The day dawned gray and misty, and we are arose a bit sore. Looking at the map, by my calculation we walked somewhere between six and eight miles on our tour yesterday. We began with breakfast at the hotel. It is an excellent buffet of Continental, English, and American favorites — so there is everything from Meusili to croissants to yogurt to french toast to grilled tomatoes and beans. We had an excellent deal at the hotel already, and such a breakfast spread makes it even better. Somehow a leisurely breakfast and a cafe au lait takes the grayness out of the morning.
We pushed ourselves out the door and took the metro to Malostranka where we caught our regular Tram 22 to Pohŏrelec. After getting off the tram, we could see the double spires of the Strahov Monastery. After some initial confusion about how to get through the row of buildings to the other side (there was an upstairs gate into a courtyard, we went to see their famous library — in addition to the tickets, I paid an extra 50Kc (roughly $2.50) for the privilege of taking pictures. That was the first time I had run across this type of setup before, but it hopefully goes to preservation or restoration. When you first walk in, you see a case out of Norman Bates’ imagination — a multitude of taxidermy victims gone bad, some with what looked like googly eyes pasted on. They are a couple of centuries old, and they do even have a dodo bird, but you still end up asking yourself, “WTF?”
We were then allowed to peek into the main library rooms. Evidently if you spend a few more Czech crowns there must be a special tour with greater access. There were people touring the rooms, standing next to these ancient books, and carrying food and glasses of red wine!!! Meanwhile back with the masses I leaned over the railing and took pictures after a stern woman (perhaps formerly with the secret police) asked for my “papers” to see if I had the proper “photo privilege.” In the next hall over the tour began to disperse, and we did our best to sneak in unnoticed to get a better view before being shooed away by another stern female warden. We played dumb and left — but not before getting a couple of pictures (above).
Next we walked to the Loreta, a beautiful church dedicated to a “replica” of the Virgin’s house. As we were entering the hour struck, and we heard the carillon of the church’s famous bells. There are thirty bells, and they are over 300 years old. The best description I can give is “precise and tinkling” — not the deep sound of Big Ben for sure. We saw some amazing paintings in the open alcoves. I was surprised given the drizzling rain and humidity that they keep the alcove doors open.
Next was the Virgin Mary’s house – a surprisingly sturdy brick dwelling I have a hard time picturing in Nazareth 2000 years ago… Next we went into a Baroque inspired interior of the main church, and it was absolutely breathtaking. We ended our visit with a stroll through their treasury. Behind security glass and motion detectors are crucifixes, monstrances, and altars of gold, silver, diamonds, and other precious stones. The Diamond Monstrance alone has 6,222 diamonds on it! I would not venture to guess how many millions of dollars they must be worth. It gives me pause to think how many starving church-goers of centuries past could have been helped with the money used to create these items. Was this money well-spent?
After the Loreta we went over to Obecní dům or the Municipal House. Architecturally speaking this is one of the most pleasing buildings I have seen. We had lunch at the Café inside. We started with a chicken soup and split a chicken and crab salad plater. Becky enjoyed a cafe au lait and a coke light (as the call Diet Coke here) while I had a cafe au lait and a Staropromen beer. For dessert Becky had tiramisu, and I had a spice cake with vanilla icing. We had a beautiful setting to dine in while the rain poured outside. Luckily it had mostly stopped by the time we left.
We ran a couple of errands after lunch. We went to Florenc to buy bus tickets to Český Krumlov and to the main train station to buy tickets to Dresden. We walked back to Wenceslas Square from the train station past the Russian Embassy. I had another one of those, “Blimey, I’m behind the Iron Curtain” moments. The amount of English spoken here is amazing though. I also hear so much American and British music being played on the radios around us. Wenceslas Square was a near moment for us though when we strolled past the Wenceslas statue we realized it was St Wenceslas Day. There were various celebrations going on, and school seemed to be off.
Coming back to Flora, we decided to see what movies were playing this rainy afternoon. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was starting in Imax 3D in 20 minutes, so we got to see 50-foot tall Harry, Hermione, and Ron dubbed into Czech. After the movie, we at at Detallio’s in the mall. I had mushroom ravioli, and Becky had spaghetti with tomatoes, garlic, and mozzarella. Mine was excellent, but hers was heavy on the garlic. For dessert we shared a chocolate and vanilla ice cream dish.