Cenral Europe Trip, Day Three

I forgot to mention that we also visited the Mucha Museum briefly on Day 2. On the way we saw some great examples of Art Nouveau including the Municipal House. Here is an example of a Mucha, one of Paul's favorites:

Day 3, Last day in Prague
I thought Day 2 was busy, but this day proves to be the longest day of all so far. First we visited the Jewish Quarter, including a few synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery. It was interesting to visit the practicing Synagogue and Paul wore a paper Yarmulke for the occasion. These pictures are of the outside of the buildings as we were not able to take pictures inside and of the cemetery.It was in use from the early 15th century until 1787. The numbers of grave stones and numbers of people buried there are uncertain, because there are layers of tombs. However, it has been estimated that there are approximately 12,000 tombstones presently visible, and there may be as many as 100,000 burials in all. The most important personalities buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery are Yehuda ben Bezalel known as the Maharal Rabbi Löw (d. 1609), Mordechai Maisel (d. 1601), David Gans (d. 1613) and David Oppenheim (d. 1736).
After a lunch of Czech street food in the Old Town and some free time to sight-see and shop we visited the Franz Kafka Museum. This fountain art was created by David Cerny and installed in 2004. The artist explains, "The project is a sculpture of two bronze naked men. They have swivel hips and, facing each other, they urinate into a pool shaped like the Czech map, writing famous Czech sayings in the water. One is by Kafka: ‘Prague is beautiful but it has claws.’

“There’s a Czech idiom about ‘peeing over somebody,’ which I guess translated into English would be to ‘get one over on somebody.’ That’s what the peeing men mean. It’s the way our country behaves,” he said.

Needless to say, the students enjoyed the Kodak moment...:) I'm glad Mr. Plank kept his photo decent.



The Kafka Museum was very interesting and different from any other museum I've been to. I have not personally read any Kafka, but Paul is an avid reader so he really enjoyed the museum and thought it was well-done, though perhaps some of the installations done by modern artists interpreting Kafka were misleading, according to Paul. Paul wrote about it on his blog... http://apieceofwork2.blogspot.com/
Our tour guide recognized that we were all tired, jet-lagged and hot, so we stopped in a park and took a rest. While there, some of us decided to go on an impromptu boat tour down the Vltava.
This is one of my favorite scenic shots, taken from the boat.





Paul with the Charles Bridge in the background.






I put this link here because it is one of my favorite pieces of music and was inspired by the River Vltava. The best-known of the classical Czech composer Bedřich Smetana's set of six symphonic poems Má vlast ("My Motherland") is called Vltava (or The Moldau), and is a musical depiction of the river's course through Bohemia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtLuyWuPDs


We saw a lot of street musicians in Prague and many street artists. They played everything from Smetana to Jazz and it was fun to stop and listen. The artists were mainly doing caricature portraits and watercolors or drawings.
The Bridge Band sounded like they were playing in New Orleans!



Nadia then took us on another walk to see the Memorial to the victims of Communism. It is a series of statues in Prague commemorating the victims of the Communist era between 1948-1989. It shows seven bronze figures descending a flight of stairs. The statues appear more "decayed" the further away they are from you - losing limbs and their bodies breaking open. It is supposed to symbolise how political prisoners were affected by Communism.


On our way out of town to have dinner at the hotel, we glimpsed The Dancing House by Frank Gehry and Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić. It is also nicknamed the Fred and Ginger House as it shows two buildings almost dancing. It's formal name is the Nationale-Nederlanden building and it currently houses a French restaurant and multinational firms. Kind of a startk contrast to the rest of Prague!

Central Europe Trip, Day Two

Day 2
My good friend, Tamsyn Carter, and her family moved to Germany almost 2 years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Prague for Day 2. She was able to stay at the same hotel and we met at breakfast to catch up. So great to see her! She was able to come on our guided tour with the local Czech guide, Felix. He was a crack-up as you can see in this video clip (click the link below). He taught us a Czech tongue twister that is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest phrase without any vowels... Can you say it five times fast?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX_VeWb8jQs
We went first to the beautiful Strahov Monastery. This pic is outside the entrance and some others of the outside and us waiting with the students.

Robert enjoyed taking pictures of Paul taking pictures so he returned the favor. He even got one of Mr. Plank "planking" later in the trip.

I thoroughly enjoyed talking with and getting to know Paul's students. They were friendly and fun. Kirsty was in my group and well-traveled, so she taught me a lot about local currencies and shopping at H&M in every city. I have to admit I bought something there...a wrap because we had an unexpected rain storm and it was COLD...only 10 Euros, too! The kids laughed at me because I fully wrapped it around my head and looked like the Madonna.

In 1670 Jeroným Hirnheim, a philosopher and theologist became the abbot of Strahov. His greatest work, which has survived to the present days, was the building of the new library, the present Theological Hall completed in 1679. This picture taken with my phone doesn't do it justice, but here it is.

In 1779 Václav Mayer occupied the abbot's throne and was the last to carry out great building activities. His most outstanding work was the building of the new library, now in Classical style. Today it is called the Philosophical Hall and is amazing to see.

After the monastery and a run-in will some pushy French tourists (Our Explorica guide spoke French, too, and had some very interesting-sounding words with them!) we walked to the Prague Castle complex which is really a compilation of many buildings and virtually every architectural style from the last millennium!

Tamsyn and I in the Prague Castle Square.

Saint Vitus' Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Prague, and the seat of the Archbishop of Prague. The full name of the cathedral is St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert Cathedral. Located within Prague Castle and containing the tombs of many Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors, this cathedral is an excellent example of Gothic architecture and is the biggest and most important church in the country.

Perhaps the most outstanding place in the cathedral is the Chapel of St. Wenceslas, where the relics of the saint are kept. The room was built by Peter Parler between 1344 and 1364 and has a ribbed vault. The lower part of the walls are wonderfully decorated with over 1300 semi-precious stones and paintings about the Passion of Christ dating from the original decoration of the chapel in 1372-1373. It's hard to capture the effect of the stained-glass in photographs, but these are two favorites.

We also visited the Old Royal Palace. I enjoyed the beautiful simplicity of this palace with the amazingly intricate ceiling and could imagine the court having some fun times in this place.

From the corner window of the Vladislav Hall two Catholic Governors and their secretary were thrown out of the window. They survived thanks to a dung heap, even though some Catholics thought that it was angel’s intervention. This event started Thirty Years’ War.

The view from a balcony in the Old Royal Palace. I can see why they lived there.

And that was all before lunch...a late lunch, but still! We walked back down across Charles Bridge to Old Town and enjoyed a lazy lunch, then spent some time visiting churches, buying souvenirs, and walking, walking, walking. Nadia, our Explorica guide who was with us the entire trip, was an amazing wealth of information.

In the early evening we walked to Wenceslas Square. It is the place Prague residents gather to unite or protest politically. We saw several sign holders and a plaque acknowledging the place where two men have set themselves on fire in protest to communism and anti-democratic Czech policies.

Finally, back to the hotel for dinner, deal with some blisters, sleep, and get ready for our last Prague day...

Central Europe Trip, Day One

Central Europe June 2011 Day One

Paul and I took a group of students on a tour of four major European cities in 10 days. It was exhausting and thrilling. I am going to attempt a few highlights on my blog so I can remember things about the trip and share a few pictures. The first city (after a full day and ½ night of flying) was Prague, Czech Republic.

Prague is beautiful. It was not destroyed in WWII as many European cities were because of a pact with the Germans, so the old buildings are still largely untouched and so amazing. The streets are cobblestone which can be quite tricky for the feet, but also so beautiful. One of the first things we saw was Charles Bridge. Its construction started in 1357 and finished in the beginning of the 15th century. As the only means of crossing the river Vltava until 1841, the Charles Bridge was the most important connection between Prague Castle and the city's Old Town and adjacent areas. This "solid-land" connection made Prague important as a trade route between Eastern and Western Europe.
View of Charles Bridge from the Bank and the entrance tower. Interestingly, Prague (and all European cities) have a lot of graffiti. Our tour guide said it was young people imitating Americans.

John of Nepomuk was a priest under King Wenceslas IV who received the confessions of the Queen. Unfortunately for John of Nepomuk the King was a very suspicious man. He wanted to know the Queen’s confessions which Nepomuk would not reveal, not even to the King, because it would be against his commitment of confidentiality. Nepomuk was therefore executed by being thrown into the Vltava River from the bridge and drown. Czechs say if you touch St. John of Nepomuk's plaque to the right of his statue with your left hand, you will return to Prague someday. So Paul and I both touched it for fun and in hopes to be back someday, of course!

This link is to a panoramic view of our next stop...Old Town Square.

http://vizerra.com/en/locations/prague

Old Town includes the historic Astronomical Clock. The medieval clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the only one still working. It was fun to see it work at each hour and listen to the trumpet players at the very top. I also had fun looking at the crowd! It was quite a crowd. Prague was VERY crowded with tourists, especially groups of older retired people.

Old Town also has beautiful churches. My two favorites were the gothic Tyn Cathedral from the outside and the baroque St. Nicholas Church from the inside.

Outside of Tyn Cathedral and St. Nicholas' Church

Inside St. Nicholas' Church and a look at the dome.

We made a short vsiit to Kinsky Palace to see some art and had some interesting run-ins with the older generation guards (left-overs from the communist era?). Mr. Plank had fun imitating this statue.

After an early dinner at the Grand Café Praha (an old hang-out of Franz Kafka to Mr. Plank's pleasure) and being up all night (Pacific Time) we crashed at the Hotel Duo outside of town and were ready for day 2 at the Prague Castle… Here's a look at the view we saw from the top of the Prague Castle hill...breathtaking!

I Beg to Differ...

So everyone always tells me how much Wyatt looks like Paul...and he does. They have many of the same mannerisms, they run the same, and they do look alike in many ways. Yesterday I came across this photo of myself from kindergarten-age. C'mon! We have the SAME FACE! And Wyatt even has the gap in his teeth. Minus the dark hair and eyes, I think he is the spitting image. What do you think?

The REAL Santa

We've been fielding a lot of questions about Santa this year. "How old is he?", "What if he dies?", "How come Santa is not as fat sometimes?" and usually I turn it around and ask Wyatt what he thinks to save us from outright lies. I'm feeling like this may be one of the last years that he truly believes. We talked as we drove to the mall about how Santa sometimes uses helpers to visit with children since he can't be everywhere at once. Even so, I was so happy that as Santa came into view at a local mall, he looked like this:

Isn't he cute? Real beard and all. He chatted with Wyatt for a full five minutes, pulled out a wallet with some sort of Santa ID and a picture of himself on a WWII jet waving to the crowd (in full Santa gear). Wyatt exclaimed as we walked away, "That was the REAL Santa"!

Dress-up

I like to play dress up, mostly to wear more make-up than any one person should wear...and the fake eyelashes! Luckily, there is Halloween each year to fulfill this need in me. Several people commented that my vampiress was strangely Marie Osmond-ish. Hmmmm, the big, white teeth perhaps? I laughed harder than I have all year seeing Paul in his nerdy English teacher victim costume. And Wyatt...is a pure Power Ranger, don't ya think?