Prague Day 2

Today we walked around Prague on our own. We took a tram from the stop nearest our guesthouse up to the hill above the castle. They have lots of trams - we never have to wait very long for one. And they are always crowded.

Our first stop was the Strahov monastery library. This is a fantastic collection of really old books in a wonderfully beautiful rooms. They don't let you touch the books but you can see them. Karen's camera has the pictures so I can't upload any here, unfortunately. Since she does bookbinding she was interested in the old methods. They also had collections of insects and small animals and fish, all preserved in wooden cabinets. It was pretty strange.

From there we went to the Loreta, a sort of outdoor church that was one of the early Bohemian (pre-Czech) missions of the Capuchin order of the Catholic Church. It's not really outdoors. Like many cathedrals, the building is designed in the shape of a cross. There are little chapels down the sides, each with their own pew or two and an altar. But in the middle, where you would normally have the nave (pews, aisles, and a roof) it's open to the sky. There are covered walkways along the chapels. In the center, where the two arms of the cross meet, they have a beautifully decorated building with a statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus. This is said to be a miracle chapel and there are stories about the people who have been cured here.

There is a second floor above one row of chapels where they have the church treasury. This holds many beautiful objects, among them several "monstrances". I had heard this word but never knew what it meant. Now I know. A monstrance is a large decorative holder for the communion bread. The priest uses it to serve communion during the mass. These were quite large and very beautiful. Lots of jewels, pearls, even coral was used to decorate them. (We saw beautiful things made of coral in Dresden too.) The most famous one had over 6000 diamonds in it. It was shaped like a sunburst, with rays of diamonds coming out from the center.

Our visit to the Loreta was a little strange. We ducked in there just in time to avoid a major rain storm. The street artists were putting away their wares and running to escape it, that's how scary the clouds were. We got inside and a sign said they were closed for lunch, beginning in five minutes. So we were packing up the camera and zipping up the jackets when we were told "buy your tickets or leave". It turned out that we could buy tickets and be in there during lunch, but not stand in the entryway. But there was this guy, a BIG guy, in an official-looking green overcoat, with an official-looking badge on it, who followed us around everywhere we went in there. Mostly he just closed doors behind us. When we sat, he sat. When we got up, he got up. He never spoke to us.

After the Loreta we went to lunch. We ate in a very nice restaurant. The food was wonderful, except for the dumplings which were simply fillers without any particular flavor. Neither of us had tried them and we wanted to find out what they were like. Karen had regular dumplings and I had potato dumplings. Both of them came out sliced, like bread. Karen picked hers up and ate them with her fingers, and mopped up her sauce with them. I would have been embarrassed but we were the only people there! As I said the food was great, so I don't know why it wasn't more popular.

Then we took the tram down to the St. Nikolaus church, just below the castle. It's one of the few baroque churches in Prague. Apparently baroque was associated with the Hapsburgs, and the Czechs didn't get along with them. There was this 30 Year war between them that killed off a lot of people in Europe. It started in 1618 when the Czechs (Protestants) dropped two Hapsburgs (Catholics) out of the window of the castle, intending to kill them. Unfortunately they survived and went back to Vienna to fetch their armies.

Anyway, there aren't many baroque churches. But this one makes up for that by being pretty spectacular. The second and third pictures here are from the interior of that church. The top picture is looking ahead toward the Charles Bridge as we're walking toward it after leaving the church.

We did a little souvenir hunting, then came home for a break. We went out again tonight to see the Mozart opera "Don Giovanni" performed by marionettes. It was sort of "Mozart meets the Muppets in South Park". Pretty crude in some parts, but very well done and most of it quite enjoyable. Lots of humor. The place was full, mostly with Asian tourists.

Tomorrow we going to Cesky Krumlov. Sarka is picking us up at 8:00 so I have to get some sleep.