Neither Steve or I had ever been to Prague and it wasn't even high on our bucket list until last fall when Dan Brown's thriller Secret of Secrets was published. We bought it immediately. Steve read it first with me impatiently waiting for him to finish. The novel is entirely set in Prague. Both of us consulted Google Maps and other tourist websites to enhance our visualization of this magical city. From that moment on, Prague was at the top of our travel plans. While traveling, I took nearly 900 pictures. Writing this blog post was hard! I had to really scale them back!
We were excited to book flights to Vienna and a train to Prague. So, when we arrived, we weren't jet lagged at all. Our first destination was the Prague Castle complex ... not to visit it but to pick up our pre-ordered, five-day official Prague tourist passes. Honestly, no one could possible visit all the free sites covered with these passes in just five days, especially since they included English speaking guided walking tours. We immediately signed up for three of them. One started within a half hour. It took us around the outdoors of the castle area and filled us in on plenty of Czech history, local customs, architectural styles, and other introductory information.
On another day, we returned to the castle to tour St. Vitus Cathedral and St. George's Basilica. The lines were long but moved quickly. The interior of St. Vitus was truly elaborate and filled with artwork from various centuries.
In front of the exterior of the 14th century Golden Gate was definitely a newer creation. The open grill was designed by Jan Sokol with bronze vignettes depicting zodiac medallions and seasonal reliefs by Jaroslay Horejc (1930-1955). Of course, I didn't know the details at the time. I had to look it up later ... but I knew I would! After all, one of the units reminded me of my Dad's favorite Hungarian quotation: "Nem kényszer a disznótor". It means, roughly, "No one is forcing you to go to the killing of the pigs". This bronze represents a rural Bohemian winter tradition, much like I'm sure my relatives once did in rural Hungary!
No one was forcing us to go out into the rain either ... but we did! Thankfully, we only experienced one day of light sprinkles and then were rewarded with a rainbow!
Even in the rain, the Charles Bridge is a delight. It is closed to traffic. All sorts of languages drift on the air and boats are always floating by on the Vltava River. Steve and I went on one boat ... at night. It was beautiful and the trip was included on our Prague passes. In fact, there were two other boat excursions that we could have taken!
We climbed the all three towers guarding the Charles Bridge. Two are on the the western side of the Vltava River. One is on the eastern side.
We even walked across the bridge on a night that was scheduled for some sort of movie filming. A big barge was docked in preparation of "something". Plenty of movies have been shot in Prague due to the outstanding architecture that lends itself to historic eras ... including Amadeus (1984), Les Misérables (1998), The Illusionist (2004), Mission Impossible (1996), The Bourne Identity (2002), etc. Right now, Dan Brown's Secret of Secrets is being filmed. Was the barge a part of it? I don't know but we did see almost a dozen trucks with parking passes indicating they were part of Birdwatcher's film crew! I don't follow Hollywood or movies in general and hadn't heard of this movie but I'll now be watching for it!
I will also be on the lookout for information regarding the Czech protest that we saw! A crowd filled the main plaza to voice their concerns over a controversial government bill to overhaul the funding of public broadcasters. Another rally is scheduled for later this month.
On another day, we took a guided tour of the old city's underground area. Our guide was absolutely excellent.
He was also our guide for the walking tour of the city center and the Jewish quarters. Again, he was great. He told us where to show our Prague passes to gain free entry to all the synagogues and the Jewish cemetery. He also helped us find a proper grocery store. Steve and I stayed in a nice one-room with full bath furnished apartment near the castle. We cooked almost every day!
Returning to visit the synagogues was amazing. Each one was totally different from the others. They dated from various eras. The architecture went from ancient Romanesque to Moorish designs. Several had exhibits regarding the Holocaust.
The Jewish cemetery is unlike any cemetery we've ever visited. Because it was impossible to enlarge over the centuries, graves were covered over in order to bury more and more people. The result is an oscillating jumble of stone markers that span hundreds of years.
The Jewish Cemetery is a quiet place of deep contemplation, especially after the exhibits and artwork honoring those who died during WWII.
We always gravitate to places of worship regardless of the religion. Interestingly enough, citizens of the Czech Republic aren't especially religious ... or at least don't indicate any affiliation. Most polls show that the percentage of nonbelievers or those who don't declare a belief is as high as 68%. Those between 16 and 29 years of age are 90% unaffiliated. Yet, their churches are many and beautiful.
Steve and I also took a guided tour of the Clementine Astronomical Tower and Library. The view from the tower was fantastic.
The view from the balcony at the Lobkowicz Museum was equally grand. This museum featured twenty-two rooms of artworks owned after generations of the Lobkowicz family's collected everything from armor to porcelain to glass work to furniture to musical manuscripts to paintings ... including works by Diego Velázquez, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Canaletto. Most of it had been seized by the Nazis. Heroic efforts after 1989 managed to have the works returned.
From the balcony, we could look down on the city with its red roofs in every direction.
The Lobkowicz Museum is very near the Golden Lane in the Prague Castle complex. The row of tiny houses was restored to illustrate some of the various people and their professions that lived there over the centuries ... including an apothecary, a seamstress, a fortune teller, and one of the places that Kafka lived.
House Number Twelve was once the residence of amateur film historian Josef Kazda, who hid and preserved underground reels of Czech films during the Nazi occupation.
A short walk from House Number Twelve is the Daliborka Tower and scary dungeon. Steve and I had quite a good time looking into all the beautifully curated dwellings.
We also went to Kampa Museum. This place housed +the collection of Jan and Meda Mládek, who during their stay in exile in the second half of the 20th century, actively supported Czechoslovak non-conformist artists working under the communist regime. Neither of us were that enthralled. Yet we couldn't get over the floor in one room featuring work by Vladimír Kopeck. This was his painting studio floor. Steve spotted a razor blade on it and bent down to pick it up. Fake floor! Absolutely amazing vinyl covering. It looked totally real. I hope the artist liked it. He died at age 94 before the official reception for this exhibit but he did get to see it.
Steve and I like the Museum of Decorative Arts much better, especially the exhibit showing women's fashions through the ages. It wasn't really the dresses that made the show great. It was the fact that behind the row of garments was a row of the undergarments worn beneath each selection! We laughed and laughed ... even though most of the bras and panties from the 1960s onward weren't really that funny in my memory!
I liked some of the other costumes a lot ... especially the over-the-top embellishments!
Yet the museum we liked best was DOX. We only went there in order to navigate on the trams (which were also free using our Prague passes) to an industrial area on the outskirts of the city and because this wooden blimp called Gulliver's Airship looked cool on our brochure! We had no idea that the exhibits would be so outstanding or that we could actually go inside the blimp! This was an unexpected delight!
Many things were unexpected in Prague ... like how difficult it was to read anything in Czech! Some things, however, were clearly aimed at English speaking tourists ... like the store Ducks of Prague.
Believe it or not ... there were other stores selling all sorts of rubber duckies!
No comments:
Post a Comment