Municipal House and the Zoo

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