Cafes and Cubism

  Boy, I am just blogging my tuchus off today.  Apologies for the deluge.  It's my first unscheduled day in quite a while, and so I'm trying to get caught up!

  After the abbey, we headed over to Cafe Imperial for a refresher.  I went there in the summer; it's got a nifty tile Art Deco interior, and pretty good food and drinks:

  I think I had a hot chocolate, and I forget what Keewi got.  Hot chocolate, by the way, is something Europe does right.  It has real chocolate melted into it, and it's creamy and rich and smooth and perfect.  Hot chocolate in the U.S. is so often disappointing; even if you buy the gourmet mixes it is usually weird and gross.  I guess I have to learn how to make it from chocolate the way they do over here.  You might also note a shot glass in my handl that is Becherovka, a very yummy bitter liqueur from the Czech Republic.  This was my first taste of it, and I quite like it; Keewi brought a bottle back in her luggage, so if you're nice (and prompt!) you might get a taste!

  Then we walked to the House of the Black Madonna, a cubist building that is now the home of the Museum of Czech Cubism:

  And now, you get another museum tour, courtesy of the Ben Austria blog.  The only bad thing about these tours (really, it's the only bad thing, stop frowning) is that I can't tell you who the artists are that made the works in question.  For that, you will have to go to Prague.  With no further ado:

  I never realized how much I like Cubism, but I enjoyed the heck out of this museum.  The sculpture head, by the way, is Don Quixote, which is just right; it is indeed Don Quixote.  Even their gift shop had nifty things I wanted to buy:

  Horrendously expensive nifty things.

  And that's it for that day.  I seem to have no photographic record of what we did for the rest of the day, so I can't tell you about it.  It's as if it never happened.

The Convent of St. Agnes

  The next morning, we went to the Convent of St. Agnes.  I had attempted to go there in summer, but it had been closed that day.  This time, I was triumphant.  It's a beautiful place, in a rather bare, stark way (all photos in this post are Keewi's camera):

  The rooms are all quite bare; perhaps the Poor Clares, who had their home here, didn't believe in furniture?  The last photo is of the tombs of St. Agnes, the founder of the abbey, and further back, King Wenceslas I, her brother (but not the "Good King Wenceslas" of the song, alas).

  Also in the convent is quite a large collection of medieval art, of which I took a few illicit photos:

  I love the feet disappearing into the cloud in the second photo.

Lunch and more Prague

  We had a late lunch after leaving the castle, at U zlate hrusky, a restaurant I had popped into for a drink and a snack during the summer, but hadn't eaten at properly.  We had very good traditional Czech dishes (Keewi photos):

  Keewi's is a pork knee or some such, with horseradish, mustard, pickles, and pickled onions.  Mine is roast duck with slices of three different kinds of dumplings.  Both were really great, and not even particularly expensive.

  Then as evening fell (at, like, 4 PM; short winter days) we found our way to Strahov Monastery, founded in 1142, home of the Strahov Library:

  Those photos are terrible, but it was really quite a beautiful place.  Absolutely ancient books, in these wonderful halls.  They had a bunch of illustrated manuscripts on display, and since I love this sort of thing, here they are:

  I'm not religious, but I suspect that if I had been born in the middle ages, I would have become a monk doing calligraphy and manuscript illumination.  Just wonderful.

  We finished off the evening at Klasterni Pivovar Strahov, the monastery brewery:

  Not sure whether it's really associated with the monastery or if it's just clever marketing, but this is a really great place.  I went to it during the summer, and it was on my short list of places I had to go back to.  A great selection of different kinds of beers, including a fantastic dark beer, the St. Norbert dark.  They have good food, too, but since we had just eaten at U zlate hrusky, we stuck to the beer.  Well, except for a piece of cheesecake.

  By the way, also on my short list for Prague: a restaurant called U male velryby.  We ate a great meal there, even better than the one I had in summer.

  And then I turned into a pumpkin; the cold that I had on New Year's Eve was still with me, sadly.  Home to bed.

Letna Gardens and Prague Castle

  So, I visited Prague back in the summer, and had a wonderful time there, which is why I decided that Keewi and I ought to go there.  I wanted to see some spots I hadn't seen in the summer, though, so we started off walking to the north side of the city, to Letna Gardens.  We were rewarded with nice views over the river and a pretty little pavilion:

  The pavilion, called Hanavsky Pavilion, was built in 1891 for the Czech Jubilee Exposition.  The informational plaque says that in it, "iron is utilised to its fullest technical potential.  So there you go; if you've ever wondered what the pinnacle of ironwork looks like, now you know.

  Onward to Prague Castle.  I visited this over the summer, so you can look back at those photos if you want, but this time I paid admission to go into the buildings, so I got to see lots of stuff I hadn't seen before.  I was particularly impressed by some of the stained glass windows:

  I particularly like that last one.  "Osvobozo" apparently means "liberation," not sure what the remaining letters mean.  We climbed up many steps to the top of a tall tower in the castle, for some city views:

  That last one is actually from the lower end of the palace complex, not from the tower.  Then we looked at some other buildings in the palace:

  The first two are of some random building in the palace, I don't remember what.  The rest are from the Basilica of St. George, including the rather bizarrely mismatched exterior of the basilica.  It was founded at the beginning of the 10th century; Prague has History with a capital H!

  Next stop in the castle, Vladislav Hall:

  This historic hall held coronation celebrations beginning in 1509 and ending in 1836 (the actual coronations taking place in the nearby cathedral).  The second photo shows the window where the Second Prague Defenestration took place, defenestration being the act of throwing something (in this case people) out of a window.  The First Prague Defenestration took place in 1419 and triggered the Hussite War; the second, in 1618, set off the Thirty Years War.  The term "defenestration" was actually coined because of the Second Prague Defenestration.  And I have stood at the spot where it happened.  You may touch the hem of my garment.
  Also in those photos, some golden holy relic thing that they were all worked up about, a side chapel, what seemed to be a throne room but I'm not sure, the crown jewels (or replicas thereof; the gems looked suspiciously plastic-y), and the amazing ceilings.

  Finally, some silly tourist shots (Keewi's camera; all the rest were mine):

  These were in an old abbey/convent/something, also within the castle grounds.