The winter weather has been making me restless, but of late, it has turned relatively mild. It’s still too early in the year to venture outside of Prague, so I turned my thoughts to sights within Prague that I’ve not yet visited. On consulting with some of my students, I was advised to check out the Zoo, Troja Château, and the Botanical Gardens. This sounded like a pleasant excursion, so I took myself off to Nádraží Holešovice and the bus for the Zoo.
Now I must say at the outset that I’m no great fan of zoos: I always feel so sorry for the animals. However, the Prague Zoo is very nicely laid out, and the animals have plenty of space. I still worry about the predators especially: some of the big cats were looking very restless, and I can’t say as I blame them. I particularly enjoyed visiting the penguins and the gorillas: their pavilions are very nice.
Since it was so early in the season, it wasn’t very crowded, although a good number of families were taking advantage of the relatively mild day to have an outing.
The amount of space given the animals means that the zoo is very large, and even after five hours wandering around, I think I saw only about 2/3 of it. But I was getting tired of animals and had other stops on my day’s itinerary.
Conveniently enough, Trojský Zámek is just across the road from the main entrance to the zoo. The grounds are perfectly lovely: I’d like to come back later in the Spring to enjoy them in their full glory. I had to wait for about half an hour for the next tour of the zámek, so I had ample opportunity for strolling the grounds.
The tour was rather disappointing. While the architecture is lovely, I was unimpressed by the exhibits. The art struck me as rather pedestrian. I also thought that the ceiling frescoes had been badly restored: the colors were too strong and had been applied without subtlety. The resulting frescoes looked like the products of paint-by-numbers kits.
Language Note
Zámek is usually translated château, which of course is just French for "castle", while hrad is usually translated "castle". So what, I asked one of my students, is the difference between a zámek and a hrad? Well, he told me, a hrad is a stone, defensive structure, usually Gothic, while a zámek is a later, more luxurious, less defensive building. Fair enough, but then what is the difference between a zámek and a palác ("palace", predictably enough). Well, a palác is usually within the city limits and has no grounds, whereas a zámek has extensive grounds and is usually located on the outskirts of the city, if not actually in the country. Zámek is sometimes translated as "villa", which strikes me as more accurate.
There’s also a wine museum: it’s small, but interesting. It describes the viticulture of Bohemia and Moravia, and offers a wine shop. I didn’t buy anything, though.
By the end of my visit to the zámek, it was nearly 5:00, so I decided to save the Botanical Gardens for another visit…
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