about these events.  For a more complete version of the story you might want read this: Operation Anthropoid.

We continued walking south along the river and had lunch at a nice little restaurant.  Deborah had a spinach salad and I had a burger made with short ribs.  Both were delicious.  We ate everything before remembering to take a picture – that’s never happened before. 😉

We continued on our way until we reached Vyšehrad Castle (Upper Castle).  It’s a fort complex surrounded by high walls that was probably built during the 10th century.  The large grounds, which cover almost 90 acres, are set high on the river bank affording wonderful views of the surrounding area.  There are many things to see and do.  The main attraction is a large Gothic church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul.  It was designated as a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II.

The cemetery contains the remains of many famous Czech writers, politicians and other notables including composers Antonín Dvořak and Bedřich Smetana.  The artist Alphonse Mucha is also buried there.  Many of the gravestones were carved by famous Czech craftsman.

Some of the other things to do and see include the Rotunda Church of Saint Martin, a picture gallery, the underground labyrinth that contains some of the original sculptures from the Charles Bridge and several red clay tennis courts.

(Saint Martin’s Rotunda)

We walked the entire perimeter before viewing the rotunda church.  It’s a small  round building dating from the 11th century with a long and interesting history.  It is the oldest rotunda in the city.  We were not able to view the interior as it was closed.

Next we visited the basilica.  It’s a huge building in typical Gothic style with a long center aisle and chapels all along the sides.  The church underwent extensive renovations in the 1980s and is in immaculate condition.  The walls of the nave and ceiling are now decorated with Art Deco frescos.

(Art Deco Frescos)

Every chapel has a beautiful stained glass window.  Near the back is a small treasury containing many beautiful and precious objects including reliquaries with the arm bones of Saints Kyril and Methodius.

 

(Stained Glass Windows)

The weather was turning rainy so we decided to leave.  We intend to come back and see more.

Distance walked: 6.3 miles

Sunday, June 10

We’ve tracked our finances using Quicken for many years.  It’s been a useful tool but has  always had many annoying limitations.  It was just over a year ago that they finally added the ability to update your database using a phone based app.  Welcome to the 20th Century Quicken.😉

The company, Intuit, has undergone a lot of turmoil and recently has been split into two different entities.  Each entity is now owned by a different company.  One entity is going to concentrate on business applications (QuickBooks) and the other the consumer market (Quicken).  Since that split occurred many of Quicken’s most useful features will only be available if users pay an ongoing monthly fee.  Core features like the ability to download credit card transactions, sync to the cloud and update using your phone will no longer work.  It’s incredible.  When we purchased the software it had all of these features.  How could they possibly remove features that have already been paid for?  It’s despicable.

Don’t bother trying to download your credit card transactions and import them.  They won’t let you do that.  They really want you to buy the subscription.  Believe me, anytime someone tries that hard to sell you something (timeshares, most life insurance, Microsoft Office 365) it’s not to your benefit.  If they had their way you’d be locked into Quicken and would wind up paying for their service for the rest of your life.

Sunday morning we spent some time writing a fancy spreadsheet that does everything we need (and much more than Quicken ever did).  Our spreadsheet does interactive reports accompanied by graphs.  We’ve long wanted the ability to enter transactions in multiple currencies.  Now we can.  It’s a simple matter for us to download our credit card transactions and import them.  We even added budgeting statistics.  Best of all the spreadsheet is “shared” so we can update it on any of our devices – including our mobile phones.  Writing the spreadsheet, downloading the transactions and importing them took a total of about one hour.  Farewell Quicken!

In the afternoon we headed back to the same Irish pub where we saw the French Open Women’s Final to watch the French Open Men’s Final.  We ordered a late lunch and waited for the match to start.  Dominic Thiem has a fairly good record against Rafael Nadal on red clay but it didn’t seem to matter.  The outcome was somewhat predictable. Rafa now owns 11 French Open titles; that’s an absolutely amazing statistic.

Distance walked: 1.3 miles

Monday, June 11

In 1889 the Czech Tourists Club saw the Eiffel Tower in Paris and decided to build something similar in Prague.  They had Petrin Tower constructed atop Petrin Hill to help celebrate the General Land Centennial Exhibition of 1891.  Standing 64 meters high Petrin Tower is smaller than the Eiffel Tower but can still be seen from just about anywhere in the surrounding countryside.  It’s possible to get to the tower using a funicular but where’s the fun in that?  We walked over the Charles Bridge, through Malá Strana, up some steep inclines before we finally got to an enormous set of winding stairs.  It was quite a climb.

(Petrin Tower)

The lower level of the tower contains a museum where we learned about the quarries that used to exist on the hill, the geology of the area, hydrological issues and the General Land Centennial Exhibition of 1891.  It was very informative.  It was also a nice rest before undertaking the 299 steps to the top of the tower – that’s only three times the number of stairs to get to our apartment!

The views from the top were absolutely breathtaking.  This was one of the few occasions where we actually remembered that we had binoculars with us.  We’ve been lugging them around in our backpack since Rome but often forget about them until it’s too late.  If we had any complaints about climbing the hill or the tower they were soon forgotten.  It was a great experience.

(View of Prague Castle from Petrin Tower)

Adjacent to the tower are two other interesting attractions.  One is the Saint Lawrence Church.  It’s a beautiful old church surrounded by 14 stations of the cross.  We couldn’t find much information on it except that in 1784 it was converted into a residential home.  In 1985 it underwent a complete restoration.  Today it is mostly used as a concert hall.  We weren’t able to see inside because the paving stones around it were being redone.  The other attraction is a mirror maze.  Like the tower it too was built in 1891 for the General Land Centennial Exhibition.  The building is in the form of a gothic tower.

We decided to checkout the nearby Strahov Monastery which is also located on the top of the hill just a short walk from the tower.  We knew it was there but hadn’t researched it beforehand so, basically, we were just winging it.  We had no idea what we would find.

As we approached the grounds we noticed a single, beautifully maintained red clay tennis court.  It was surrounded by a fence that was itself surrounded by flowers.  It seemed a shame that no one was playing on it.  We later learned that it is owned by the monastery and is available for rent.

Next to the court there was an absolutely charming restaurant nestled at the base of a hill.  It is owned and operated by the Monastery.  The main part of the restaurant is situated in a labyrinth of caves under the hill but we decided to sit outside and enjoy the view.  The monks have been making beer there since the 13th century.  We figured that they probably knew what they were doing by now and so ordered one with our lunch.  We had a Wheat Beer and found it to be very good.

We started to wonder why we liked Czech beer when other beers we’ve tried were so unappealing to us.  We’ve long objected to the skunky smell and taste of most beers.  We were surprised to learn that we weren’t crazy and there is a real reason for it.  We found several interesting articles that explain…

The important thing to understand is that light is the number one enemy to beer; it literally cleaves molecules in your delicious brew into pieces, creating a new compound that is nearly identical to one of the substances produced by a skunk.

The menu had a wonderful variety of items that were surprisingly reasonably priced.  Deborah ordered salmon tartare mixed with dill and onions seasoned with fresh lemon that was served with a salad.  I had sausages cooked in a beer and onion reduction sauce served with horseradish sauce.  Both were amazingly good.

(Lunch at the Monastery)

After a leisurely lunch we finally headed into the main courtyard.  The Monastery, which was founded in 1143 and is dedicated to Saint Norbert, is comprised of several buildings situated on extensive grounds.  We headed over to a large Baroque style church but found that it was closed.

Next we headed over to the cloister where the picture gallery was housed.  Several rooms were dedicated to the life of their patron saint.  We saw a large room with many oversized canvases recounting his life and deeds.  We visited many different halls containing large collections of paintings and sculptures as we walked around the gardens.    Many of the rooms were decorated with colorful frescos.  The entire collection is said to contain over 1,500 works of art which span from medieval times until the 19th century.

(Ceiling of the Summer Refectory)

After seeing the cloister we walked around the rest of the grounds.  They also have a library containing ancient religious and scholarly texts housed in palatial rooms.  The library can be toured separately for an additional fee.

After leaving the monastery we walked back towards the tower and saw the beautifully manicured gardens containing roses of many different varieties.  Nearby we found the observatory.  They have three large diameter telescopes and many exhibits about astronomy.  The telescopes monitor the sun during the day and the milky way during the night.  We decided, because it was overcast, to come back and visit on another day when we’d be able to see the telescopes in action.

It had been a long day and we were ready to head back home.  For the trip back we thought we’d try another route.  We looked for a second set of stairs that we thought we’d seen previously that went straight down the hill.  It turns out that this second set of stairs didn’t exist – what we’d seen was the funicular, so we wound up walking back the way we came.

By the time we crossed the Charles Bridge we were looking for some dinner.  We stopped at a trdelník (chimney cake) shop.  We got one with a cheese coating that was stuffed with macaroni and cheese and topped with bacon.  You only live once.  We also bought a bavarian pretzel to take home for dessert.

(Mac and Cheese Chimney Cake)

Our host was kind enough to stock our fridge with some Pilsner Urquell beers.  Pilsner Urquell is the largest brewery in the Czech Republic and originated the pilsner style beer.  We decided to have one with our pretzel.  We liked this one too but not as much as the others that we had tried.  Maybe we’ll become beer drinkers after all?

Distance walked: 9.0 miles and 54 flights (that’s not a record!)

Friday, June 8

Prague is known for having some curious statues.  Many of them were created by a rather enigmatic man named David Cerny, a Czech artist.  One of his most well known pieces is entitled, “Sigmund Freud Hanging”.  It’s a bronze sculpture suspended from a wire over a street corner.  It’s fairly high up so if you’re not looking for it you’re not likely to see it.  We knew it was there and it still took us a few minutes to locate it.

(Sigmund Freud Hanging)

One of the famous sights to see in Town is the Infant Jesus of Prague.  It’s a wooden figure of Christ as a child that was likely carved around 1340 in Spain.  It came to Bohemia in 1526 with María Maximiliana Manriquez de Lara y Mendoza of Spain when she married a Czech nobleman named Vratislav of Pernstn.  Eventually the statue was donated to the Carmelite friars and now rests in the Church of Our Lady Victorious and The Infant Jesus of Prague.

During the Thirty Years War the friary was plundered and the statue was thrown into a pile of rubbish behind the alter with its hands broken off.  In 1637 it was found by Father Cyrillus and placed in the church’s oratory.  One day, while praying before the statue, Father Cyrillus is said to have heard a voice saying, “Have pity on me, and I will have pity on you. Give me my hands, and I will give you peace. The more you honour me, the more I will bless you.”  Since then miraculous healings have been attributed to the statue.

The infant has an extensive wardrobe consisting of over 100 robes and several crowns.  The duty of dressing the infant falls to the Carmelite Sisters of the Child of Jesus.  He is dressed in different outfits based on the season and special occasions – Green for everyday, Purple for Lent, Candlemas and Advent, Red or Gold for Christmas and Easter and Royal Blue for the Immaculate Conception and Feast of the Assumption.  A museum on the second floor displays just some of the clothes that have been donated to the Infant many of which contain golden threads, exotic fabrics and precious stones.  Clothes have been donated by such notables as the Empress Maria Theresa and the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.  One of the crowns was recently donated by Pope Benedict XVI upon his visit to the church.

(The Infant Jesus of Prague)

Afterwards we continued south and walked along the West side of the river.  The river has a number of small waterfalls and we pondered how the boats managed to avoid them.  We noticed that they ran along the river’s edge through a canal but still couldn’t imagine how they navigated the change in elevation.  Today we found the answer: they use a series of locks. We saw the remnants of the old gas engines that used to power the locks.  Today the locks are run by electric motors.

Along the way we passed a large building containing the Staropramen Brewery.  Staropramen is the second largest brewery in the Czech Republic (the largest brewery is Pilsner Urqell).  They have been in business since 1869.  The name literally means, “Old Spring”.  Today they’re owned by Molsen Coors.  The brewery offers several tours per day in several languages.  We might do the tour on another day.

Fun Fact: The Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita in the entire world.

Eventually we came to our destination: The Wine Food Market.  All we really knew was that it was a highly recommended market.  To our delight we found that it was a large Italian Salumeria, an Italian bakery and an Italian restaurant in a single building.

We did a quick tour of the store before sitting down for lunch in the restaurant.   We took notice of what was on everyone else’s table.  The food looked and smelled wonderful.  We felt like we were back in Italy.  The menu had sandwiches, fresh fish, soups and pastas.  We ordered a large pizza with spicy salami and washed it down with homemade iced tea.  For dessert we wandered over to the bakery.  We ordered a bread to take home and an eclair for immediate consumption.  The eclair had a thick white icing and was generously filled with dark chocolate cream.  Everything was so good it made us long for a return trip to Italy.

Fully refreshed we went back into the market.  This time we meant business.  We walked away with spicy salami, parmesan cheese, smoked scamorza cheese, apricot jam, honey, some apples and a bottle of wine.  It was a lot to lug over two miles back to our apartment but we didn’t care.  The prices were a bit higher than we would have paid in Italy for the same items but they weren’t available anywhere else.

On our way home we accidentally ran into another curious sculpture.  This was was created by Michal Trpak, another Czech artist, and is entitled, “Slight Uncertainty”.  It’s a figure of a man suspended from a wire by his umbrella.  We couldn’t find any useful information about it.  No, not all of Prague’s sculptures are hanging over your head. 😀

(Slight Uncertainty)

Somewhere (we can’t remember) we’d heard that quite a few movies were filmed in Prague so we decided to spend the evening watching some and trying to see if we recognized the locations.  Google found quite a few interesting choices including Amadeus, Les Miserables, Yentl, The Illusionist and The Bridge at Remagen.  The only one available on Netflix was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.  It actually starts off in the Budapest train station and has a number of scenes in Prague.  It was fun to see.

*  For anyone who didn’t realize it the title of this blog is a quote from a Seinfeld episode.

Distance walked: 6.4 miles

Saturday, June 9

The first order of the day was to find a coffee shop.  We headed over to a place called La Bohème Café.  With a name like that how could we resist?  It had been well reviewed and was an easy walk from the apartment.

The café is due East from our place just past Wenceslas Square.  We quickly realized that this was a very residential part of Town, the streets were fairly empty and there were no tourists.  Finally, a taste of the real Prague.

The coffee shop had a nice array of options.  We really wanted to try one of the fancy filter coffees but they were about $5.00 a piece so we settled for a couple of cappuccinos.  In spite of their location they still seem to have tourist prices!

The café is charming.  It’s a large space with soaring ceilings decorated in the style of a library.  The front area has comfortable sofas and chairs while in the back there are upholstered booths with tables.  The coffee was very good.  They also had a few cakes for sale but we didn’t try them.

Our next destination was one of the National Museum buildings.  The location we were interested in was at the top of Wenceslas Square.  We looked online and found that the building was closed for renovation but that the collections had been moved to the adjacent building.  The original building had been severely damaged in a conflict with the Soviets in 1963 and had fallen into disrepair.  Renovations have recently begun and are expected to take several years.  The new building was constructed during the Soviet occupation, is rather utilitarian looking and has been derided as looking “brutish”.  It’s definitely out of step with the surrounding architecture.

The museum only houses temporarily exhibitions.  None of the choices interested us so we left and headed over to Municipal House, which is quite close to our apartment.

During the middle ages the site was the home of a royal palace.  The remains were demolished in the early 20th century and a new building was built in Art Nouveau style.  The interior is decorated in Art Deco style.  Several notable artists helped with the decor including Alfons Mucha.  The building houses a concert hall, civic offices and several restaurants.  You can tour the building for about $15 per person.  We were sorely tempted to attend the evening’s concert which featured the Saint Saen’s Cello Concert performed on the Double Bass, the Schumann Piano Concerto and Dvorák’s New World Symphony but tickets were $45 a piece and we had low expectations of the groups that were performing.

Finally we headed over to an Irish pub to watch the Ladies Singles finals from the French Open.  The pub is a well known sports bar and has many screens where you can simultaneously watch several events.  We ordered lunch consisting of an Irish cheddar and onion sandwich as well as a BLT with Irish bacon.  Both came with salads and were surprisingly delicious.  During the course of the match we ordered a Staropramen beer and a mojito, neither of which we’d ever had before.  The beer was light and devoid of the skunky flavor that we abhor.  The mojito was quite good.  We thought that it was a tequila drink but found that it is normally made with white rum.

We were rooting for the American, Sloan Stevens, who gave it her all but in the end Simona Halep prevailed and captured her first major title.

Distance walked: 4.2 miles

Thursday, June 7

Today we went back to Prague Castle to see all of the things we learned about on our tour.  You can walk around most of the grounds for free but if you want to go into any of the buildings there is a fee.  Our guide told us that there wasn’t much to see and that it really wasn’t worth the cost of the tickets but we didn’t care.  We wanted to visit these things ourselves.  Besides, there were two things that we were dying to see: Saint Vitus Cathedral and The Picture Gallery.

The ticket offices offer three combination tickets and several add-ons for sale.  We bought the ticket that included the most sights.  The picture gallery was only available separately but we thought it was free on Monday afternoons and wanted to confirm that.  When we asked the ticket agent informed us that The Picture Gallery was closed for the entire month of June!  We were heartbroken.  How could they close one of the most popular exhibits during the busy summer months.  No Slav Epic and now no Picture Gallery.  We’d been to over 200 churches, synagogues, mosques and temples since our trip begin – how could the gods have conspired against us so?

We started the tour at The Old Royal Palace.  Just as the name implies this building was the primary residence of the King and Queen starting in the 12th century.  It was designed in the Gothic style with later additions in the Renaissance style.  The main hall, Vladilav Hall, is a huge space with towering ceilings supported by an unusual and very pretty double vault.  The hall was originally built so that the king could joust when the weather was bad.  The ramp for the horses to enter still exists at the far end.  Today the hall is used mostly for State receptions.  The presidential inaugurations are always held there.

(Vladilav Hall)

It was a real treat to wander around a genuine medieval Gothic palace.  We even saw the room (and window) where the Second Defenestration happened.    If you’re not familiar with these events then you may be interested to learn that in 1618 the Habsburgs were trying to take away many of the rights that the Hussites (Protestants) had gained under Emperor Rudolf II.  When the Catholic members of the government came to deliver the bad news the Hussites threw them out of the window.  This was the start of the very bloody and costly 30 Years War.  During the First Defenestration 200 years before (at a different location) the Catholics all died when they landed on spikes.  This time they landed in manure and all survived.  It was considered a miracle.  There was a third Defenestration as well but that’s a story for another time.

Next we visited an adjacent building and saw The Story of Prague.  The exhibits resembled an Ethnographic museum and told the story of the history of the region and the peoples who inhabited it.  The displays included things like artifacts from burial sights, religious artifacts and royal decrees.  Of course the building itself was very old and interesting to see as well.  Near the end there was a film that recapped most of the information that we’d already seen.  We thought it would have been better to start with the film as an introduction.

Our third stop was at Saint George’s Basilica.  It was founded in 920.  A convent was added in 973.  After the fire of 1114 the church was reconstructed in Romanesque style with a main apse and two steeples.  Saint Ludmilla, the grandmother of Saint King Wenceslas, is interred in a chapel that is dedicated to her.  Many members of the Premyslid dynasty (1306-1521) are entombed in the main nave.  The decorations seen today are rather plain.  Many of the frescos over the main alter have virtually disappeared but the ones in the side chapels are still very beautiful.  The Chapel of Saint John Nepomuk was added in the 18th century and, in stark contrast to the rest of the church, was done in the Baroque style.

After a short wait in line we finally entered Saint Vitus Cathedral.  You can enter the church for free but you’re only allowed to stand in the back.  That part is owned by the Catholic Church.  The rest of the church is owned by the Czech Republic and if you want to see it you need to purchase a ticket.

It’s a huge Gothic style building.  Construction on this church, the third house of worship on this site, began in 1344 and, after many interruptions, was completed 600 years later in 1929.  It’s a magnificent building.

Before construction started the Czeck kings sent designers to survey the great European capitals.  They wanted to built their city in the most modern style.  As a result they modeled their buildings on the Gothic style architecture that they’d seen in Paris.  The design of the Cathedral itself was modeled after Notre Dame, where construction had started 200 years earlier in 1163.

(The Main Nave)

The interior consists of a main nave and narrow side aisles lined with chapels.  A separate ceremonial entrance is situated in the transept.  The royal mausoleum is positioned directly in front of the high alter and underneath it is the royal crypt.

(Stained Glass Windows From One of the Chapels)

Upon entering its impossible not to be awed by the high arched ceiling.  Soon after you will notice the stained glass windows.  Every chapel is illuminated by these windows as is the main alter.  There is also a rose window over the far end.  One of our favorites was the one done by Mucha which was completed in 1931.  The window portrays Saint Wenceslas as a boy with his grandmother Saint Ludmila in the center, surrounded by episodes from the lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius who spread Christianity among the Slavs. An image of Slavia (an Allegory for the Slavic people) is also included below Christ.  Slavia is also an emblem for the Slavia Bank who funded the stained glass window.

(Mucha Window)

Saint Wenceslas is buried in a chapel bearing his name.  The walls consist of precious stones and paintings of the passion cycle.  A door in the chapel leads to the Crown Chamber where the Bohemian Coronation Jewels are kept.  Seven keys are required to open the door and these keys are divided between the heads of the government and the heads of the church.

Next we went to Rosenberg Palace.  There wasn’t much to see there.  The few rooms that are open to the public were decorated with period furniture and artifacts exhibiting daily life.

Our last stop was at the Golden Lane, a street of small houses originally built during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II by members of his Red Guard for themselves and their families.  Over the years the houses were bought and sold many times until most of them became commercial shops.  Today most of the shops sell souvenirs.

The first shop we visited was an armory.  They had many suits of armor and weaponry on display on three different floors.  Anyone interested in ordering a custom suit of armor for themselves would be advised to stop in for a visit.

Another place of interest was a house #22 where Franz Kafka lived between 1916 and 1917.  While living there he wrote some of the short stories that were included in his book, “A Country Doctor”.  Prague Castle was his inspiration for his book entitled,  “The Castle”.

The lane ends with a visit to The Black Tower.  It was used as a prison and a place of torture starting with it’s completion in 1496 until 1781.  If you were really bad they would lower you through a small hole in the ground to a dark and dreary cell.  There were displays of the rack, the boot and other medieval devices.  It was very interesting.

Distance walked: 9.0 miles