A Long Weekend in Prague

Prague

Prague is a beautiful city but one thing hasn’t changed since my trip here last year: there are still a zillion tourists mindlessly following around umbrella-waving guides. If the swarms of tourists would just shove off, it would be a near perfect city. Tourists mull around the astronomical clock in the old town waiting for the little figures to dance for them on the hour, despite the sign that says the clock is out of order.

Astronomical Clock

Early, before the crowds, Charles Bridge

Crusing
We can’t move in the crowds after 10am on the Charles Bridge but all is quiet underneath, on the River Vlatva and our sparsely patronised boat has table service. We  enjoy wine and perfect weather between the banks of the old town and the lesser town and Prague Castle. We laugh at the squashed tourists on the Charles Bridge, while we have our feet up.

Prague from the Vlatva River

The Vladislav Hall, Prague Castle

Prague Castle
The feet up part is a most yearned for comfort. We have walked the labyrinth of the Prague Castle, the largest castle complex in the world, where Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and now the Czech parliament sits. Here, there is every architectural style from the last one thousand years. The Vladislav Hall was built around 1500. They started building the gothic St Vitus Cathedral in the 14th century and didn’t finish until the 20th century. Alfons Mucha, father of Art Nouveau designed a set of stained glass windows in the 1920‘s for St Vitus.

St Vitus Catherdral

Mucha's window at St Vitus 

Tintoretto's St Jerome

Prague Art
Of all the rulers who occupied the Prague Castle, the one that get’s most mention is, Rudolf II Habsburg (1552–1612), King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor, and the greatest art patron in the world. Rudolf moved the Habsburg capital from Vienna to Prague in 1583 and brought into his service the most important artists, architects, scientists and philosophers turning Prague into the leading centre of arts and sciences in Europe at the time.  However the Prague Castle was looted of much of its art treasures in 1648, by the Swedes at the Battle of Prague in the closing stages of the Thirty Years War. The Swedes still have much of the loot today. Nevertheless we still get to see what remains in the Prague Royal Picture Gallery. There is work by Titian, Albrecht Dürer, Hans von Aachen (court painter) and Rubens. We also visit the Sternberg Gallery which is part of the National Gallery and has European Art from the classical Era to the Baroque. There are paintings by Tintoretto, El Greco and the only Rembrandt in the Czech Republic at Sternberg. My favourite gallery in the Prague Castle is in the St George’s convent with it’s collection of 19th century art of Bohemia. Josef Mánes (1820- 1871) is the most famous Czech Romantic artist featured there.



Down the hill form the castle at the Wallenstein Riding School, is an exhibition on the work of Karel Škréta (1610 – 1674), a Czech painter considered the founder of baroque art in Prague.  His oeuvre includes many portraits and altar paintings and he was inspired by Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro technique, illuminated subjects on dark backgrounds. His St Martin painting is magnificent and tells the story of St Martin who as a young fellow was a soldier in the Roman Army when he met a scantily dressed beggar. Martin cut his own cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night Martin dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak he had given away and when Martin woke his cloak was restored. (A miracle!)

Karel Skreta's St Martin

Another Castle
Outside the Riding School are the formal gardens of the Wallenstein Castle where peacocks roam and try to flee from overeager tourist cameras. Albrecht von Wallenstein was a politician and a major figure in the Thirty Years War but he was charged with treason by the Holy Roman Emperor and assassinated. Nevertheless his garden is quite peaceful and relaxing.

Wallestein Castle

Pavel Janek's Czech Cubism

Prague Modern Art and Design
Still on the Prague Castle side of the Vlatva, we visit the modern art museum Museum Kampa and see the bizarre perforated paper art of an 85 year old Czech lady Adriena Šimotová. We mostly like the sculptures here however: they are very ‘look at me.’ I wanted to see some of the Czech cubist art so visited the Decorative Arts Museum where there is only a little. I love the ceramics of Pavel Janak (1882-1956) especially the black and white angles of his coffee sets which you can still buy. Perhaps the Czech’s excel at ceramics. At the Decorative Arts museum there was also an exhibition of Pravoslav Rada(1923-) whose non-functional ceramics feature crazy fish, cat and bird sculptures and black and white human figure decal.

The Estates Theatre

Opera
There is so much walking to do in Prague and even with sensible shoes our feet ache and swell - quite unattractive. It’s a bit embarrassing rocking up to the opera with sweaty cankles, but what can we do? We have tickets for Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre, in our own private box of course. Mozart’s comic and melodramatic opera premiered at this very theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787, with Wolfgang himself conducting. This opera, about the smooth operator Don Giovanni who beds women wherever he goes and catalogues his conquests across Europe (including 1,003 ladies  in Spain) shows how the scoundrel always gets his just desserts. The funny and smutty story shows that folks could be quite risque in the18th century. 

What we ate in Prague

• Trdelník is a yummy traditional treat made from rolled dough, wrapped around a stick then grilled and rolled in sugar and cinnamon or nuts. 
• Czech bread is dry but makes good dumplings.
• There are pork necks and pork knees and it’s possible to eat a whole pig in a weekend in Prague. By the end of four days in Prague we are sweating pig.
• Klobasa sausage, sold at street stalls is of the kind that oozes bright orange oily sausage juice onto its paper plate or down my chin.

Pork Knee Remains

Klobasa Sausage

What we drank

• Coffee at Cafe Slavia, a grand cafe that features the famous painting ‘The Absinthe Drinker.’
• Pilsener Urquell is the beer and it comes by the half litre.
• We find out we like martinis in the Ameriky bar of the art nouveau style Municipal House in Prague. Shaken not stirred.

Martini

The Absinthe Drinker