Tuesday, June 5
We started the day by going out to a new coffee shop. It’s called Friends Coffee Shop. It has no relationship to the TV series of the same name but like its namesake it is a wonderful place to sit, relax and socialize. The front section of seats features tables all along a glass enclosure overlooking a garden. Further back are several large rooms with tables of varying sizes. Many people were congregating with and without laptops.
We ordered an iced coffee with vanilla ice cream and a caramel frappe. Both were vey drinkable but nothing special. It’s seems that from now on we’ll be comparing all coffee drinks to the ones we got at Gerbeaud in Budapest and they will inevitably come up short. We sat and gabbed for over an hour. It’s hard to believe that after 32 years of marriage we still have that much to say to one another.
Fully caffeinated we walked over to the Jerusalem Synagogue. This one is near the main train station about half a mile from the Jewish district. It wasn’t included in our ticket from the day before. The exterior of the museum is a combination of Moorish and Art Nouveau styles with high arches and a Star of David embedded in a rose window. The floor plan has a triple naive with two transverse wings. The cost of entry was about $7.00 a person. Since we’d seen so many the day before we decided to admire it only from afar.
Next we made our way over to the Mucha Museum. Alphonse Mucha (1860-1935) was a Czech painter and graphic artist whose works were in the Art Nouveau style. His career enjoyed a huge kickstart when he was engaged to create a poster advertising a theater piece featuring Sarah Bernhardt. Ms. Bernhardt was so impressed with his work that she insisted that all future work be done by Mucha. He was also an ardent nationalist. When Czechoslovakia achieved independence he designed the bank notes and the stamps for the new nation. His works included all sorts of graphic arts including designs for tins and illustrations for books.
During his training in the Académie Julian in Paris he was also trained as a painter. His most famous painting is a series of 20 large canvases called the Slav Epic which depicts the history of the Czech and Slavic people. That work is on display in one of Prague’s national museums.
During his life Mucha produced many different series of posters that included themes such as the seasons, flowers, music, poetry, painting and dance. During his life his works were produced as lithographs and the museum had displays that included representative works from each collection. We also saw several original oil paintings as well as a documentary on his life. No photography was permitted.
(Poster Advertising Champagne)
Mucha’s distinctive style is easily recognizable. Today his works are as popular as ever. Pieces produced in his lifetime are readily available for sale. Many reproductions have also been made.
Several times during the day we had tried to look up something on my phone. We weren’t having any luck and assumed that we were in an area with bad cell reception. By the time we left the museum we realized that something was wrong so we trotted over to T-Mobile to enquire. We had paid for an entire month and were supposed to receive four gigs of data; there was no way we had used that much data in only a few days.
Luckily we arrived when they weren’t busy and we were able to talk to someone right away. At first the clerk tried to explain that my American iPhone wouldn’t work here. We told him that we had a global phone and had used them elsewhere in Europe. He then said that our American service plan would not work here and that we needed to get a different plan. We explained that we had purchased a SIM card in that very store a few days ago and until that day everything was working. Having covered his checklist for dumb Americans he resorted to looking up our account on the computer.
After a few moments he called over a colleague. They spoke in Czech for a few minutes, typed frantically on the keyboard, and then called for a third person to help them out. We thought that this was a bad sign. After typing some more the third guy left and we were left wondering what was going on. Our thoughts turned to the unfortunate service we had received in Rome.
Eventually our phones started making the usual noises when email and messages are received. The clerk said, “it should work now”. What was the problem? We’re still not sure. It’s not clear that he really knew but for now all is well. We’ll keep you posted.
Before lunch we decided to make one more stop. We went to the main post office to buy our Prague stamp. It was perhaps the prettiest post office we’ve ever seen. Sunlight was streaming through an arched ceiling made of glass tiles, the interior resembled a courtyard with designs painted on all the buildings and the window areas were designed to look like cafes. We started to take some pictures but were quickly approached by a security guard who waived a finger at us (we did get one photo). Off to the side we found a shop where collectable stamps were being sold. There were many collections but most had themes that didn’t interest us. We wanted something that had a picture of an iconic Prague building. Eventually we found an individual stamp featuring Saint Vitus Church. We were very happy.
(Contraband Picture of Prague Central Post Office)
We had lunch at our favorite sausage stand before heading back to the apartment.
Distance walked: 3.9 miles