Sunday, October 26, 2008

Playing Tourist: Sunday at Konopiste

Last Sunday was not quite as grand as Saturday had been: it was a little hazy, but still bright and crisp. So I took advantage of the fine weather to visit another of the local castles, Konopiště.

The inner courtyard:

Konopiště's main claim to fame is that it was home to Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire whose assassination in Sarajevo set off World War I. Franz Ferdinand was an avid hunter and so the grounds attached to the castle are extensive and quite lovely:


Perhaps because it's fairly late in the tourist season, only one of the three tours of the castle was available in English, which was a pity, as I would have liked to have seen the private flat. The castle brochure has this to say about he tour that was available in English:

Unforgettable hunting corridor with almost 900 trophies proves Ferdinand's hunting passion. Throughout his life Francis Ferdinand killed almost 300,000 animals. As for representative salons situated on the 1st floor in the southern wing of the chateau, most significants guests such as the German emperor Wiliams II were accommodated there.

The hunting corridor in particular was really unnerving. Just getting up to it required climbing stairs panelled with hunting trophies before being confronted with hundreds more trophies, each with a little plaque detailing when and where the animal in question had been killed. The sight of all these trophies prompted me to observe that Franz Ferdinand had not been killed by Serb separatists, but rather by a PETA precursor!

The tour guide even pointed out the trophy for a kill attributed to Franz Ferdinand's daughter Sophie when she was 2 years old! (Apparently, her daddy helped her.)

Franz Ferdinand was also an enthusiastic collector of guns, stamps, and St. George images. There is even a "Museum of Saint George" at the castle. Besides the expected figures, paintings, and tapestries featuring St. George, there are also belt buckles, medallions, beer steins and goblets, a bed, and several items whose function I couldn't begin to guess. According to the castle brochure, 900 different pieces are on display.

Statue on the southern terrace:

There's a bear named Kazimír in the moat:

Kazimír is 20 years old and is a long-eared bear (ursus thibetanus).

The park has some fine statuary, although I don't know the significance of this piece:

An urn, for no real reason that I could tell:

The Neptune fountain:

This time of year, the Rose Garden is rather bleak:

It must be lovely in the summer:

The autumn colors helped to make up for it, though:


As at Wallenstein Palace, peafowl roam the gardens with no fear of or interest in the human visitors:

Konopiště was seized by the Czechoslovakian government in 1921 as a Hapsburg property. However, one of the conditions of Franz Ferdinand's marriage to Sophie Chotek was that their children would not be allowed to inherit the throne. As a result, one of Franz Ferdinand's descendants has recently filed suit to get it returned on the grounds that it wasn't Hapsburg property.

Getting There

Supposedly, there is a bus that runs from the Florenc station directly to Konopiště, but I couldn't turn it up on a search. Instead, I took the train to Benešov and then walked to Konopiště. I've noticed this before when using idnes.cz search, though, that direct routes that I later find out existed were not displayed. I speculated to one of my students that perhaps my problem is that I use the English-language version of the search and maybe if I were to stay with the Czech version, I'd get more complete results. Seriously, there must be some trick to getting better results; I just can't figure out what it is.

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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.

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Little Brother's Visit, Days 6, 7 and 8: The (Inglorious) Conclusion

Sixth Day

Monday was the day I resumed teaching, so Little Brother was on his own for the day. When I got home, LB mentioned that he had revisited some favorite sites in the historic center of town. He also mentioned that he had had a sausage at one of the sausage stands on Václavské Náměstí and that it wasn't setting well. We had earlier agreed that Monday night we would have an early celebration of my birthday, and I suggested postponing our celebration to the next night so he would be feeling better. But no, LB insisted that he'd be fine, and so we returned to U Básníka Pánve.

This time, I badgered LB into ordering something properly Czech, and he got the svíčková, sirloin in a cream sauce. He was very pleased with the results. I think he had been dubious about the cream sauce bit, but he enjoyed it.

After dinner, we tried going back to Bar and Books, but for some unspecified reason, they were opening late, so we came home instead to open my birthday presents. And now I have lovely new copies of Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, FDR and Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind. Thanks, LB.

Unfortunately, by the time he went to bed, LB's earlier sausage had already started taking its revenge and LB got sick.

Seventh Day

The revenge of the sausage continued on Tuesday, and LB stayed home with 7-Up and canned soup.

Eighth Day: The Departure

LB had a 9 AM flight to Amsterdam, so we had arranged for an airport shuttle to pick him up at 6:15 AM. He was still not feeling well, but we packed him off anyway. I had a brief text message from him later that day saying "Made It. Lagos. It's crazy here. Will text u tomorrow". By the next day, he was indeed fully recovered, but alas, his Prague stay had an inglorious conclusion.

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Little Brother's Visit, Day 5: Plzen

Plzeň

It had pretty much always been a given that Little Brother and I would visit Plzeň, primarily so that LB could check out the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. Admittedly, after LB discovered Budvar Super Strong, we were toying with České Budějovice to visit the Budvar brewery instead, but Plzeň is only an hour away, while České Budějovice is three hours, so...

We arrived in Plzeň at just about noon and promptly proceeded to get lost looking for the tourist information office. Turns out the tourist information office at the train station is tucked in the back under the stairs going up to the train platforms.

After getting our maps at tourist information, we headed for the historic center of town to take in the sights. There was the West Bohemian Museum:

And there's the cathedral of St. Bartholomew, which boasts the tallest tower in the Czech Republic:

I believe that this is the entrance to the old Franciscan monastery:

The Renaissance city hall:

And the Marian plague column

LB admiring the buildings:

And taking in the sights in the main square:

According to our little guide brochure, the Big Synagogue is the third largest synagogue in the world and also serves as a concert and exhibition hall:

The Old Synagogue, down the street and around the corner, is hard to find, tucked in an alleyway as it is. It has fallen into disrepair but is being restored. Alongside the synagogue is the Monument to the Disappeared:

A cobblestone marked with the name and date of birth remembers each of the Jewish citizens who "disappeared" during the War:

It appears that they go through periodically and refresh the names and birthdates, since the writing on the stones in some sections of this rock garden appear fresh, while others are virtually illegible:

The Josef Kajetán Tyl Theater is another of the highlighted sights:

And there's a pretty little park, Smetanovy sady, that runs down from the back of the theater:

"Daddy" Spejbl and his son Hurvinek were the creation of a Plzeň theater professor named Skupa and are here as reminders of Plzeň's puppeteering tradition:

The Brewery

All this was largely by way of killing time before the 2:15 English tour of the brewery of course.

When we got to the visitor information center for the brewery, we found that, in addition to the fee for the tour, there's an additional charge if you want to take pictures. That seems very odd to me. I could understand not allowing pictures at all, if they were concerned about industrial espionage, say (though that seems pretty implausible). But allowing picture-taking only on payment of a fee (I think it was 150 CZK) seems pretty stingy. On the other hand, some people (including LB) were willing to pay it, so I guess it makes good business sense for them. The following pictures were taken by LB, since I declined to pay for the privilege of taking pictures.

The complex is a large one. Not only is Pilsner Urquell brewed and bottled there, but it shares its bottling facilities with several other beers owned by the same parent company. We were taken to see the facility where the bottles are filled (there are separate facilities for filling kegs and cans). We also got to see where the beer is brewed, in their vast copper vats:

While the beer is aged these days in stainless steel silos, once upon a time, it was aged in wooden kegs, and they still keep these to show the tourists:


They do in fact still age some of their beer this way, but it's strictly for consumption by visitors taking the tour!

LB also liked their railway car:

And their old delivery truck:

Absinth

The daughter of a friend had told LB, most emphatically in fact, that he had to try absinth while he was here. I tried to discourage him: Czech absinth is little more that grain alcohol with green food coloring, I told him. But after dinner that night, we saw absinth on the drink menu, and he insisted on trying it.

The waiter appeared with a pack of matches and two glasses: one glass with the shot of absinth and the other with a couple of envelopes of sugar (one white sugar, the other brown) and a spoon. We looked at this ensemble for a minute (I know the French way of serving absinthe, with the slotted spoon, sugar cube and water, but I've never paid any mind to the Czech approach), and called the waiter back. He emptied the packet of white sugar into the spoon, set the absinth on fire, and held the spoon over the flaming absinth to caramelize the sugar. Needless to say, we attracted a great deal of interest from the neighboring diners. We also got a couple of other waiters appearing at our table to watch the show. After a few minutes, he emptied the sugar into the absinth, covered the glass with a coaster to extinguish the flame, and urged LB to drink up. Of course, after having been filled with flaming absinth, the glass was too hot to the touch, so LB poured the absinth into the other glass. After a tentative sip, which didn't appear to be much to his liking, he tossed the whole thing back, which prompted a coughing fit. A glass of water and 20 minutes later, though, and he was good as new.

I had a very nice sipping rum instead. No coughing fit; no need for a glass of water.

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Little Brother's Visit, Days 3 and 4: Karlstejn

Third Day: Karlštejn

For Friday, I had made reservations for the second tour at Karlštejn. Because this tour takes in the Chapel of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross), they strictly limit access and it is necessary to make advance reservations. The tour also "passes through the Marian and Great towers and offers visit to the Church of Our Lady, Chapel of St. Catharine, former Sacristy, suspension wooden bridge, museum of lapidary, castle's picture gallery, library with exposition of the last reconstruction of the castle."

The train from Prague takes about 40 minutes. Of the former royal castles, this one is the closest to Prague (next after Prague Castle, that is), so the guidebooks warn that it is overrun by tourists. Friday midday, though, this late in the season, there were no hordes of tourists.

After the previous day's extended walking tour, neither LB nor I was really eager to do a lot of walking. However, the castle is a 20 - 30 minute walk from the train station. I had warned LB that the castle was a bit of a hike, but the first 15 minutes or so was at no more than a gentle incline, and LB commented that this wasn't so bad. But look where the castle is relative to where we are was my reply:

And yes, that last 10 minutes was steep!

We arrived at the castle with just a few minutes to spare before our 1:15 tour was to start. The inner courtyard is not particularly interesting:

However, the walls offer superb views of the valley below:

And peaking around the side of the castle:

Karlštejn's main claim to fame (beyond its convenience as a day trip from Prague) is that it was built as a place for safekeeping of the royal treasures, especially Charles IV's collection of holy relics and the coronation jewels of the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, these treasures are no longer stored at Karlštejn, and the castle itself is frankly not all that interesting. The tour guide did his best, though, to make the tour interesting.

The real reason to visit Karlštejn, and particularly to take the second tour, is to visit the Chapel of the Holy Cross: it is totally amazing. The upper walls are lined with a collection of 129 panel paintings dating back to the 14th century, collection by Master Theodoric. The lower walls are encrusted with gold and precious and semiprecious stones. The altar is separated from the rest of the chapel by a screen; on the altar are replicas of the the crown, scepter and orb from the Czech crown jewels (which I had missed seeing in April). We weren't allowed to take pictures, of course, but the virtual tour on the castle website gives something of the feel.

The chapel had fallen victim to extensive vandalism and looting when the castle was reopened to the public following the fall of Communism, so it had been closed for several years for renovation before reopening just a few years ago. But the damage done by tourists accounts for why reservations for tour 2 must be made in advance and the number of tourists for any given tour is limited to no more than 15. The tour guide was very particular about making sure that we did not stray from the carpet!

Aside from the castle, there's nothing much to see in Karlštejn, though LB did browse the souvenir stands and picked up a few trinkets before we headed back to the train station.

Burčák and Dinner

On our return to Prague, there was a wine festival set up in Náměstí Míru, and I was able to introduce LB to burčák, Moravian new wine. It was utterly packed and was to relocate the following day to Havličkovy Sady, so we didn't spend much time. Instead, we went on to dinner at U Básníka Pánve (which I blogged about recently). LB had the "Velvety Velvet", described on the menu as "chicken breast filled with lean English bacon strip, blue cheese, walnuts and golden pear". It was, he said, the best chicken dish he had ever had in a restaurant. (I had my favorite boar goulash.)

After dinner, we went across the street to Bar and Books (which also featured in a recent posting). Since LB is a big James Bond fan, I felt that he should have a "Vesper" (Bond's signature martini), and I knew he would appreciate the fact that they play Bond movies (sans sound) constantly. Unfortunately, he didn't much care for the Vesper and the Bond movie was one of the Timothy Dalton flicks.

Fourth Day

After all the walking we had been doing and with me needing to take some time to prepare for the start of teaching, we kept Saturday low key. LB went out for a walk, returning to the tank at the National Museum and wandering along Václavské Náměstí, while I stayed home, poring over course books and virtuously doing my lesson planning.

When LB returned, we went out to the wine festival at Havličkovy Sady. However, crowded as it had been at Náměstí Míru the previous day, it was even worse on Saturday. And at all the wine stands, the lines were 20 deep (and moving very slowly), so we didn't buy anything or stay for long.

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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Little Brother's Visit, Days 1 and 2: The Orientation

Arrival and First Day

So, Little Brother arrived on Wednesday the 17th for a one-week visit: his first overseas flight! (Way to go, Little Brother! Yay!). I went out to Prague Airport to meet him. As is typical in our family, he couldn't sleep on the flight over, so he was dead on his feet. I had already told him, though, that I was going to make sure that he stayed up until at least 7, if not 8, PM to help him adjust more quickly to the time difference.

By the time we left the metro at Náměstí Míru, though, the adrenalin of his new surroundings was starting to kick in, and he was fascinated by the architecture.

As luck would have it, there was a vacant room in the flat where I'm living, and my landlord agreed to let LB have it for the week (Thanks, Jarda!). One of our first stops, after we had gotten him settled into his room, was the local Albert's to pick up some of the basic necessities (Coke and beer mainly). LB was particularly taken with the sight of Budvar Super Strong, Budvar being, of course, the real Budweiser:

The concept of bacon-flavored Lays also caught his attention, and he had to get a bag of chips as well:

Lays also comes in a roasted chicken with thyme flavor in France, I told him. (For some reason, neither flavor can be found on the Frito-Lay website; I'm not sure what to make of that.)

After our shopping trip and walking around the neighborhood, we came back to the flat and sat up talking and watching xXx, which, since it's largely set in Prague, seemed like a good way to introduce LB to the city.

Second Day: The Walking Tour

The next morning, LB was up by about 10:30 and at about noon we set off on a walking tour of central Prague. Our first stop was the National Museum, at the top of Václavské Náměstí. Because of the current exhibition commemorating the 40th anniversary of Prague Spring, there is a Russian tank parked in front of the Museum. Needless to say, that caught LB's attention.

We moved on down the Square, pausing to admire the equestrian statue of King Václav. I also took LB into the Lucerna so that he could get a look at the inverted statue of Václav. Wandering in and out of a few stores on the way, we meandered on down to Staroměstské náměstí, stopping briefly at the Sex Machines Museum ("the first museum in the world devoted to sexual gadgets").

From Staroměstské náměstí, we wandered down Pařižká, the high-end shopping district. From there, on to the Rudolfinum to stroll down the bank of the Vltava to cross Karlův Most (the Charles Bridge).

Crossing the bridge, we paused to listen to a Dixieland Jazz Band play; a little ways down, a violinist was playing Dvořak.

Arriving in Malá Strana, we stopped to visit Vrtbovská zahrada (Vrtba Garden). We walked in on the preparation for a wedding, but they didn't try to keep us out, so we were able to wander through the garden and admire the view from the top.
The lowest terrace:

One of the fountains:

LB on the second terrace:

We also made a brief detour by Panny Marie Vítězné (Our Lady Victorious; home of the statue of the Infant of Prague). My goal in Malá Strana, though, was the Lanova Draha (funicula) up Petřin Hill to get to the Observation Tower (Prague's answer to the Eiffel Tower). There is no elevator in the Observation Tower: just 299 stairs, so we decided not to climb up the Tower to admire the view.

From Petřin Hill, we hiked more or less cross-country to Hradčany, which is a lot harder than it appears from just looking at a map. But once there, we were able to wander through the castle complex and visit St. Vitus Cathedral.

By this time, we had been walking for about five hours, so it was time to head down the hill to catch the tram home. After dinner (tomato soup and pizza at Matylda), we went home to rest up for a planned Friday trip to Karlštejn.

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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Views from Most Legii

For no particular reason, I took some pictures as I was crossing Most Legií on my way home from Mass this evening.

This one is looking downstream towards Vyšehrad:

That "swan" in the lower left is actually a paddle boat:

You rent paddle boats at Slovanský Ostrov:

There are locks on the Vltava, I guess to help boats come up river?

Looking over to Prague Castle:

Looking over in the direction of Staroměstské náměstí:

And last, but not least, a lamppost, just because I liked it:

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Visit to Cesky Krumlov

I finally visited Český Krumlov after putting it off several times. While it's possible to visit as a day trip out of Prague, it takes about three hours to get there, and the prospect of spending a total of six hours in one day sitting on a bus was not appealing. So instead, I took the Student Agency bus down for an overnight trip.
The seal of Český Krumlov:

And the sight for which it is perhaps best known, the Little Castle and Tower:

Touring the Castle and Grounds

The castle complex is the second largest in the Czech Republic, Prague Castle being the largest. It has some 40 buildings spread out over a kilometer of a hillside overlooking the Vltava River. Just crossing from the Red Gate, the main entrance near the town, up to the gardens took about half an hour.

The former Mint is now the ticket office and main gift shop:

Across the second courtyard from the Mint is the New Burgrave:

Those aren't really stones joined with mortar, nor are there niches with statuary. That trompe-l'œil effect is created with sgraffito. There's a lot of sgraffito and frescos decorating the castle exteriors.

Looking back to the Little Castle and Tower from the path to the gardens:

The Gardens

The gardens alone cover 11 hectares (ca. 27 acres). There's a fountain, of course:

And looking at the fountain from behind:

I think it very thoughtful of them to provide a little step ladder, the better to get a good view of the garden:

Although, even with the stepladder's help, I couldn't get a really good perspective of the garden:

The gardens are also home to a Revolving Theater. While the theater itself didn't yield any interesting shots, I liked seeing these set bits lying on the grass:

The Castle Bears

According to the castle website, bears have been kept in the moat of the castle since the 16th century, during the era of the Rožmberk family. The family claimed descent from the Italian Orsini family, whose emblem was the bear, and so the Rožmberks kept bears to emphasize the relationship.

The moat is divided in two by the bridge, with Kateřina and Vok to the left and their daughter Marie Terezie to the right.

Marie Terezie takes her duties as guard bear seriously:

I can't tell if this is Kateřina or Vok, but it appears that Marie Terezie's parents are less serious about protecting the castle:

I like the way in which they politely discourage people from feeding the bears:

And keeping watch over the bears, we have St. Joseph (on Marie Terezie's side):

While Our Lady keeps watch on Kateřina and Vok's side:

The Tours

There are three guided tours of the castle, of which I managed to complete only two (leaving a tour of the theater for another visit, I guess). We heard the stories of the various families who owned the castle, starting with the Rožmbrks (1302-1602), followed by the Eggenbergs (1622-1719), until it was passed on to the Schwarzenbergs (1719-1947). It was nationalized in 1950 by the Communists. Following the Velvet Revolution, it was offered back to the Schwarzenbergs, but conditional upon their assuming responsibility for restoring it. They declined the offer.

As do so many castles, this one has a "White Lady". Here, it's Perchta of Rožmberk. Perchta was unhappily married to a much older, abusive husband, Jan of Lichtenstein. On his deathbed, Jan repented of his many cruelties and asked Perchta's forgiveness. When Perchta refused, he cursed her instead. As a result, she now haunts the former Rožmbrk residences, especially this one. If she appears wearing white gloves, good news is in the offing. However, if she's wearing black gloves, it's a death omen. The tour guide claimed that one of her colleagues had recently reported a sighting of the White Lady. However, she went on to say, he was drunk that night, so no one believes.

There are lots of bearskins rugs in the castle: while I vaguely noticed this, I didn't really pay it any mind until the tour guide brought it to our attention. "These are the bears from the moat", she told us. For some reason, that really creeps me out.

Besides the Castle, There's the Town...

In addition to visiting the castle, I took the audio guided self-tour of the town.

The Marian Plague Column in the Main Town Square is under renovation:

Krčín House is notable mainly for its sgrafitto and frescos:

And round the corner...

If I remember correctly, this was the house of Sheriff Slatinský:

Farewell

And a last look on my way back to the bus stop:

I've put some additional photos into this slideshow:

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Pottery Making Market at Nelahozeves

While I was at Prague Castle on Saturday, in my failed attempt to get a look at the Czech Crown jewels, I happened to run across a flyer advertising a "Pottery Making Market at Nelahozeves". Nelahozeves is a Renaissance château a little ways north of Prague; it's been restituted to the Lobkowicz family. The town of Nelahozeves is also known for being the birthplace of Antonín Dvořák. So, on Sunday, rather than get up at some ungodly hour to stand in line at Prague Castle, I took the train up the river to Nelahozeves.

There were several dozen stalls, in the outer courtyard, in the approach to the château, and in the inner courtyard, most, but not all, of which were selling pottery or ceramics. There was also a grassy area which was mostly dedicated to games and demonstrations. And, of course, plenty of (not too outrageously overpriced) food and drink. This being the Czech Republic, there was sausage and potato pancakes and goulash and beer.

They were also running the regular tour of the château. There was no English language tour, though; instead, they gave me a pamphlet with the English text of the tour and sent me off with a Czech group.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I wanted to get a look at Dvořák's birthplace, but it's open only alternate weekends, and this wasn't one of those weekends. (You'd really think they couldn't have coordinated this better!).

I took enough photos that, rather than include them in this posting, I've put them into a slideshow.

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(Not) Seeing the Czech Crown Jewels

The Czech crown jewels are not on permanent display, but are trotted out only once every few years, and the current display marks the first time in five years that they have been shown.

I had heard that, at the time of the last display, so many people lined up that the line was being closed by 11 AM (for an exhibit that closes its door to visitors at 5 PM), so I made a point of heading to Prague Castle at 9 AM on Saturday morning, only to find that the line, for an exhibit that opened at 9 AM, was already closed for the day. According to the Prague Post, people were getting in line at 3 in the morning! Given the popularity of the exhibit, I really don't understand why the government doesn't put the jewels on more frequent, if not permanent, display.

Since I wasn't able to see the crown jewels but was in the general vicinity, I did pay a visit to the Loreto, which houses a replica of the Santa Casa in Loreto, Italy. (I highly recommend the website's virtual tour.)
Loreto, Prague
Reportedly, the Loreto was built during the 17th century as part of the Catholic campaign to attract the Czechs back to Catholicism.

Besides the Church of the Nativity and the Santa Casa, the complex houses a treasury which was well worth the visit. The most stunning piece on display was a diamond-encrusted monstrance known as the Prague Sun.

The entrance fee of 110 CZK is waived for priests and religious, which I thought a charming professional gesture.

I'm told by one of my students that replicas of the crown jewels are on permanent display at Karlštejn (a castle near Prague), so I suppose I'll have to make the trek out there one of these days. It won't be quite the same, but at least I'll get a rough sense of what I missed.

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Another Weekend, Another Castle

Once again, I turned to my handy little guidebook for ideas on where to go outside of Prague, and this time I settled on Křivoklát. Its appeal is that it was described as a sort of "living museum of medieval life and crafts". Reportedly, there are resident artists and craftsmen whose products are for sale.

To get there, I took the train to Beroun, then transferred to the train for Křivoklát. The train to Beroun is the one also taken by visitors to Karlštejn, so the train nearly completely emptied out there.

Křivoklát started as a hunting lodge before being converted into a more defensible structure, so it's considerably less ornate than many other Czech castles. As seen from the train station:
Krivoklat
And the view from an adjoining hillside:
Krivoklat

Perhaps because it was a weekend, I don't know that I saw any of the reputed resident artists or craftsmen. Their works, though, were indeed available for sale, and while there wasn't a whole lot, what there was was varied and much more interesting than the usual tourist fare. There was wood work and metal work, fabrics, paintings, products made with honey and with bees' wax.

There weren't many people about at all; that it was pouring rain probably had something to do with that! The inner courtyard:
Krivoklat courtyard
There was one couple who were getting married at the castle, although from what little I could see of the room reserved for that purpose, it hardly seemed a romantic setting. And after the wedding, the wedding party turned out in the courtyard for pictures, with umbrellas overhead and the poor bride trying to keep the hem of her white gown out of the mud.

At this time of year, there was no English-language tour of the interior available; instead, I was given a folder with the text of the tour and sent off to join the Czech tour. The covers were color-coded, so I could tell that there were two other English-speaking couples and one German couple. The interior was not particularly noteworthy, although there was a very nice chapel. There is also a dungeon with an impressive display of torture equipment.

The countryside is lovely, and it would be worth coming back just to wander in the hills:
Krivoklat
I had time to kill before the train came, so I hiked around a little, but the persistent rain (oh, and I was umbrella-less) discouraged me from going too far.

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

Day Trip to Melník

I haven't been out of town for a couple of months, not since my January trip to the Butter Museum at Máslovice. So I pulled out my little guidebook and started paging through the section on day trips, where I ran across a description of Mělník. So I hopped on the bus to have a look.

The castle (of course there's a castle: this is a Czech town) is beautifully situated, on a hill overlooking the confluence of the Vltava and Labe rivers:
View of the Vltava and Labe rivers from Melnik
This view is said to be the inspiration for Smetana's Ma Vlast ("My Country"). The castle was confiscated from the Lobkowicz family by the communists, but has since been returned to them.

From the castle courtyard; in the lower left is the entrance to the restaurant:
Courtyard of Melnik Castle
And the opposite side of the courtyard:
Courtyard of Melnik Castle
That's the spire of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in the background.

The castle has been well-restored and the tour was interesting. As an aside, I'll point out that, by and large, it's the castles that have been returned to private hands that have been better restored and that have better tours. The ones operated by the government have largely been gracelessly restored and the tours are more boring.

The Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul has an ossuary that a Czech professor designed with a group of his students back in 1914. Once you've seen the ossuary at Sedlec, though, this one is a snoozer!

There's really not much else to see in Mělník. The City Hall on the main square is attractive, but not worth a trip:
Melnik City Hall

On my way back to the bus stop, I happened to pass by a cemetery, and decided to take a peek:
Melnik Cemetery
I was really surprised, and touched, that it seemed that all of the graves were decorated with potted flowers. It was only when I noticed the pomlázka decorating one of the arrangements that I realized that this must be an Easter-specific tradition. Even so, it was impressive that each grave apparently had someone still caring for it.

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Prague Zoo and Trojský Zámek

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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Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Butter Museum at Máslovice

Last month, one of my students told me, in response to my usual "So, what did you do this weekend?", that she and her boyfriend had visited the Butter Museum at Máslovice.

"Wait: did you say butter?"

"Yes, the Butter Museum."

"Butter? The yellow stuff they make with milk and you spread it on your bread? Butter?"

"Yes, the Butter Museum. They have a Betlem (Nativity scene) made out of butter."

"So wait, now where is this? Máslovice? Where's that?"

"I'll bring you a map."

And the next class, she did indeed bring me

  • a map showing where to find the correct bus stop at the Kobylisy metro station;
  • a map of Máslovice, showing where the museum is in relation to the bus stop;
  • a bus schedule; and
  • notes about when the museum is open (Saturday and Sunday, from 10 to 12 and from 1 to 4) and how long the Betlem would be there (from the beginning of December through the end of January).

Máslovice is north of Prague, and there's a certain logic to a Butter Museum being housed there, as the Czech word for butter is máslo. The bus ride from the Kobylisy metro station takes about 30 minutes. The countryside surrounding Prague becomes rural amazingly quickly, and the map of Máslovice was really not necessary, as there's hardly anything there and the museum, small as it is, was hard to miss.

The "curator" is a very nice young man named David, who seemed delighted to have a native English speaker to practice his (very good) English on. He willingly showed me through the museum, explaining the exhibits, leaving my side only to collect the admission fee from other visitors and then returning to continue our conversation. There is in fact no butter connection to Máslovice: the town was named after a person named Máslovics. I asked about the Betlem: it was carved by a 24-year old actress living in Prague, but this was to be its last weekend. It was beginning to stink, David candidly observed. Only the third of the three rooms of the museum is devoted to butter, but it is full of butter making implements and paraphernalia, including butter molds, a collection of butter wrappers from around the world, and more kinds of churns than I had ever realized existed. I was particularly taken with one in the form of a child's rocking horse. The container for the milk forms the body of the horse, so the child's rocking can churn the butter. I thought that was particularly ingenious.

The second of the three rooms of the museum is actually dedicated to chocolate. It turns out that the person who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the largest number of chocolate wrappers is a Czech (though not an inhabitant of Máslovice), and it's a rotating portion of his collection that is on display.

The first of the three rooms is just the gift shop/reception area. If you're in the Prague area looking for gifts depicting cows, this is where you want to come.

The weekend of April 12-13, there's to be a Butter Festival at which visitors will be able to participate in making their own butter. I'm thinking that it might be fun to go back for that.

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Monday, August 06, 2007

Getting Outside of Prague, Part 2

The other trip I've taken outside of Prague since my arrival was to Kutna Hora, a UNESCO-protected Heritage site.

Kutna Hora mainly came to fame in the 13th century because it was close to the site of some very prolific silver mines; it remained one of the richest cities in Bohemia until the mines finally petered out in the 18th century.

Sites in Kutna Hora include the Cathedral of St. Barbara (the patron saint of miners):

Another view of St. Barbara's, including a charming view of the scaffolding:

Instead of the usual crucifix, the altarpiece is a painted bas-relief of the Last Supper, which is something I've never seen before, but which makes perfect sense.

Horse-drawn carriages are a popular tourist fixture in Kutna Hora (in Prague as well):

The proximity of Kutna Hora to the silver mines led to the establishment of a Royal Mint. We toured the site of the mint, where coinmaking was demonstrated by a resident coinmaker:

I had always thought that coins were molded, but instead (at Kutna Hora, at least) they were stamped.

We passed by a plague memorial:

All in all, while Kutna Hora is a very pretty town, it didn't really seem to be worth the trouble of the trip, and I'm not quite clear on why UNESCO has chosen to add it to its list of Heritage sites. Of course, I visited on a Sunday, when everything was shut down. I might have derived a more positive impression had it been livelier.

The tour included a trip to the Sedlec Ossuary, which was indeed worth the visit. The ossuary is home to something like 40,000 (!) human skeletons, which form some of the "decorations" for the chapel. This chandelier, for example:

Or this coat of arms, for the Schwarzenberg family:

There's also an unremarkable graveyard outside the chapel:

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Prague Slideshow

Ya know, sometimes one of the reasons that I hold off on posting is because I have all these photos piled up, and so I wait 'til I get them formatted, then I have to think about how to weave them into a coherent narrative, and it's just all so daunting that I put it off and put it off and put it off...

So, I'm just going to put up this little slideshow, mostly from a walking tour I took of Prague, and then I can just get on with posting about life here without having these photos hanging over my head!

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

That Last Week in Paris...

I had that one last week after the end of classes and before coming to Prague. So I took advantage of the opportunity to play tourist and to take a few more pictures to remind myself of my sojourn in Paris.

Sunday in Montmartre

I spent one day wandering up and down staircases in Montmartre:

I also liked this view of Sacré Cœur from the little park around in back of the Basilica:

And I had dinner one last time in Montmartre:

Tuesday on the Seine

I finally took one of the Bateaux Mouches trips. I can't really say that I was all that impressed, and I probably wouldn't do it again. But it does provide a different view of Paris:



There are a couple of reduced scale versions of the Statue of Liberty in Paris: one is in the Luxembourg Gardens, and another is on an island in the Seine:

After my little boat trip, I just wandered around a bit, and came across this memorial:

The caption reads, "In homage to Komitas, composer and musicologist, and to the 1,500,000 victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire".

Marais and the Bastille

Another day, I wandered around the Marais and visited the Place de la Bastille:

I encountered this statue of Louis XIII in a plaza near the Marais:

I also visited the Memorial of the Shoah, which I had been unable to find the first time I had looked. It's not very big, and it's easy to get disoriented in the windy little streets of the Marais. The memorial is very moving:

The inscription on the outside reads, "Before the Unknown Jewish Martyr, incline your head in piety and respect for all the martyrs; incline your thoughts to accompany them along their path of sorrow. They will lead you to the highest pinnacle of justice and truth."

The exterior also contains the Wall of Names: the names and dates of birth of the 76,000 Jews, including 11,000 children, deported from France as part of the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe with the collaboration of the Vichy government.

Inside, there's the crypt:

A Star of David fashioned out of black marble, marks the tomb of the six million Jews, dead without a grave. It contains the ashes of martyrs taken from the death camps and from the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. The ashes were buried on February 24,1957 in earth from Israel, in keeping with tradition, by Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan. An eternal light burns at the center of the marble star. There's quotation from the Bible in Hebrew on the far wall: "Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Young and old, our sons and daughters were cut down by the sword".

The permanent exhibition details the history of the "Final Solution" in France, and includes biographies of a handful of Jews resident in France at the time the Occupation began. It was not a cheery experience, but it was an important site to see.

Carousels of Paris

And there are carousels all over the place in Paris. There's this one in the Tuileries:

This one is on one side of the Pont d'Iéna, near the Trocadéro Gardens:

And this one is on the other side of the Pont d'Iéna, near the Eiffel Tower:

And this one I found in the Marais:

I don't really get the carousel thing, but I enjoy looking at them!

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Louvre, Revisited

I went back to the Louvre last week, specifically to the see the Praxiteles exposition.

Praxiteles was a Greek sculptor from the 4th century BC. Virtually none of his work is known to have survived intact. Most of the bronze work was melted down, and the little that survives is corroded and fragmentary, while the work in marble has at the very least been chipped if not broken. As a result, most of what is known about Praxiteles's sculptures comes from written accounts.

So, how do you put together an exposition for an artist who has no surviving, complete work?

  1. You display the fragmentary work, and
  2. You display the copies and pastiches of his work

So, there are multiple variations on, for example, the Aphrodite of Cnidus: Praxiteles is credited with being the first to sculpt female nudes. There are also variations on Apollo Sauroktonos (Apollo the Lizard Slayer: how's that for an appellation to strike terror in the hearts of your enemies?) and the Leaning Satyr. In addition, the exhibit included several statues of a woman who may or may not have been Phryne, who may or may not have been Praxiteles's lover.

I was a little disappointed by the exposition: the multiple variations on just a few prototypical pieces were redundant.

I also wandered around the rest of the Louvre, since I hadn't seen everything my first visit (and still haven't with this second visit). As usual, I mostly focused on sculpture. The last time there, I had missed Canova's Cupid and Psyche:

I think I found my lion friend in the same room:

He's particularly engaging in closeup, although the picture doesn't do him justice:

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the Decorative Arts, which I very much enjoyed. I don't know how I missed it before. And I visited the Islamic Art collection, which is the newest and not yet complete addition to the Louvre's permanent collections. There were some lovely pieces, but it doesn't really come together well yet.

Tourist season has not begun in full force yet, but even on a weekday afternoon, the crowds are starting to mount up:

The public buildings in Paris, such as churches and palaces, never cease to amaze me. I have enormous difficulty wrapping my brain around constructing places on such a grand scale. The only thing comparable we have in the States are shopping malls. And will people still be going to, say, the Mall of America in a few hundred years? (Oh, Lordy: I hope not!)

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Sunday, June 03, 2007

Versailles, Revisited

There's only one excuse for visiting Versailles on a summer weekend: to see the fountains in action. It's too expensive to run the fountains all the time, so they're only on for a few hours a day on weekends from April through September. (Versailles also charges admission to the gardens on these days; otherwise, entry is free.) There's also a soundtrack of Baroque music, played by Le Concert Spirituel.

While I had enjoyed the gardens on the occasion of my earlier visit, being able to see the fountains in action made it ever so much better.

A smattering of the fountains, starting with the Apollo fountain:

The fountain in the Bosquet of the Pyramid:

The Dragon basin:

The fountain in the Bosquet de la Girandole:

There were more people in the gardens this time (surprise, surprise), and the row boat rentals were open:
Pity they don't have paddle boats, though, like the ones at Stow Lake.

Since I was there, though, I took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Dauphin's apartments (which I hadn't had time for before) and the apartments of Mesdames (which are open only on weekends), as well to spend a little more time in the gardens at the Petit Trianon:

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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Fontainebleau

This week's little excursion was to Fontainebleau, about 1/2 hour (by train) southeast of Paris.

The trip and Avon, where the station for Fontainebleau is located, are not particularly interesting. The suburbs of Paris through which the train passes look largely industrial; it doesn't get pretty until after Melun. As for Avon, I suppose I really shouldn't judge by what I could see from the bus, but I certainly didn't see anything that made me want to linger.

The château has been there since the 12th century, and was used and renovated by kings and emperors through the Second Empire in the 19th century. Most of what remains now was built on what François Ier put in place in the 16th century, but very little is in an "original" form. There are rooms where the ceiling panels are from the time of François Ier, but the panelling on the walls dates to Louis XIV, while the furniture is from the reign of Napoleon III. (In fact, one of the artists who worked on the restoration painted DeGaulle and one of his ministers into some of the trim in the Hall of Trophies, so you could even argue that the renovations continued right on up to the Fifth Republic.)

The main approach to the Château is now across the Court of the White Horse (named for a statue that's been gone since the 17th century); also known as the Court of Adieux, since it was from here that Napoleon made his farewells before going into his first exile.

The audio guide that's included with the price of admission to the Château is very good, and quite complete. The guided tour, on the other hand, was pretty much a waste of time. It mostly covered rooms that are also done in the audio guide, and the tour guide was uninspiring. She seemed more interested in getting the tour over with.

The gardens are lovely, through: spacious and green, with lots of fountains and ponds. I don't quite get what's going on with the topiary cones, though.

The carp pond in back of the Château has this little pavilion in the middle, where the King could entertain his mistress. One hopes that they remembered how well sound carries over water!

And a view of Fontainebleau from the far side of the carp pond.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Musée Rodin

Last week's sightseeing trip was a visit to the Musée Rodin, one of my favorites. They had just opened a new exhibit, Le Rêve Japonais (The Japanese Dream), which includes both Japanese selections from Rodin's private collection as well as Japanese inspired works of Rodin.

I was not all that blown away by the exhibit, although that says more about my tastes than the exhibit. The reason I really visit the Rodin is to wander in the garden and visit my favorite sculptures. The Thinker, for example:

Or The Burghers of Calais, which is just heartbreaking:

The Three Shades I find fascinating: it's three of the same figure, just turned differently:

And of course, I could pour over The Gates of Hell indefinitely:

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Saturday, May 26, 2007

Chartres

I took a little day trip down to Chartres on Wednesday the 16th.

It's an hour out of Paris by train, through some very green and lush country. Aside: each time I leave Paris, I return a little more dissatisfied with pavement and stone buildings.

The Cathedral is a prominent landmark: you can see it about 10 minutes before arriving in Chartres, and it's easy to hone in on once you arrive. It's also close enough to train station that I could easily remember how to get back!