Travelin' man

This morning went to sleep and reading and being lazy, and a big chunk of the afternoon to travel to a new city, so I don't have much for you.

Lunch was a sandwich in the park on a bench in the shade.  The cherry trees remain gorgeous.  When the wind blew, the blossoms whirled like loose snow, and small children ran to play in the petal blizzard.  Everyone in the area stopped and smiled.

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The blossoms pooled on the ground like pink and white jewels. 

I flew Czech Airlines today for the first time.  Boarding was an unorganized scrum, but otherwise the flight was uneventful and pleasant, all that one can ask from a flight in economy. 

Now, I'm in a new city.  Clues?

It is, to me, a logical progression of the art tour I've been informally doing.  Got it?

Not yet?  Okay, the streets are cosmopolitan and full of all manner of shops and food.

Not yet?  Does this help?

If you don't already have it, I'm in Amsterdam, home of the newly reopened and supposedly amazing Rijksmuseum (Allyn, thanks for pointing out to me the renovation and reopening), the Rembrandt House Museum, the Van Gogh Museum (closed now for renovation but with its collection fortunately on display in the Hermitage), and many more.

I look forward to wandering the streets and to barraging my brain with great art!

The shortest Eiffel Tower

Though I've made it a practice this trip to walk everywhere I reasonably could, I could not resist the chance to ride a funicular up a hill to a cluster of buildings, a park, and Petrin Lookout Tower.  The view from inside the funicular was just what you'd expect, but I still enjoyed the ride.

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Petrin Tower was just one of many interesting buildings on this hilltop, but it was the one that motivated the trip.

Viewed from this distance, you can tell it's shorter than the Eiffel Tower, which it was built to resemble.  It is not an exact copy, and it is much shorter than the original, but by sitting on this hill its top is actually at a higher altitude than the original's peak. 

On the way to it, I ran across another children's park that contained a lot of structures and devices on which I would have loved to play, though I can't imagine any of them passing safety muster in the U.S.

The kids sure seemed to be enjoying them. 

Up close, Petrin Tower does a decent job of imitating the Eiffel. 

On paths around it are twenty religious constructs like this one. 

I don't know what they all represent, but many of them were quite lovely. 

The view from atop Petrin Tower is remarkable.  I could see parts of the city that hadn't been clearly visible from any other vantage until now.  In the distance in this shot is what looks like a completely different, modern city of nearly interchangeable high-rises. 

In this picture, a group of buildings shares a parking lot with the name (upside down here) "Silicon Hill."  I assume it's some sort of high-tech area, which is great to see here.

Back on the ground, this nearby odd little chapel was chained shut and unlabeled.  For no particular reason, I rather liked it.  From the rear, it's intriguing.

From the front, it's clear no one has done much with it recently.

The grandest church on the hill, St. Michael's, was different from most of the others I've visited in the city. 

No internal tour was available. 

This little chapel, which sat next to it, was more interesting for the work carved into its facade.

On another side of the small square that three buildings shared was a building called the Mirror Maze.  Along with the maze and a room full of fun-house mirrors, the structure housed a diorama, built originally for the 1891 Jubilee Exhibition in Prague, entitled "Battle with the Swedes on the Charles Bridge." 

Czech history has been neither a particular passion of mine nor a topic I knew much about, so I was intrigued to learn a bit about this 1648 battle. 

A sign advertised a "Magic Grotto," but after following the path to it, I found it deserted.

Too bad.  I'm always up for a magic grotto. 

A nearby building claimed to house some of the magic grotto's stuff, but it didn't appear to be open for business.  It did, though, have these awesome gargoyle planters.

Back down at ground level, I sat for a time on a bench under a beautiful cherry tree and enjoyed the perfect spring day. 

Late tomorrow afternoon, I head to a new city!

Meanwhile, back at the castle

Armed with a ticket for the works, I spent all of today's tourist time at Prague Castle.  First stop was a return visit to St. Vitus' Cathedral, but this time my ticket let me explore all of it that is open to the public.

The stained-glass windows are generally nice, though not my favorites.

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The one Mucha designed, however, is absolutely gorgeous.

Paintings, frescoes, and tapestries adorned the many small chapels inside the church, but none were labeled.  Some looked like relatively new additions, while others, such as this one, felt quite old and were often in a bit of disrepair.

Everywhere you go here, you get the sense of a land that has spent much of the last many centuries under various kinds of renovation, some by choice, others by necessity.  Without actually getting to know any Czechs, I've come to admire the resilience of these people.

St. Vitus' houses many tombs, all decorated but some far more ornate more than others.  

This one, which was nearest the front of the church, was clearly of great importance--and so big I couldn't get it all in one shot.  (It proved to be the tomb of St. John of Nepomuk; the tomb alone contains two tons of baroque silver.)  Just this much, though, should give you a sense of how ornate it was.

The most completely decorated room in the place was cordoned off, so I had to settle for an exterior shot.  I have no clue what made it special, but I would like to have been able to study it further.

Did I mention the organ?

I was interested and pleased to see this memorial book for lost Czech airmen.

I also quite liked this mosaic.

Wandering through the gift shop, which I routinely do though I've yet to buy anything in one, I couldn't help but notice the copyright on this bit of Kafka merch.

Ah, you have to love unintentional humor. 

Another key stop today was the Picture Gallery.  Centuries ago, it housed the collection of Rudolph II and was one of the world's great art assemblages.  Various wars and conquerors subsequently left it empty.  What's there today has all arrived in the last hundred years or so.  The result is that it contains some interesting works but is just not up to the level of the many galleries I've seen on this trip.

I did like this piece by Bartholomeus Spranger.

Guards were everywhere, and the place does not allow photography, so I didn't take many pictures.  Still, I couldn't resist this nifty teaching tool for the above painting.

Lift any of the pieces with handles, and text inside points out the symbols and other interesting facts about that section of the work. 

I would love to get Google to pay me to create a team to do this with Google Glass for all of the great works of art of the world.  Forget audio guides; imagine augmented reality with visual and auditory input under your control.  It would be awesome.

An unusual work was this illusionist triple portrait of Rudolph by Paulus Roy.

From the little I've read on this subject, it appears that Rudolph enjoyed this sort of thing.  

The collection did include some work by major artists, including this Holbein.

Most of those pieces, though, were either obviously minor or the work of the artist and his studio, with the studio's contributions frequently obvious and not up to the work of the master involved.

I had not before noticed any work by Lucio Massari, but this one was lovely and very well done.

This Veronese also stood out and was an exception to my above observation about the bigger names in the gallery.

I was not previously familiar with the paintings of Pauwels Franck, better known as Paolo Fiammingo, but the odd imagery in this one--note the frog man with hat in the lower left corner--really struck me.

I'll be on the lookout for more of the work of this man who studied under Tintoretto but who clearly pursued his own vision. 

The Treasury of St. Vitus is small and forbids photographs, but it is well worth a stop.  Its intriguing sets of reliquaries and moniles (reliquary pendants that church officials wore) were worth the cost of admission.  This reliquary of the arm of St. George is cool indeed.

The creators of this reliquary had so many bits and pieces of St. Martin that they built an entire panel of them!

On the way to a quick tour of the small history of the palace honor guard (okay but not particularly noteworthy), I passed this odd structure.

No sign explains it, and no one seemed to notice it.  I liked it.

St. Vitus' from the back.

The Basilica of St. George, the oldest church on the property, from the front.

This church started in the 900s and has been through many iterations since then.  The building is in rough shape but is nonetheless fun to visit.  Some very old frescoes remain and are of interest.

An armory exhibit nearby mostly showcased one suit of armor after another, but its real tourist attraction was this room full of torture devices.

Though they were clearly crammed into one space to appeal to tourists, the presence of the devices makes sense given that a prison stands adjacent to the armory.

At this end of the castle, another path leads down to the city, so of course I had to take it.  Wandering vaguely toward the hotel, the path passed by an opening to the Vojan Gardens.  Though there was only one way in and out, and thunderclouds were gathering overhead, I had to check it out; you can't ignore a garden you encounter by happenstance. 

I'm very glad I did.  It was lovely, with a small pond, people resting on the ground and on benches, and many beautiful trees, including this magnolia.

An added treat was the surprise appearance by this peahen

and this peacock, who chose to pose between two dumpsters for my camera.

I have no clue if this bookstore is related to the one in Paris, but seeing it made me smile.

Tomorrow is likely to take me on an unusual ride.  Stay tuned!

Mucha, spring, and walking

Today was too beautiful to make it an entirely lazy day, though I did sleep and read and generally laze about until the middle of the afternoon.  Walking is a key part of this trip, though, so I hit the streets with an eye toward visiting Old Town again and taking in the small but interesting Mucha Museum.

I crossed a different bridge into town and was treated to a group of tourist boats waiting for a lock.

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The lock is only on the canal the tourist boat uses, and it wasn't visible from the Charles bridge, so it was neat to get a chance to see it.  

An island in the middle of the river was under construction, the builders off today but clearly working on restoring a structure that a sign identified as a castle but that looked to me like just another large, plain building.

On this part of the river, a few folks in paddleboats were enjoying the beautiful spring day.

I don't know what this building is, but it was so very different from everything around it that I had to take a shot of it.

Who wouldn't like an eye turned blue with yarn?

The sign is in front of a theater. 

This nearby building's Art Nouveau decorations seemed in keeping with the museum visit. 

I thought a lot about the sentiment of this sign, which a man was painting as I walked by it the first time.

I wondered if this trip would leave me different than who I was before.  In the end, I concluded that, no, not really, it would not, but with luck it would help focus me and make me a better version of myself.  Time will tell, as it does with all such things. 

In multiple places in Prague and in Vienna, I've encountered signs for black light theaters.  Though I strongly doubt I'll visit one, I find the notion odd enough to be intriguing.  This one, paired with the KFC banner in front of it, cracked me up.

Thirsty?  I was, so I grabbed a bottle of Czech-labeled Coke Zero.

I must confess that I have made zero progress in learning Czech, nor do I expect to before I leave. 

As I noted earlier, the Mucha Museum was quite small, but I nonetheless learned many new and interesting things about the artist.  The place forbid photography, so I took very few shots.  I did particularly like the large versions of this foursome, The Arts, because in them he chose to eschew all traditional symbols for the arts in favor of using times of day and motion to symbolize them.

Getting to see a few of his original paintings was a treat.  These two, very different in mood, particularly caught my fancy. 

A series of portraits in his studio showed off both the widely varied contents of his workplace and his occasionally whimsical side, the latter best seen in this picture of Paul Gauguin at the harmonium. 

His Paris sketchbooks were also interesting.  I was surprised at the wide variation in finish of the drawings in them. 

Outside, while taking a randomly different route back to the bridge, I was happy to see this bit of (admittedly not very good) art stuck to the side of an otherwise unremarkable building. 

Back on the hotel's side of the river, the statues of dissidents tortured by the Soviets were a moving contrast to the lovely cherry trees facing them.

Enough people have bugged me in email for a photo with me in it that I am relenting with this one.

Why the park includes this snake sculpture is beyond me, but I kinda liked it.

I definitely would have liked this play structure (you have to blow up the picture to get any sense of it) when I was a kid, though I can't imagine the U.S. allowing such a thing in an open public park; too much risk. 

Still, I sure would have played on it.