Old Town, New Town Prague

We did laundry.

The breakfast opened at 7 am.  

Some of the breakfast choices.

Very unusual room key.  Press the green dot against the green knob on the door and then turn the knob. It doesn't seem to work consistently.

Construction right in front of the hotel.

We met at 8:50 am to walk to the New Market where we met up with Katarina again.  She walked with us through to the Old Town square.  

Katarina

The theater was very important during the rough times.  The marionettes were especially important.

She pointed out the different styles of architecture. Within a few blocks there is gothic, baroque, rococo, art nouveau, new renaissance, cubism, functionalism, and on and on.  I just thought that they were all pretty.

We went to the Jewish Synagogue museum

Walls and walls of names by families of people from the area who died in the Holocaust.

More of the art by children, like what we saw in Terezin.  So sad. 

The Jewish cemetery

Family members put stones or chestnuts on top of a grave stone instead of flowers.

This is the meridian line.  It is like a sundial. 

Then we went to a different Synagogue in the Jewish neighborhood.

After that we had a little break  We did not have much time so we just ordered water or coke.  

Ahh, it felt good to sit down

Jana came by with a treat for us.

4 flavors of Kolachi: walnut, cream cheese, poppy seed, and marmalade.  We each could choose 3.  They were pretty good.  I think that I got walnut, cream cheese and marmalade.

We continued our walk though town.  Katarina had plenty of stories about the Velvet Revolution and the difficult years between 1950-1990 and how the Czech Republic changed. Some funny, some heart warming and some sad.

Some more street scenes

More bubbles

In India, we always went to the Bata shoe store for our shoes.  I didn't know that Mr Bata was Czech.  Jana told me a lot about him. He set up a town around the factory for all of the workers.  He had his office in an elevator so that he could easily get to where he was needed.  He was quite the entrepreneur.   

Different ways of touring the city.  

We stopped in the Franciscan Garden to hear more stories.  These stories were more personal.

Velvet Revolution - The name refers to the final protests against the communist regime that started in November 1989. Compared to the protests in other former communist states, Czechoslovakian protests were much more peaceful and smooth, like velvet. Protesters were holding hands, singing, playing guitars, and giving the riot police flowers. It was also the year the wall went down in Berlin (Nov 9).

Very poignant moment, Jana talked about some of her experiences and put a flower on a memorial plaque.

Then it was time for a lunch break which was included.  We went to Pivovar Narodni Brewery and Restaurant.

We sat outside.

We started with bread and water. We each ordered the flight of beer.

Light filtered beer then a unfiltered lager which pretty much looked the same.  They brought the beers out one at a time in little mugs.

Sausages.  Quite tasty

This was a semi dark beer

Potato pancakes and sauerkraut.

Potato puffs with a cheesy mayo (I would have preferred ketchup)

The last beer was an ale with New Zealand hops.  I didn't like it at all. I liked the other 3. We had plenty to eat.  

The group split up after lunch.  We went to the Mucha Art Museum. 

The wings of this butterfly gradually open and close.  The body is a spitfire plane.  We enjoyed watching it. "What better icon for a fight for freedom than a Spitfire or to be accurate a copy of the fuselage of a Spitfire aircraft? Freedom is a delicate thing so what could be more delicate than the wings of a butterfly? Combine them together and you have two Spitfire Butterflies. These are big. A 9-meter-long Spitfire fuselage with two 10-meter-long wings overlaps 3 floors of the building, if you laid it on the adjacent roads it would reach both sides.

In his own words, the creator David Černý describes the Spitfire Butterflies as honoring Czech pilots who fought in the British RAF and Army Air Corp. The sculptures also include the wheels and there’s a pilot in the cockpit. It may be accidental but the main street where the Spitfire Butterflies are located just happens to be the site of the student protest that triggered the Velvet Revolution and the end of communist rule and contains the city memorial for the “Fight for Freedom and Against Tyranny”

Alphonse Mucha does a lot of art nouveau.  Was he the father of art nouveau??

We watched a movie about him.  It was very interesting.  I had not know much about him, though art nouveau is familiar.  He was a very interesting artist. 

We headed back to the hotel for a much needed rest break.  It was not a long break.  On the way home Jeanne and I stopped by the ticket office to buy tickets to a Dvorak concert for Saturday night.

We needed to be downstairs by 6:15 pm to head out with the group.  We were going to a jazz club, the Reduta. "Step into the golden era with an enchanting evening filled with classic tunes and nostalgia, with hits of Frank Sinatra by the Miro Ochotnicky band."

I guess this means to check your coats. ;-)

All around the room were pictures of famous people who have either played here or who were famous and just visited.

That is us lined up in the back 2 rows.

Sharon, Jeanne, and I shared a bottle of wine.  Kris had a gin and tonic.

Look at all the cellphones

pianist

drummer

Singer - he was pretty good.  He sang familiar Frank Sinatra songs.  

Bass

It was a fun evening.

On the walk home we saw that the 2 butterflies were lit up

Very pretty

We walked to hotel and wanted a little something to eat since we had not had dinner.  Jeanne and I had a voucher for 2 glasses of wine because we were not having housekeeping.  Jeanne didn't want to use it, so Sharon and I did.  We ordered chips, nuts and olives.  That is all that was available.  I liked the potato chips.  I thought that the olives were terrible.  My phone had died so no pictures.  Then we headed back to our rooms.