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Ah, another night of less than five hours of sleep - I think this trip is slowly killing me! Today marked the official start of the business proceedings for the conference. The morning session went well, and was only slightly delayed. Then, we were off to Petrinske Terasy restaurant, a terrace restaurant situated in the middle of the Petrin Hill, with a truly stunning view of the city of Prague. We took a rather bumpy bus ride, over streets of cobblestone to the top of the hill and then wandered through a beautiful garden on the way to the restaurant. It was filled with lilac bushes and lovely little purple flowers, and smelled simply divine. Coupled with the background of chirping birds, it was an extremely peaceful spot and I could have rested there for hours. But we were on to the restaurant! We took a long, meandering path down the hill until we reached Petrinske Terasy and the view unfolded before us. It was a fabulous view to the Prague Castle and it was wonderful to enjoy a small buffet lunch with Prague as the backdrop!
After lunch, the skies began to threaten again, but I felt secure with
the rain jacket I had brought with me. A number of people opted to join the afternoon tours to the Strahov Monastery and the Prague Loreto. We wandered further along the hill to the Monastery, with additional stunning views of the city. It was truly impressive until the rain started to fall. First, it was a few drops. Then a bit more of a shower. As we huddled under the overhang, a massive thunderclap sounded and the rain began to come down harder. We rushed to one doorway, only to find out that part of the Monastery was closed because of a press conference (just our luck!). So we rushed to another doorway, and got tickets - and it was just in time too, because then the skies really opened up! The thunder sounded and the lightning flashed, and even some hail fell! We were much more appreciative of the storm once we were inside, but it was too bad that the afternoon was a bit ruined by the weather!
We learned that the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov is one of the oldest monasteries of the Premonstratension Order in the world (1143). There are currently 74 monks
in the order in Prague, with one a few actually living at the Monastery. The Premonstratensians are a religious order of canons founded in 1120 by St. Norbert as an independent part of the Catholic Church. We walked around the Monastery, stopping first to look in the Romanesque Hall, which is believed to have originally had a flat roof that was vaulted in the 17th century. As we walked on to the next Romanesque hall, which served as a passage from the north courtyard outside of the original convent, we watched the rain pour into the Convent Paradise Court in the center. Apparently, it is the largest Romanesque monastery water reservoir in Europe, and it was certainly added to today!
I also peeked into the Cellarium, which was originally the monastery's storehouse from the 12th century. We finished our tour of this part of the Monastery by stopping in the Chapter Hall, from the period around 1750. The room is vaulted with frescoes by Siard Nosecky, based on the theme "Rise and be healed." It was the most impressive room that we had come upon during the tour, which seemed to be over almost as quickly as it had
begun. Unfortunately, the weather really seemed to put a damper on everyone's attitude, including my own, so we were not in a mood to enjoy the Monastery too much!
But we headed next to the Monastery's library, which contains many valuable illuminated manuscripts, dating back to the 9th and 15th centuries. Our host was telling me that during the time of Communism, the library had fallen into great disrepair, because the Communists didn't care to keep the volumes protected and renovate when necessary. As a result, the Church had to invest a lot of money in restoring the library to its current glory. It was a fascinating building - the exhibit began with glass cabinets full of mounted bugs and butterflies, as well as creepy animal skins. I headed towards our tour guide at the end of a long hallway, where we peered into one of the library's rooms. The room was beautiful, with a number of frescoes, and floor to ceiling bookshelves. One of the more interesting parts was a rolling bookshelf, which had books on its shelves which could be rotated depending on what the reader was interested in. We also learned that a catalog of the
works in the Louvre from Napoleon is kept there - the only one of its kind. He decided after he had written it all down that perhaps it was not the best idea to identify which paintings he had stolen to bring to France! But the book is still kept at the Monastery's library. We also saw another fascinating room at the library, again filled with books and beautiful artwork. It's dark interior was exactly what I would expect of a library, and I was drawn to it enough to pay the 50 Czech crowns to be able to take some photos of it!
We thought we were finished for the day, but we were on to the Loreto. The rain had not yet let up, so we took a group vote and decided to have the guide call the bus to pick us up. Unfortunately, the rain had caused a lot of traffic, so it took the bus an hour to get there, and there were no taxis available in the meantime! We did manage to get back to the hotel by 5:30, so I had a few minutes to sit down and breathe before it was time
to rush off again!
Dinner tonight was at the Knights' Hall at the Kampa Hotel. We rounded up the group and headed over on the last bus. We had to walk a little way to the restaurant, which seems to be the case for most places in Prague, and as we walked up to the entrance of the courtyard, two large men in suits of armor, holding swords were there to welcome us. They let me right in, but tried to block my dad. As we mingled outside, we were treated to a fire show by two rather flexible women. Following this show, which received many hoots and hollers from the men in our group, the two knights did battle in front of us, one eventually declaring himself the victor after great clashes of swords and even sparks. It brought me back to my old fencing days!
It was then time to move into the hall itself - the Knights Hall is intended to reflect the atmosphere of the 18th century. It was formerly a riding hall, and today is home to a collection of historical weapons and an impressive interior, complete with vaulted ceilings. Our host told
me that the menu was created with authentic Czech ingredients in mind - we had parings from smoked duck breast served on radicchio salad leaves with herbs and piquant cranberries sauce to start (yes I ate it), followed by fillets of pikeperch with a hollandaise sauce and spinach tagliatelli (just ate the pasta), and then baked deer saddle, with sauce from forest mushrooms on a bed of shallot mashed potatoes (and yes, I ate this too!). Desert was really delightful - a pear "valtice" with a swirl of raspberry and vanilla sauce. Very delicious, and I definitely ate too much! We had some lovely conversation at my table, which was a bit difficult since the room was noisy with the conversations of the whole group - it was a bit hard to hear! Once we heard the buses had arrived, I was ready to head back and rest my weary head. Got to do it all again tomorrow, though I will likely skip the afternoon tour in favor of finding the little marionette shop I spied yesterday to see if I can bring back a fun souvenir! And hopefully I could get in a nap, because I suspect I will
be up all night tomorrow (3am wakeup to leave for the airport at four otherwise!)
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