A Fairy Tale Ending

"Yes, everything is beautiful at the ballet" . . . .

We ordered tickets to see Sleeping Beauty the ballet at the State Opera House and Monday night was the night.  We got dressed up and walked to the theater on what we thought would be a short little jaunt, 45 minutes later we made it!  Thankfully I learned  how to walk on cobblestones in heels while living in Rennes (This of course is Sarah, with the heels, not that I needed to clarify) .

The Opera House was magnificent inside and we had tickets for one of the boxes.  This production of Sleeping Beauty was a new, shortened and modernized version of the original ballet. It was meant to show the fight of fear vs love rather than good vs evil.  It was also designed to be more child friendly to get kids interested in the ballet.  Most interestingly (for the two Finns), was the producer originally made these changes for a production in Finland and that several people involved in the production were from Finland.

The first two acts focused on the curse put on Sleeping Beauty on her 16th birthday when she pricked her finger.  We enjoyed these first two acts, however the lead seemed a bit nervous and stiff.  The final two acts however were magnificent.  We were very impressed with the male leads who really stood out in the second half.  The dancing, as it always is with ballet, was a thing of beauty.

The original choreographer, Petipa, gave Tchaikovsky specific instructions regarding tempo, number of measures, and even instrumentation when composing the music for Sleeping Beauty.  Apparently, when the princess pricked her finger, the instructions were “the blood flowed in 8 bars of largo”.  Tchaikovsky didn’t feel stifled by these instructions, but found it more results oriented.  That’s a partnership.  

We decided to take a taxi back to the hotel, since we weren’t up for the 45 minute walk.  We are not good at negotiating pricing (at least on a personal level), so we were charged three times the amount as our taxi ride from the airport to the city.  Next time . . . 

Sleeping Beauty though, what a wonderful way to close our trip to Prague.

"Have fun stormin' the castle"

 …. and we did.

We took the advice of Rick Steves to arrive at the Castle by 9:00AM.  Lenka also recommended we arrive to the Charles Bridge and castle early to avoid larger crowds.  We left the hotel promptly at 8:00AM and took a walk up the river to the Bridge.  (Thanks to Lenka for showing us how to get there)

We could count the number of people on the Charles Bridge as we crossed.

coming back we could hardly move.

But, back to the castle . . .

Entrance to the Castle

We couldn't believe the incredible size of the castle grounds.  There are three different palaces, a gothic cathedral, a tower with torture chambers, narrow streets with shops that have doors 4 feet high and even more that we just didn't have time to see in one visit.

St. Vitus

The cathedral (St. Vitus) is simply breathtaking in it's scope and size and is a must see in the castle. The original gothic portion of the cathedral was built in the 1300s, but the nave (which looks gothic) was actually built much more recently and has beautiful stained glass windows.  One of the windows was designed in the Arts Nouveau style in 1931 by Alfons Mucha.  

Organ pipes

Art Nouveau Window

 We continued to walk through the grounds and here are some photos:

Basilica and Convent of St. George

Basilica and Convent of St. George

Church of St. Nicholas, Baroque Period.  A quick stop after "storming' the castle"

Church of St. Nicholas

Church of St. Nicholas

This church was quite different from the gothic cathedral in the castle.  Less stained glass, but utter decadence as was typical of the Baroque period.  After the church we decided to look again for a tea place that Rick Steves raved about in his guide.  We finally found it and it was worth the walk.  Great relaxing atmosphere and perfectly brewed Matcha!

A perfect end to the day with a friend

After a short nap, we met up with one of Mom's friends who lives in Prague, Lenka.  What a wonderful lady!  She showed us around a different part of the city and Mom was thrilled because we saw the Conservatory, National Theater and statues of Dvorak and Smentana.

Music Conservatory

With Lenka and Smetana statue

Smentana's statue along the river, the composer of The Moldau - He's sitting with his ear next to the river as if he's listening.

With Lenka, Ms. Klmkow's 2nd Grade class and Dvorak Statue

The Charles Bridge

A perfect view of the Castle

The Czech people raised money to build The National Theatre which burned down almost as soon as it was built.  They then fundraised for another 3 years to rebuild it. Clearly the arts are important to this community.

We had dinner at the notable Cafe Slavia across the street from the National Theatre.  Lenka told us about the famous movie maker, Milos Forman ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus") who spent time in the cafe and teaches at the academy next door when he's in Prague.  There was also a photo of Hillary Clinton.  Perhaps it's like Sardi's in New York?

Lenka also took us by the place where the Velvet Revolution began and showed us a memorial that is filled with candles every year on November 17th.

Exploring Old Town and the Jewish Quarter

Old-New Synagogue built in 1270

We really wanted to explore the Jewish quarter in Prague as we had read some interesting things about that area.  We started with the Pinkas Synagogue which had the names of the 80,000 Czech Jewish men, women and children who were killed by the Nazi's during the Holocaust listed on its walls.


The Pinkas Synagogue also houses the Terezin Children's Art Exhibit, a display of art created by children while living in the Ghetto.  We were so moved by their pieces and the teacher who worked with these children to ensure they had a focus and education, as much as possible given their horific conditions.  She taught them art techniques and had them draw things from their life before the Ghetto and their dream after life.  Two suitcases of drawings remained after the war and and the artwork is now on display in this Synagogue.

Old Jewish Cemetary with Pinkas Synagogue in background

Next we visited the Old-New Synagogue that was build in the 1200's. It's one of the oldest Synagogues still standing in Europe.  Fascinating place!  We learned that through floods, disease, and war the services here have never stopped.  Also, this synagogue houses some of the original scrolls of the Torah.

The Maisel Synagogue and the Spanish Synagogues are also in this area.  The Spanish Synagogue is newer, but is very beautiful.  It is very ornately painted inside and has huge stained glass panels.

Spanish Synagogue

The Jewish Quarter was a lot to take in so we opted for something lighter in the afternoon.  We went back to Old Town Square where we had a quick bite to eat.  We decided to share a cheese plate as we were both starving.  Sarah, the more adventurous eater, decided to dig right into the cheese we didn't recognize. Big mistake! It turned out to be butter for our toast.







Next on our list was visiting the Old Town Hall and the Astronomical Clock.  We kept getting into what we thought were long lines of people, but as soon as we tried to find the end, the crowd dispersed like it was all just a mirage.  It turns out that there are huge tour groups all over Prague and as quickly as they appear they move onto the next sight. We finally found the place to buy tickets to the top of the clock tower and were thrilled that there was no line.

Doorways along the way

But that didn't last long -- that was just the line to buy the ticket.  We were directed several doors down, through the hallway, up the stairs, "over the river and through the woods" to another ENORMOUS line.  Well, we thought this must just be another tourist group so we walked past them, thinking we had learned our lesson about waiting for no reason, but it turned out that was the actual line.

Beautiful mosaics

So we waited in a very slow line up 2 flights of stairs to enter the elevator/stairway to the top.  We couldn't figure out why so many people were coming down, but the line wasn't moving!  Then we realized, the elevator was bringing people up to the top of the line and they were conveniently moving right up.  Turns out we aren't the only ones who haven't mastered standing in line in Prague.







Eventually, we arrived at the top and it was worth every second.  No words, see the photos below:

It begins with the experience . . . .

Tammy:

As the plane lands on the runway in Prague (Czech airlines) all of the sudden I hear the beginning of Smetana's "Moldau".  Initially, just the soft sounds of the woodwinds trickle down off the mountain eventually coming together to form the great river. . . .What better way to welcome people to Prague.  Brilliant, in all our travels, we've never heard such a well chosen, quality piece of music intentionally played as a welcome.

Sarah:

We got into the taxi and the driver has Czech country music playing, COUNTRY MUSIC.  I was so excited and then to make things even better he had a little bit of Miranda Lambert sprinkled in to make us feel more at home.  What a great way to welcome us to Prague!

What a great beginning . . .

We were starving so we decided to talk a walk and look for food.  We stopped at a restaurant called Barok that offered foods from all over the world.  Sarah ordered traditional Czech food and loved it!  Duck leg with sauce, potato pancakes, dumplings with cabbage, yum.  After dinner we walked down to Old Town Square and it was so beautiful.  Not only the architecture, but the holiday lights and decorations.  There was a Christmas Market, similar to Paris, yet very different.  Prague appears to be more intimate, with obviously different items for sale and food to eat.

After a little shopping and more eating we headed back to the hotel for an good night's sleep to prepare for the next day's adventure.

7 hours of art and an excellent pot of tea

View down the Seine with the Musee d'Orsay on right

We were planning (you know Sarah) on going to Versailles today, but the weather wasn’t cooperating.  Wind and rain prompted us to change our plans, good thing we learned how to be flexible from USAirways & AirFrance.

Had a leisurely breakfast at our quaint hotel and wandered over to the Musee d’Orsay (M’O).  We decided to take our time and see as much as possible since we both love this collection.  As it turns out, there were two exhibits.

The first one (at least in my mind) was the Bela Bartok exhibit.  How exciting to hear the Hungarian Composer’s music while viewing Hungarian artwork from the same time period.  The display itself was a piece of art.  We throughly enjoyed this experience.

The museum is incredible and houses more impressionist artwork than one can imagine.  Rodin statues are sprinkled throughout the M’O.  It was so interesting to see how Monet’s work evolved into impressionism and then changed along with his declining vision.  There is also an incredible Toulouse Lautrec stained glass piece made as a joint venture with Tiffany.

The second exhibit was called masculinity.  It turned out to be an exhibit dedicated to the male nude in art from 1800 to the present.  As we were reading about the exhibit it was mentioned that many exhibits dedicated to the development of the female nude in art have been shown across the world, while this is only the second exhibit dedicated to the male nude.  The first room was quite interesting and had some fantastic pieces of art (Mercury by Pierre et Gilles).  As we continued through this huge collection the quality of some of the art was certainly questionable (a painting of Eminem?) and the exhibit began to feel more like a way to push boundaries than a well thought out and tasteful exhibit.  

Needless to say we didn’t spend a lot of time there and sincerely wished that the Toulouse Lautrec stained glass piece was the final image in our minds before leaving.

As some of you may know, we are obsessed with Mariage Freres tea so we decided to cross back over the Seine and visit one of their tea houses near the Louvre.  Sarah had the Tibetan tea in preparation for her February trip to Nepal, I had the Sakura.  It's so nice to be able to just sit (yes, I know -- . . .) and savor each little sip of tea which was perfectly brewed and presented in a large pot.  

The waiter recommended the most decadent  chocolate mouse, carmel, desert in a pool of berry sauce, wrapped in what appeared to be gold foil.  Sarah of course, waited for me to try it first because the foil looked so real she wanted to see if I survived eating it.  Thankfully it melted in my mouth so Sarah decided to venture a taste. Usually she's the more adventurous one with food, but when it comes to sweets…  The food here is so delicious-- good thing we are walking so much.

After thoroughly enjoying our tea and dessert for a bit longer than we planned, we decided to visit the Louvre after dinner since it’s open until 9:45PM on Fridays.  

Because the Louvre is so massive we decided to focus on the Greek and some some Egyptian artwork.  It took us a little bit to figure out the maps, but eventually we picked up our audio guides (where I needed to leave my drivers license for the first time).  In Russia, they kept our passports in exchange for the audio guide.

We attempted to use the Audio Guide, but didn’t have time to listen to the hour long instructions.

Where is Rick Steves when you need him?

Here are some photos from our Louvre visit: