We all “slept in” until about 7, which was nice, especially for Andrea, who tends not to sleep well. We dawdled a bit over our breakfast of yogurt and granola/rolled oats and the photos for the blog, and set out around 9 am to walk to and across the Charles Bridge in the morning light, and then on through the oldest part of town to Prague Castle and the St. Vitus cathedral on the top of the hill on the West side of the Vltava (Moldau in German). This is such a well-trodden path I don’t need to say much about it (and it was buzzing with tourists by the time we got up the hill). But we stopped for photos many times along the way, and also in a very cute café + antique store for iced coffee and other cold beverages right at the start of the 200+ staircase to the castle, which is not really a castle, but a gigantic complex of buildings that are partly museums, partly government buildings (the president of the Czech republic has his official residence there), and partly places where tourists can either see the view or admire the architecture and interiors at various degrees of distance. The outdoor spaces are accessible without any tickets, and so we roamed around and saw the Czech Philharmonic orchestra practice for this evening’s free open-air concert, walked around the huge Cathedral, and eventually found our way to the park below the castle, which was refreshingly cool and GREEN after all the massive piles of sandstone, granite, marble, copper, clay tile, and whatnot.
From the gardens, it was only a fairly short walk back to the old town, where we found another beer garden with lots of shade, and had a satisfying lunch (salads, burgers, goat cheese with beets, and a veggie chicken kebab were had) before we headed to the tiny museum we had wanted to visit: the Karel Zeman Museum, celebrating the work of the most famous Czech animator, a self-educated trailblazer in a variety of animation techniques and cinematic illusion. I had known nothing about him until just before we came, but a former student had suggested that I go see the museum, and when I mentioned its existence to Peter and Andrea, they got very excited. Peter, who is a total film buff and used to work in film (as did Andrea), has loved Zeman’s films since he was a little boy, and once we were in the museum, was our expert guide. The museum was fun because it was extremely interactive and let us “play” with a lot of things, but unfortunately, it was not air-conditioned–a couple of small portable AC units could simply not fully combat the afternoon heat. So it was not the restful cooling-off time we had in other museums in Vienna. But we had a wonderful time and I learned a lot about this quirky and ahead-of-his-time movie maker, who influenced Tim Burton and other animators. Labeled both “the Czech Méliès” and “the Czech Harryhausen,” he is really an artist of his very own.
After we had explored all the museum had to offer, we had just barely enough energy and tolerance for the heat to get ourselves back across the Charles Bridge and home (Mark volunteered to commandeer the GPS on his phone). We stopped for ice cream at the same gelateria as yesterday to cool off a little bit, and then we went home and ALL took naps of various lengths.
In the evening, after it had cooled down a little bit and we had sufficiently recovered, we went just a little ways down the street to a place we were very much looking forward to exploring: the “palace” (think: indoor mall-type space) / cafe / movie theater Lucerna. The movie theater itself is over 120 years old and the oldest continuously open movie house in the Czech Republic (and probably far beyond), and the entire complex, which is half of a street block or more, is a beautiful art deco shopping area from the mid-1920s. It was surprisingly quiet (shops were either closed for the day or empty storefronts) but also just absolutely gorgeous, and the café/bar directly associated with the theater was WONDERFUL. We had super simple sandwiches and a jar of creamy cheese chunks marinated in oil that came with slices of rye bread, and that was a great light last meal of the day. After taking a few more photos, Andrea and I said goodbye to Mark and Peter, who were going to see a movie (and take pictures of the interior of the theater), while the two of us wandered up and down the ENORMOUS Wenceslaus Square, taking in the incredible variety of façades in beautiful evening light. Eventually, we grabbed a few more groceries for tomorrow morning and then headed home for the night.
