Cities of Light: Day 12
Day 12: Sunday, October 29, 2023 - Prague, Czech Republic
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s, partly cloudy
- Steps: 14,520 Linda; 17,250 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 14
Today's breakfast was full buffet at the hotel. There was the usual - scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pastries - as well as a
made-to-order station, and some other unusual [to us] items like wraps and salads.
Today - October 28 - is the Czech Republic's Independence Day.
There was supposed to be a big celebration at the castle at night, including a presentation of medals by the president.
But as it was a national holiday, some shops were closed or others closing early.
But were we impacted by it because we were going to have a private 3-hour tour, a 3-hour tour. But the weather started getting rough...
Wait, that's not right... Yes, we were supposed to have a 3-hour tour. And the tour was supposed to include going into the castle (none
of the Viking excursions would have provided that access). But the castle, due to the holiday, was closing before the tour would have
accessed it. So the provider chose to allow us to rescheduled (which we couldn't do) or cancel. We canceled since we couldn't reschedule.
There was a morning excursion planned called "Panaramic Prague" that we forewent. We did this for two reasons: 1) we knew we were going
to be back in Prague and could do it then, and B) we had other plans - this morning we were going to visit the Strahov Monastery.
Our church Priest happens to be friends with Father Henry who resides at the Monastery. A couple months before we departed, we wound up
making arrangements with Father Henry to visit. He volunteered to give us a tour while we were there.
We initially communicated via e-mail to set it up. Then I tested and eventually successfully sent a text message - I was having an issue
with the country code. A couple times while we were traveling, we sent updates about where we were.
We were to meet Father Henry at 9:30.
Before we left the hotel, I spoke to Natalie at the Viking desk about what subway would be best. She suggested the tram instead as it
stops literally in front of the Monastery. She told us to take the #8 - located on the other side of the mall across from our hotel - to
the #15 to the #22. Per her online source, she told us we just had to step off, wait for the next tram, and get on.
Great - easy enough. We walked through the mall, out the other end, turned right, and stopped at the tram stop. Nearby was this.
That worked great for the first two trams. We boarded the third and as we started, I looked at the stops to see how many we had to go.
But I didn't see the Pohoŕelec stop on the listing. I asked two young ladies on the tram if we were going the right way by point at our
instructions, pointing in the direction we were going, and asking "that way?" They did speak a little English and said, "right tram,
but that way", pointing in the opposite direction. Sooo close.
We got off at the next stop, found the tram stop and waited for the tram in the other direction. While we waited, I texted Father Henry
to let him know we were going to be a little late as we went in the wrong direction - and it was now 9:20ish.
The #22 was very crowded though we eventually learned that it was because the tram stop before the Monastery was at the palace, and the palace
had free admintion this day. So when we got to the palace, most of the tram emptied out.
We arrived at the Monastery, and entered the gate, and made our way to the center of the courtyard.
While Father Henry knew what we looked like due to our selfies, we could only assume he was the guy in the alb. He was.
He was there was Sister Akvina, who we then met. She was going to shadow us as she was learning how to give tours herself. She had also
only been at the Monastery for a couple weeks.
After our introductions were over, Father took us into the facility.
We started off in a room that had some old texts on display in cases - old as in five to six hundred years old.
We didn't spend too much time in this section before moving on to the actual library, starting in the Theological Hall.
We were unaware beforehand that the Strahov Monastery Library is considered "[one of the] most beautiful libraries in the world" by
Archictural Digest and
Travel + Leisure,
and "one of the best libraries in the world" by
Veranda.com, to name three.
We were, frankly, blessed that we were able to get a tour. And be in such an exquite facility.
We started with the ceiling - here is a stitch, and then the ends and middle.
There we a lot of books, mostly very old texts. There were so many books, they were stored two deep in some sections.
In the last image, the red rope across the doorway indicates the stopping point for most visitors - it is a rope like
that so people can at least look into the library unobstructed.
We were standing about in the middle of the room and Father said that there was a secret door somewhere, can we see it.
I don't know how, but I spotted it in the far corner almost immediately. It turns out that the the books on the door aren't really
books on the door - the door is just made to look like that. Plus, looking up, the staircase is actually visible within the bookcase -
though it looks like a set of books on the shelf in a curve. And the doorknob is visible in the first image too.
There were a couple pieces of old furniture as well.
We were told that this section of the library was open to the public at one time - but due to the heat and humidity of
so many people, there was too much moisture in the air and some of the books started getting effected by it.
We exited the main library and entered a hallway sort of section, with more books - some very old as well - and a little furniture.
The hallway brought us to another section of the library called the Philosophical Hall.
This hall had a lot of books too, and quite a bit of artwork on the ceiling - but in pieces and not one large fresco like
that in the Theological Hall. I didn't get all the works, but quite a few.
There were a lot of books here too - also double stacked like in the Theological Hall.
The doorway at the end was a split door - this allowed bottom to be closed to indicate "No entry" while allowing visitors to still look
inside the hall.
There was an apparatus called the Compilation Wheel, with a planetary mechanism, commissioned by the library in 1678.
Multiple books can be put on the shelves and they will remain in readable orientation while the shelves are turned.
We were told that Bill Gates was once in the library and was shown this device. He commented that the functionality is similar
to how windows (the computer operating system) works. He was asked if the Monastery could get in on the copyright...
Father asked Linda to randomly pick a tome off the shelf. She did, and he opened it to a random page. On the pages it showed
text that was written in German on one side, and Latin on the other.
At either end of the hall, above the entryway, was this locking compartment. This was so "dangerous texts" could be put there.
We exited Philosophical Hall and headed down a hallway.
Father asked us if we wanted some coffee. We said sure, and we proceeded to a small dining room.
We were offered coffee and a choice of Czech and German snacks.
We relaxed for a little while drinking our coffee, eating our snack, and chatting.
We then moved on to the church.
Looking out a window, we saw a patio, garden, and some of the city.
We went outside, onto the patio and into the garden above.
We walked all the way to the end, and had this stitched view of the city, and these other views.
The Prague Castle is actually a castle with a church in the middle of it.
We had asked Father Henry to record a brief message for us to give to Father Dave. He did, at this overlook, with Prague in the background.
For privacy, I am not posting it here.
We turned to the right, went through another gate, and made our way to another look-out - this one was more of a sanctuary area too.
Up on the hill to the right there is a small Eiffel Tower replica that is used as an observation tower for visitors.
There was a concrete pad at this spot too, that had an interesting design.
The design actually is an artistic rendition of "MARIA", with highlighted letters in the second image (in order: pink, green, blue, orange, red).
Sister even had this design on the inside of her ring.
We walked back into the main garden area. At the far end from where we were was this small building.
This was a room that was built for Napolean's 2nd wife Marie Louise, and was built - technically - on the
outside of Monastery as the wall with the doorway was built into the exterior wall of the Monastery.
It was a sparcely appointed room, but there was some very nice artwork on the ceiling.
Before leaving the garden area, Father volunteered to take a selfie of all of us.
We had to walk back through the garden space to go back inside.
We re-entered the Monastery, and walked down a series of hallways that wrapped around a courtyard.
These aren't doors - just wall paintings to look like it.
These halls contained statues and other artwork.
Off one hallway around the courtyard we entered a history room.
In the first small chamber we saw a brief animated video a school put together for the Monastery.
We then entered a larger room that contained a number of frescos that mostly displayed the history of the Monastery. As it was a
Norbertine Monastery, Saint Norbert was its patron saint, and the freascos included his life and death.
At the end of the room with the frescos, there were some costumed statues depicting abbots carrying the relics of Saint Norbert.
Our next stop was to the basilica.
Just before going into the chapel, we came across a young couple with a son in what appeared to be in his early teens. They were from
Naples, Italy, but were currently living in Vienna, Austria.
We passed through a short hallway, and spotted this statue while Father seemingly turned the lights on in the basilica.
We then stepped into the basilica.
There is a black box under the coffin in the first image. The priest wanted to be buried close to Saint Norbid.
We were done viewing the artifacts, statues, and chapels. Then Father asked if we wanted to see the pipe organ. Uh, who
doesn't want to see the pipe organ?!!? We followed Father up a flight of stairs in the corner to the loft.
The view from the loft.
We descended the stairs and made our way to the door from whence we came. A couple more items spotted on the way out.
We went through the door and back into the hallway.
After a couple steps, Father unlocked another door, and we entered the Sacristy. There were some chalaces and various clothes in drawers.
We left the Sacristy and continued on, taking a look into Chapter Hall, and seeing one last hallway statue.
While making our way out, we stopped in to the Summer Refrectory, which was originally a dining hall from 1691. The ceiling
fresco was painted between 1743 and 1745.
And the old, heavy-duty door hardware.
Our time had come to an end. We offered to take Father and Sister to lunch as a thank you, but it was Saturday and they had
community obligations.
We said thank you again to Father, and headed out. Sister came along with us for a little as she was headed somewhere else at the moment.
We stepped out into a courtyard at the back of the Monastery.
It was about lunch time and we asked Sister for any suggestions. She mentioned a small restaurant up the hill a tiny bit out the back
of the Monastery. We said good bye to Sister and headed to the restaurant. We looked at the signboard in front but nothing really
interested us, so we headed to the tram stop to go back into town.
We took the #22 to the stop we originally got on coming to the Monastery. We couild hvae taken one or two more trams, but we decided to
stop here and walk into the city. We got off the tram, crossed a bridge, and headed toward the square.
Before we got too far, we took a selfie.
Right after taking the selfie, I noticed an Astin Martin drive by.
And then we continued on.
We were getting really close to the square and it was getting pretty busy - perhaps it was because it was Saturday... or the holiday maybe?
These are supposed to symbolize crossed arms.
We took a look at the menu of the first restaurant we encountered, and decided to move on.
Some more Holocaust victim stumbling stones.
As we discussed what we may want to do for lunch, low and behold we spotted Eric and Margie.
We talked to them a little, and decided the four of us would go find somewhere to eat. We headed off in the general direction
of the hotel, because if we were going to wonder around, we were at least going to do so in the direction we needed to go.
Margie and Eric were searching out synagogues. The map we had showed there were three in close proximity to each other.
We came across the first one.
Next door was this, shall we say "interesting" store.
While Margie was getting some close-up additional shots, this buggy passed us by.
At the end of the block was this Water Closet - we could only speculate that it was one of those self-cleaning sophisticated units.
Some more sights while heading to the next synagogue.
Sort of behind the statue above was the next synagogue.
It was now a little before 2:00. We had that light snack at the Monastery so we weren't famished.
We went another block or so, and found a restaurant. But it was a tapas restaurant, so we continued on. Across the street.
We looked at the menu in the window and found that it had enough interesting sounding food, and decided to go in.
We were asked if we had a reservation, we said no. And were seated at a large round table in the middle.
Linda had the grilled veal sausage with spicy sauerkraut salad.
I had the gnocchi with wold boar ragout.
We think we figured out why we were asked about a reservation. It appears that there are these cook-your-own-meat tables in a large
section of the restaurant. The domes - which are exhaust vents - are pulled down when the burners are in use. I got a shot of these
three girls having fun cooking their lunches.
It wasn't a huge restaurant, but it certainly was crowded.
After our meal, we figured that Margie and Eric only saw two of the three synagogues near each other. So we parted ways so they could
go see the third, and maybe find any others. We chose to head back to the hotel.
We meandered a little and saw another couple sights, as well as a few more stubling stones.
The next day we were heading out, so we spent some time prepping for that.
Since we had a bit of a heavier lunch, we weren't too hungry for another meal. So we decided to have a snack.
A little after 5:00 we headed out to find a market.
We exited the hotel, and into the mall across the street - to find the market we stopped in last night was closed.
We exited the other end of the mall and turned left to continue our search. We would eventually find that there was a market
almost across the street from the exit, but we didn't know that.
We walked a couple blocks and came across a small convenience store. We picked up a small package of cheese, some chips, and,
of course, wine. We headed back to the room to nosh.
After our "meal", and finishing our luggage, I felt I had to go to the Viking Guest Services desk to confirm our transportation
in the morning was in order. When I got there, I ran into Eric again. I just can't get away from this guy...
I spoke to Natalie who said that Kalin (the ship's Program Director who joined us in the hotel) was taking care of it. I found
Kalin around the corner and talked to him. He told me he got us a car in the morning, and we just needed to get our luggage
outside the room by 7:45.
Sigh of relief.
Now that our airport transportation was all taken care of, it was actually a little easier to relax.
While moving about the hotel - don't exactly remember if it was an in-elevator ad (there were digital screens in the elevator showing
ads, much like you would see during a TV program) or a poster in the lobby, but the hotel had a club on the top floor called "Cloud 9'.
After talking with Kalin, rather than go straight to the room, I went to the 9th floor to check out the club. The elevator opened
to an area that had a large number of conference rooms. I had a new, higher perspective on the atrium from this floor too.
I was alone up here, and had a moment to grab a picture of what the elevator-call panel looked like.
Off in one corner was a hallway that lead to the club. I started down the hallway and
saw the view and immediately headed back to the room to get the camera. In this hallway was another elevator back with just two cars, but
it still accessed all the floors.
I returned to the room, grabbed the camera and monopod, and headed back to Cloud 9.
It was far too difficult, even with the monopod, to capture these shots - I tried 14 times to get the third one (part of the reason why we
had over 8,000 pictures).
After my private travels and photo taking, I returned to the room for a little relaxation. Then it was time for bed.