You Go Nate!

MISSION: IMPRAGUEABLE

On June 11th I had a mission which I had chosen to accept....

With the Czech capital being only a short train-ride away, I knew I couldn't let Summer pass without paying it a visit.

So that Thursday I boarded my train and set off to the city of Prague, a new place for me!

Friday was a holiday and so there were a lot of travelers on the train. It was in fact, packed. I was sitting in a compartment with four other people (to whom I generously offered some cashews). The aisles next to the compartments were also full of people standing and even sitting on the floor. I could hear some loud American 20-somethings speaking right outside my compartment. I overheard them speaking to one of their friends and asking him about Hungary. Apparently their friend was Hungarian. So at one point I went out of the compartment to stand at the open window in the aisle for a while and stretch my legs and get some fresh air. I was blocking one of the pull-down seats where the Hungarian had been sitting and I turned and asked him in Hungarian if he wanted to sit down. He answered me in Hungarian without thinking and then it dawned on him that somehow I knew he was Hungarian. It was funny.

So we had a nice chat in Hungarian for a while and it turned out he's just studying in Munich and lives down the hall from the Americans and they decided to come to Prague for the weekend. I also talked for a bit with the Americans too. While standing at the window I overheard a German couple next to me say that they really wanted some chocolate. Luckily I had some at the ready and they graciously accepted. Later they offered me some gum! It was fun to meet some new people to make the time go faster. Sometimes the crowded trains are the most fun.

The weather that day was mixed as we passed through thick rainstorms and then sunny skies. The Czech countryside was beautiful....

We passed through the town of Pilsen (famous for the kind of beer they make there)...

Our train had been having problems so in Pilsen we had to stop and change trains to an old rickety Czech train. I shared a compartment with a nice older Bavarian couple on their way to Prague for the weekend.

I was finally able to have a bit of a nap on the train and then I woke up just in time to see us cross the Vlatava river with an excellent preview of the city I was about to visit...

I arrived at the train station and after a bit of wandering, found a decent place to change some euros to krona and then made my way to the Sports Hotel Olšanka. It was a big old hotel built in the '70's and it showed. It was cheap though and the room was clean and comfortable.

After putting my stuff down I headed out into town. One of the first buildings I came to was this tower... one of the old gates leading into the inner city. The cool gothic roof is typical of the old Prague architecture...

Ancient kings welcomed me to Prague...

Soon I came onto the Square of the Republic... Prague's largest, main square with the über-gothic Týn Cathedral...

Next I wandered to the Vlatava river where one of Prague's most famous landmark stretches across the Bohemian waterway...

The Charles Bridge...

This old stone bridge is lined with statues of different saints and historical figures and guarded by two gothic towers on either side...

Here's a statue of Christian missionaries and Turks complete with a prison...

Steeples and statues were everywhere you look...

The bridge was also packed with tourists...

It was a beautiful evening with rainclouds coming in occasionally to make the scene a bit more interesting...

It was then I spotted it... the scene of the memorable opening act of the first Mission: Impossible film. It was depicted as the American Embassy, though it is actually an old palace that today is used for special events.

Hello, Mr. Phelps...

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

I put the Mission: Impossible soundtrack on my ipod and made my move...

Abort! Abort! ...they're onto us! Ethan, Abort!

The package is in the open...

Repeat: the package is in the open!

We are GOING to recover that disk!

Sarah! Abort....

She should have aborted...

Quite satisfied with accomplishing my mission I wandered around the waterfront...

...and then I hiked up the hill towards the Prague Castle. The view of Prague was stunning...

Even the ducks couldn't get enough of it...

qWOWck!


The duck and I enjoyed a moment together. A nice Hungarian couple were taking pictures and were nice enough to oblige in taking one of me and her...

Do you come here often?

Layers of a city...

I entered the gates of the castle leading to the cathedral...

Passing the security Czechpoint....

Here is the old cathedral which took several centuries to build and was finally completed in the 1930's...

Judgment and Redemption...

Another smaller church...

Gargoyles, Buttresses, and Arches...

Next to the castle was a vineyard. Those grapes had an awful good view for being just grapes...

I went back inside the castle...

Just in time for the changing of the guard...

I followed them up the hill...

And they led me to a place where I could get my rock from the Czech Republic...

I already had a rock from when I had briefly crossed the Czech border last year, but I wanted to get a rock from someplace a bit more significant and "inland."

Next I left the castle and headed downhill back towards the river. I found a nice restaurant serving typical Czech cuisine. I had a platter of sausages, pork chops, duck (not the one I met earlier), with potato and bread dumplings. It was mighty fine. Or as Natali from the Ukraine wrote on my picasa photo, "коллекция блюд пополняется :)" Google translation: "collection of food is replenished:)"


(remember you can click on any of my photos to see if somebody has commented on it on my Picasa album.)

Though after leaving the restaurant and going back towards the river I found that Prague's population turned to zombies as soon as the sun went down...

"BRaAaaAiiNs!"

Luckily I found a guy who had "zombie mode" on his camera and with a quick flash was able to turn away their undead menacing...

And things slowly got back to normal...

I spent the dusk hours wandering about the river getting some good-old-fashioned night shots:

The bridge...

The bridge again...

The bridge from upriver...

Some tourists thought they would also get some night shots of the bridge from in front of the National Theater here....

But people, listen, once the sun goes down there aint no way you're getting a picture of anything but a blurry world if you're holding your camera in your hand. And if that flash goes off, then you've really got a lot to learn about picture taking.


The camera MUST be stable. Either use a tripod or set it down on something that is not moving or vibrating...

Also, it helps if you set your camera to go off with the timer so that the action of pressing the button doesn't cause the the camera to move unnecessarily.

I finished my night shots and walked back to my hotel.

I woke up the next morning to gray clouds and rain. But by the time I got downtown again, the sky looked like this...

And I was glad.

Here I am with one of the fathers of Czech music, Bedřich Smetana. He wrote some great music but went crazy in the final years of his life. Poor guy.

Meanwhile on the Charles Bridge a jazz band was at it en force...

Tourists were doing touristy things...

And the street vendors were selling their touristic wares under the watch of the towers and spires this side of the bridge.

Parapets, Domes, and Steeples...

I rather liked the look of this colorful street leading up to the St. Nicholas Church...

I went up to the castle again with the hopes of entering the cathedral (which was closed by the time I had gotten there the day before). Things were not looking good as I approached the entrance to the castle and saw the chaotic mass of tourists...

Sure enough I got to the cathedral to find a thick line wrapping nearly halfway around the building of people waiting to enter. It wasn't worth my time or patience to wait. So I didn't.

I did, however, find one the most interesting museums I've been to in Europe. One of the palaces on castle grounds belongs to the Lobkowitz family. This old Czech family had been a part of Bohemian nobility for centuries. The family lost much of its land and treasures during World War II and it's communist aftermath. The surviving members of the family fled to the US where the current generation was raised. Then in 1989 as Democracy opened up in the Czech Republic, the Lobkowitz family had their property restored to them. The museum displays some of their greatest treasures and is all narrated on an English audio guide by William Lobkowitz the current family heir himself.

It was a fascinating museum filled with rare paintings, an aresenal of weapons, sundry artifacts, and some very special objects that drew me in to the museum in the first place...

In the early 19th century one of the Lobkowitz princes was patron to a very special composer named Ludwig van Beethoven. One of Beethoven's greatest symphonies, the third or "Heroic" symphony, was originally dedicated to Napoleon. By the time of the works completion however, Beethoven had become disenchanted with the French Emperor and dedicated the symphony instead to Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz. An autographed original first edition score of the symphony with some alterations made manually by the composer himself was available to view. Later Beethoven dedicated two more of his symphonies to his Bohemian patron, the Fifth and the Sixth. Everyone knows the opening of the Fifth (dun dun dun DUUUN!) And the Sixth, or "Pastoral" has always been a favorite of mine. There were also autographed original scores of these two symphonies and a string quartet available to view as well. Next to these was a handwritten note from Beethoven to Lobkowitz regarding some money matters. If you thought Beethoven's hair was messy, you should see his handwriting.

(photos were not allowed, so here is a picture of the "music room" with the scores on display that I found on the interweb)...

Next to these was an original sketch of Mozart's re-orchestration of Handel's Messiah. It was great to see the notes and scribbles penned in by Mozart himself over the printed score. It's always astounding to think that all this great music existed first as just dots and lines of ink on manuscript paper.

The museum also boasts one of the first ever landscape paintings. Haymaking by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1520/25-1569):

Two 18th century paintings of London by Canaletto were also on display. Here's one:

All in all, it was a fun museum, and I'm glad I czeched it out.

I left the museum and went down the hill by the vineyard and crossed back to the other side of the city...

I caught a Bartered Bride crossing the street (obscure Smetana joke)...

And off they went...

I found myself in front of the Dvořák Concert Hall complete with a statue of the Big Guy himself. I just happened to be listening to his Slavonic dances at the time...

(click on this one to see what irene thinks of me ;-)

I turned a few corners and found myself in the upscale Jewish quarter of the city...

Fancy, Shmancy...

Here is the Old New Synagogue. It is one of the oldest standing synagogues in Europe and looked anciently out of place in this neighborhood...

The neighboring clock tower is even in Hebrew...

Nearby is the Old Jewish Cemetery.

It cost money to go in so I just snapped a few shots from outside of narrowly packed headstones memorializing the ancient dead...

It started to rain rather heavily and so I tucked into the nearest Czech restaurant I could find. Luck was with me as I enjoyed a wonderful meal of beef cutlets in a cream gravy with wildberries and a touch of non-sweetened whipped cream on top. It was delicious.


By the time I finished lunch, the sun was out again and I was on my back to the Square of the Republic...

Here there is another church called St. Nicholas...

And it is also featured in Mission: Impossible. See...

This is the same square where Ethan blew up the Aqvarium restaurant with the explosive gum that Emilio Estevez gave him...

The Týn Cathedral was saying, "come on in, yo..."

So I went...

Noble old paintings hanging over the altars of saints...

I left the Square of the Republic to explore some of the back alleys nearby. I had a new mission: I had a special theater to find.

Looking back on the Old Town Hall through the alleyways...

I meandered around one of the big markets...

...and then I found it, the Estates Theater (with cool clouds! Bonus!)

This is the theater where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart premiered two of his operas, Don Giovanni and La Clemenza di Tito. It is the last surviving theater where Mozart performed. Here is a scene from Don Giovanni from the movie Amadeus, which was actually filmed inside the Estates theater...

Today plays and operas are still part of the regular programming...

Wolfy!

And of course I enjoyed listening to Don Giovanni during my encounter...

Up the street was a building where Franz Liszt would stay when he would come to Prague...

And still further up the street was an old building with markers dedicated to Mozart and I presume this is where he stayed when in Prague...

Further on the cool clouds were doing cool cloud things, threatening rain, and even going through with it once in a while, but always clearing out again for some sunshine...

I came onto Wenceslas Square (named after the guy in the Christmas carol) to find some wonderful varieties of architecture including some Art Deco-looking buildings (this style was popular in the early 20th century and is reflected in well-known buildings such as the Empire State Building)...

I find it cool.

Another similar style that was also popular around that time was the Art-Nouveau or Jugenstil style. It's based on more organic and natural forms and it's one of my favorite styles.

The Hotel Europa is a perfect example of this style...

Wenceslas Square is almost more like a long boulevard with a green running up the middle. At the end sits the massive Czech Museum. This is where many of the popular uprisings against Communist rule took place and where jubliant Czechs came to celebrate the end of the Socialist era twenty years ago...

Bustling Bohemians...

That afternoon I was starting to get a little bit tired of dealing with the masses of tourists in the city center so I took a short trip on the underground to a special place just south of the city center...

This is Vyšehrad. A hilltop overlooking the Vlatava river where anciently a castle stood and uponwhich now sits a cathedral, a cemetery, and a park.

I hiked up the hill to the cathedral and had a peep inside.

Only sunlight lit the interior and I was alone except for single nun at prayer. Can you spot the nun?

Around back was the cemetery filled with cancelled Czechs...

I hunted the graveyard looking for some special graves. Then I found one, the grave of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904).

Dvořák is one of my favorite composers and is especially well known for his "New World" Symphony and the second movement which has been adapted as the funeral spiritual "Goin' Home"

(below you can see the woundy wound on my hand)

Then I found the grave of Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884). He's not quite as well known as Dvořák, but in the Czech Republic is considered the greatest Czech composer.

There was also a mausoleum holding the grave of one of the 20th century's greatest conductors, Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996)...

It was a pretty cemetery...

I popped back into the cathedral to find the lights on and some sort of priestly function in action...

And then I wandered over to the old castle ramparts where one had stunning view of the Vlatava...

Including RV's and rowers...

And a young father torn in two...

I left Vyšehrad and wandered up the river back to the old town...

The mish-mash of architectural styles in Prague is amazing. Prague was one of the few major Central European cities to suffer almost no destruction in World War II. This is why they often film period films in Prague.

Rainclouds started to gather...

But I couldn't miss checking out the famous Dancing House...

You go house! Show us your moves! Get that Hummer into it! Come on!

I was getting hungry for dinner and the rain started to really come down. I decided there was nothing for it but to duck into the nearest decent-looking restaurant and have dinner.

My nearest restaurant had a decently priced menu and so I went in and started to seat myself when the waiter asked me if I'd rather have a window seat. Of course I accepted and was serendipidously pleased to find myself with a stunning evening view of the river and the castle as I ate my Czech dinner...

I had Czech goulash and it was excellent!

It was so nice sitting there that I even ordered dessert... and I'm glad I did: a big crepe with strawberries, strawberry ice cream, strawberry quark, and whipped cream (strawberries were in season you see.)

Oh man...

Having thoroughly enjoyed the best meal of my trip and just sitting for awhile, I set off into the evening dusk for some home-made nightshots!

The Týn Cathedral was especially lit up nice. I had to set my tripod on a garbage bin, however. This picture is pretty but it sure smelled bad when I took it...

And the Týn Cathedral with the 15th century Astronomical Clock at the base of the Old Town Hall...

And back to the river as the clouds cleared out one final time all to my picture-taking delight...

The next day I woke up to clear blue skies. I ate the breakfast at the hotel (it was ok, but nothing to blog about), and then czeched out of my hotel. I went to the train station and deposited my larger bag in a locker and went into town again.

There was still a morning cool as I strolled out onto the Square of the Republic, taking in the sight of the Old Town Hall...

The square is surrounded by interesting statues and buildings...

Another bartered bride must have been excited for her day. I'm not sure where they were planning on driving that stretch Hummer limo in those narrow European streets...

I liked the "peasant" façade on this house...

Very ornate...

I passed once again under the bridge towers onto Charles Bridge...

Morning on the river...

An organ grinder...

Just crossing the Charles Bridge I could tell that today would be an especially touristy day. I made it to the St. Nicholas Church, however and decided to front the entry fee and go inside...

This Baroque church is an amazing example of that style. It was built in the 18th century with stunning artwork throughout...

You can see the Gates of Heaven opening up above you...

Sun coming through the cupola...

The organ where Mozart was known to have played...

Complete with cherubs joining in the fray...

Justice is perched above the Crossing...

Below works of Biblical art are surrounded by benevolent bishops...

The bishop with his hand to heaven...

Looking towards heaven...

I left the church and wandered back across the river. The masses of tourists were growing and I knew it was getting out of control when I got to the Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall and found this gaggle of ganderers all waiting for the the dumb thing to strike the hour and a little figure pops out of a door or something. I don't know, I couldn't get close enough to see it...

You have to remember that Prague is one of Europe's most visited cities, but unlike Paris, London, Berlin, or Rome, it's not very big and most of the attractions are within a relatively small area. So when tourist season is on... watch out!

I had seen pretty much all I wanted to, my feet were tired, and I didn't want to fight tourists all day so I decided to take the earlier train home.

So I meandered back towards the train station, taking one last look at the city...

...ate a quick lunch at Subway (I know! I know!), stopped by a super market to get some goodies for the journey, and then got to the train station in time to catch my train.


The train ride home was uneventful...

And I returned to Munich excited to go through my nearly 800+ pictures and find and edit the good ones.

It was a fun trip. I like Prague...

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