Prague to Lugano

Today is a travel day to get us to Lugano so here is what we didn't get to do:

Ran out of time:
- Smetana Museum
- Dvorak Museum
- A good professional Orchestra concert
- Dvorak Birthplace and Lobkowicz Summer Castle
- Visit some of the city parks
- A long day trip to Auschwitz

Things we didn't do because of time AND money:
- Dinner at the Sarah Bernhardt Restaurant
- A quality concert in each of the churches or synagogues - these were very expensive and the groups performing didn't seem to be of the highest quality
- A evening on a Jazz Boat in the Vlatava (Moldau)
- Don Giovanni - Mozart's opera and theater which he conducted the world premier

I was not planning on blogging today but we did have a few experiences in Lugano so check the next entry

Prague - Aug 8th

Today we hit:

• Kafka Museum - A lot of thought went into laying out the museum. Kafka seems to be a mentally disturbed Jew from Prague and the museum helped explain the connection that Kafka had to the city.
  
• Wallenstein Gardens - Very classical gardens with a cool modern wall on one side. 6 huge owls are housed in a cage. We did learn about the Czech Senate which is now housed in the Wallenstein Palace.
  
• the rest of the Prague Castle - The art of Prague Castle was mostly based in the 15th to 17th centuries which was interesting but not our style. The Powder tower we learned about military head gear from Helmuts to Caps to Shakos.
  
• the highlight of the day was the Lobkowicz Palace (see below)
  

The Lobkowicz Museum has just opened in this past year. The family have been royalty in this area for 4oo years but they decided to leave as the Nazis were coming causing them to lose their homes and all of their possessions. Likewise in 1948 when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia they decided to get out after being back for a few short years. Shortly after the Berlin Wall came down, the Czech government had a process for reclaiming ‘stolen’ items. They were able to recover everything and are now in the process of restoring the castle and the vast collection of stuff. Check out some of this:

• The fourth Prince Lobkowicz was a private benefactor to Beethoven and the 3^rd, 5^th, and 6^th Symphonies are dedicated to him along with a set of string quartettes.
• A ton of portraits of the generations of the family. Each one had a story…
• A bird room. Each drawing was Audubon quality but they include real feathers from the bird.
• A dog room consisting of portraits of dogs throughout the centuries
• 10 different dinnerware collections many of which are more than 200 years old

We did get a 10% discount in the cafe and decided to get a drink. They have a wonderful view of the city and serve their own beer which is pretty good.

Prague - Aug 7th

We got going a little earlier today to try and beat the crowds. It was a nice walk over to Prague Castle as the Old Towne Square was almost empty with the restaurants still closed and the tour groups not organized yet.

The Charles Bridge was surprisingly empty including the vendors that usually set up on both sides of the street. (Check out the castle over my left shoulder) The walk up the hill to the castle took us past the Academy of Music where we heard through open windows several pianist practicing. The guards wouldn’t let us roam the halls unfortunately.

We got our tickets and joined the tour groups with the Japanese in front and the Germans behind us to see St. Vitus’s Cathedral. Coolest part was the Mucha stain glass window (see Aug 5). We then took a walk around the rest of the court yards and saw St George Basilic, the oldest restored building, and then the monestary right next door which has been made into a well designed art gallery. Every article in the gallery is by a Czech artist which we have never heard of yet I felt many of the paintings, sculptures and furniture could hold its own in almost any other art gallery I have seen.

Next, as Lisa found in the tour book, we caught the noon changing of the guard complete with band, swords, rifles, and precision dills. My video didn't turn out but you can see someone's who did here.

Next we were amazed by the size of the Old Royal Palace where supposedly they did indoor jousting complete with horses. The view of the city is amazing from here, I guess that is why all of the Bohemian, Moravian, and Hapsburg kings grabbed this chunk of land. The Story of Prague Castle is a great history of the museum with cool relics but it was very over whelming. I got burned out after 45 minutes or so. We caught the Golden Lane, the Vineyard, and the Torture Tower and then figured out why they allow the full price ticket to be valid for 2 days. We plan to hit the rest of the stuff tomorrow along with the Kafka Museum and the Wallenstein Gardens.

We found the way over to the Royal Garden and as we entered we saw a couple of birders handling about 10 different raptors. They let another American hold a tawny owl and we talked to the girl holding a ….Falcon. Another guy took a falcon out for a walk. He would walk about 100 ft and then whistled and the bird would swoop to the next tree. Pretty cool.

Dinner started with a Budvar Pilsner with a sausage appetizer at a Czech restaurant that we found going down the hill. We decided to the the Lonely Planet guide book and decided to find Dezni over near our hotel. Turns out that it is a kosher restaurant and not half bad at that. So I finished off my night with Pilsner Uquell and a Mongolian beef sandwich.

Prague - Aug 6th

Today we went to Terizen (Thereisenstadt) with Wittman Tours. Martina had a little less personality than Barbora from yesterday but she was very knowledgeable. We ended up with a small group, a brother and sister that came from Hungary just before the Hungarian Revolution, her son, and the brother’s and son’s wives who they were showing Prague and Budapest. On the 45 minute drive Martina gave a description of how the Jews of Prague were forced across the river early in the war. Then they had to board the trains near Prague and were dropped off 2 miles from the Terizen Fortress. Then a walk of 2 miles brought them inside the fortress walls which the Nazis conveniently used to create a ghetto. This worked for about 1 year but then the overcrowding caused them to turn the ghetto into a concentration camp from which almost all of the Jews were sent to extermination camps throughout eastern Europe, mostly Auschwitz. I finally understand the difference between ghetto, concentration and extermination camps now. Although Terizen had four ovens setup on the cemetery grounds these were used to cremate many of the 32,000 Jews who died of ‘natural’ causes like malnutrition, typhoid, dysentery, etc. The extermination camps were the place where the intentional killing was done. The trip also included a quick walk around the little fort on the other side of the river which the Nazis used as a prison during the war.

For our music adventure we went to a concert advertised as the International Horn Festival. We hoped to see some of Hannah’s friends from Oberlin but it was a recital put on by last year’s winner. It was OK but at least we got to see the inside of the Klementinum Mirror Hall. Had dinner right outside at the first private restaurant in Prague, Rekavik, started by an Icelander. We had a very nice American fried appetizer platter and 2 different pasta’s that were very tasty. Walked over to the Charles Bridge and walked up the Vlatva River to watch (and take pictures of) the sun setting behind Prague Castle.

Prague - Aug 5th

After a good nights sleep we woke up just in time to have breakfast and head over to the Hotel Intercontinental. The Wittman Tours leaves from there at 10:30AM for a 3 hour tour of the Jewish Museum. This is actually a visit to 5 historic synagogues and a cemetery. Actually very fascinating and well worth the time. Turns out that Lisa and I could have spent another couple of hours just reading and looking at the artifacts. Our guide, Barbora, was a young women majoring in Jewish Studies in a Czech University. Her family is Jewish on her mother's side and she has been learning her heritage for about 10 years somewhat against her mother's wishes. There is supposedly 3000 people in Czech Republic that identify with a synagogue but she believes that there are many more like her that are identifying themselves as Jewish.

We then had a nice lunch at the first Kolkovna Group restaurant just across the street from the Spanish Synagogue, this time we tried the Czech Goulash and of course a mug of Pilsner Urquell. Very tasty...

Headed over to the Cubist Museum which we had walked by 4 or 5 times already and didn't recognize that the Black Madonna (the name of the building) was a Cubist style building, it seemed to fit in very nicely with the more classical buildings just a block off from Old Town Square. We learned a lot about the Czech artists between 1910 and 1918. Pretty amazing that this style came and went so quickly.

Prague - Aug 4th

Walked over to the National Museum. Lisa through her excellent reading of the guide book discovered that the museum is free the first Monday of every month and we hit the jackpot by planning our trip right!!! It is actually a great natural history museum from the way I remember the Carnegie 40 years ago. A very big (not quite as huge as the St Petersburg Geological Society) rock collection shown in row after row of old wooden and glass display cases, similar prehistoric display of archeological artifacts, fossils, animals both skeletons and stuffed. When you go check out the complete Fin Whale Skeleton, the ‘real’ Wooly Mammoth, and of course the rocks. The special exhibit was done for the year but they did have a recursive display of the history of the National Museum. They had a video showing many of the Czech dignitaries that laid in state there and also an old movie that was made in the museum about the museum (catch the recursion???).

When we were done we went outside and it was raining. After waiting a bit we decided to don our raingear and try to find the Wittman travel agency. It was just a few blocks away but we couldn’t find it. But we did find a section of Prague that was not nearly as touristy as the section around our hotel. Stopped for pizza in an underground tunnel that wasn’t half bad.

Next stop was the Mucha Museum. Very cool guy that I didn’t know much about but I do like the Art Nouveau that he was a key contributor (in fact he decorated the Municpal Hall where we saw the concert the previous night). We had seen some references to Sarah Bernhardt (restaurant, posters, etc) and now we know why.

Next on the plan was a visit to the Jerusalem Synagogue. Very beautiful and in the Spanish style with an art nouveau twist. You see it was built around 1900 when that style was popular. The separate door to the women’s section was closed as the women’s gallery was being renovated.

Guess what, it was then 20 minutes before 5PM and we still hadn’t witnessed the Astronomical Clock. So a quick walk to Old Town Square and we watched the 6PM display (they don’t seem to adjust for daylight savings time) with couple of thousand other people. Pretty cool but not as mind boggling as thought it would be.

Next, I had been trying to find a Boingo wireless site that was easy access to the hotel( they want $40 a day for internet access at the hotel). What we found was a very nice wine bar but they no longer had wireless access. We had been looking forward to some beer so we headed off looking for a place that had tables on the street, good prices on draught beer, good food, and free internet. Not easy to find but again Lisa’s research had discovered a Pilsner Urquell Cisco?? with a location near our hotel. Turns out that it was all of those but the internet connection didn’t allow me to connect my work VPN. We did do a Skype call to our son Sam, check our other email, had a ‘little’ beer, a cheese plate and a beef rib. We would recommend this place as a good reasonably price place to hang out.

We had wanted to squeeze in a concert in the Spanish Synagogue but what looked like a short walk on the map turned out to be a nice ½ hour tour of the Josenov section. At least we know where to go to visit the other synagogues in Prague.

Prague - Aug 3

We left Pittsburgh on time with the help of our friend Chas Hirsh. We went to services Friday night and he volunteered before we even told him that we were planning on taking the bus to the airport. We got there in plenty of time, had our lunch, bought a snack for Boston and then Lisa wanted me to change our seats on the Boston – Frankfurt leg since we both ended up with middles. Well she couldn’t do anything about it but was about to page the Levinson’s. It turns out that our seats on the Pittsburgh –Boston leg were broken. We she had to scramble for volunteers since of course the flight was booked solid. We ended up in Prague as planned with no more adventures (our luggage even made it this time).

We checked in at 10AM and they upgraded us to concierge level. Lisa was impressed. Ended up taking a nap and then heading out for a walk around the neighborhood. We hit Old Town Square, the Rudolfinum, Manesuv Bridge, back over on Charles Bridge. Stopped off at the Apropos Restaurant where Lisa had a trout and I had a greek salad. It was good but nothing special although we didn’t have the chocolate cake which the waiter tried to tell us was to die for.

In Old Town Square, I was taking pictures like all the other tourists. A guy came over and wanted us to take a picture of his party. Turns out that they were from Siberia. Those Russians are sure getting around.

On this walk we found many different concert going on in various churches and theaters in the area. We decided on the first one since it was the ‘Last Night’ of the Prague Proms and they seemed to have the lowest prices. Turns out they claimed the cheap seats were sold out but after going the concert, I don’t think they wanted to sell the cheap seats especially to tourists. The concert was great but the first half was being video recorded. Turns out the producers had a great idea to set up an announcer in the back part of the aisle just where we were sitting to do an interview DURING the horn concerto!!! Well the guy in front of us got up and complained and they left. The concert was in the Smetana Theater at Municipal Hall. The audience was dressed very fancy and the hall was also very ornate with half the women bare breasted (the statues and paintings that is).

Overall, a great start for our week in Prague.

A few pictures for Sam...

Hannah can you help me translate???