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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Playing Tourist: Saturday in Mala Strana

Prague Castle

Last Saturday, the weather was so perfectly glorious that I had to go out and do something, so I wandered over to Malá Strana and Prague Castle. My ostensible goal was the Three Women Sculptors: Věra Janoušková, Eva Kmentová, Alina Szapocznikow exhibition at the Summer Palace.

As art goes, I'm not a great fan of painting: I prefer my arts to be more tactile, and so I (usually) particularly like sculpture. However, my taste in art is sufficiently old-fashioned that I also like things to look more or less recognizeable. And so, I was not way thrilled with the exhibition.
A piece by Eva Kmentová, outside the Summer Palace:

But it was still a nice day for wandering around the gardens:

After last month's trip to Plzeň with its requisite Marian plague column, I started to wonder about whether or not Prague had a plague column. After Googling™ around, I found references to one that had been in Staroměstské náměstí, but that had been demolished as a symbol of Hapsburg domination shortly after the Republic was declared in 1918. But I also found a reference a reference to this one, in Hradčanské náměstí:

There's also supposedly one near sv. Mikuláše (St. Nicholas) in Malá Strana, but I haven't seen that one yet.

Hradčanské náměstí is also where the Archbishop's Palace can be found:

A statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, looks towards Prague Castle (the residence of his successors):

I'm not sure what these guys were about, but they were attracting a lot of attention on their stilts:

Wallenstein Palace

On leaving the Prague Castle complex, I decided to visit the grounds of Valdštejnský Palác (Wallenstein Palace), the seat of the Czech Senate. There's an entrance to the gardens conveniently near the Malostranská metro station.

The gardens are really lovely, with a huge pond:

There were a lot of people taking advantage of the fine weather to visit:

The gardens are populated by peacocks and peahens, who seem to have no fear of, nor interest in, people. They roamed the gardens every which way, paying absolutely no attention to the humans doing likewise.

Are there albino peafowl, or is this something else?

Perhaps the most striking feature, though, is the dripstone wall:

From a distance, I had thought it was just moss, but the color was wrong. On coming closer, I could see that it had been created and there were the faces and forms of frogs, snakes, and other unspecified animals in the wall:

I can't imagine what effect that wall might have on Senators if they come out to wander in the garden between sessions, but I found it rather creepy!

The Senate website has some very nice videos of the palace and gardens, if you'd like a closer look.

Labels: Prague, Prague Castle, sightseeing, Wallenstein Palace

posted at 12:32 PM permalink 0 comments

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Wine Festival at Prague Castle

Late summer is burčák season in the Czech Republic, and with burčák comes the vinobraní, the wine festivals. While Little Brother was here, there was one in Náměstí Míru and Havličkovy Sady, but they were badly overcrowded. So last weekend, I visited the one at Prague Castle:

Now, burčák is partially fermented young wine; while other nations sell new wine, under EU regulations, only Moravia can call it burčák, and it can be sold only from August 1 through November 30. Burčák is sweet and light and little fizzy and goes down very easily. I'm solemnly assured that there is no hangover like a burčák hangover. Lore has it that, because it is only partially fermented, it continues fermenting even after you've consumed it. But people swig it down like soda, some drinking it directly from the one-liter bottles in which it is sold for home consumption. Moravians will also tell you that "you can't expect to be healthy unless you drink at least seven liters of the young wine each year".

While I had visited Prague Castle before (of course!), I had never actually visited the gardens. They are seriously lovely this time of year:

This vinobraní was a small one: only about a half dozen stalls selling burčák, a couple of food and (non-alcoholic) drink stands, and a couple of pottery stands:

One of the things that continues to amaze me here is the patience of Czechs when they have to stand in line. I never notice any fidgeting or restlessness or grumbling, even at the longest and most slowly moving of lines. I don't know if it's just a holdover from Communism or what, but if you want to buy burčák at a vinobraní, it's definitely necessary:

Besides the stalls, there was also some live entertainment, provided by a group of students. Unfortunately, I was never able to get into a good position to see them, much less take any pictures. There's only this one shot, as they were shutting down: