Prague: Art Nouveau, Alfons Mucha, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Dvořák

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Today we slept in a little bit, missed the pension's breakfast hours, and so we took our time getting ready, and went in search of breakfast or lunch or something. We stopped in at one of the touristy restaurants (I think it was the one at U Prince), and got lunch, which turned out later on not to be what we wanted; the day was very hot, and instead of fueling up for the day, we should have done something light, and then something light later on. Lesson learned.

We wandered around Prague's old town just looking at stuff. We stopped at the Týn Church, hoping for a peek inside, but it was closed to visitors, so we stopped and took a look at the concert flyers to see if there was anything of interested (I took photos of the flyers so we could peruse them later on). The box office was closed, also, so we figured we'd come back later.

We stayed mostly around Staroměstské náměstí, and found St. Nicholas Church, which had a ticket booth selling tickets to a Vivaldi, Mozart, and Dvořák concert which looked good, so we bought some tickets for later in the evening.

We probably wandered by the astronomical clock two or three times, but never at a time when it was doing its thing, so we made a note to come back (this would become a theme) at a time when it was doing its thing.

After poking around the square, we decided to go see the Alfons Mucha museum. The museum credits Mucha as being the originator of the art nouveau style (since, apparently, it was initially called "The Mucha Style", there may be something to this argument). You will almost certainly have seen his advertising posters, which is where he made his name. His most profound work, the Slav Epic, wasn't particularly art nouveau, though (but more on that another day).

Anyway, we took the time to go over the museum in pretty fine detail; Cheryl showed me the advertising posters she liked and why, which I found interesting and informative. It turns out, I like Mucha's style very much. Sadly, I don't think I could explain exactly why that is the case, but there it is. We finished up at the museum by watching a video about Mucha, which was pretty neat, and made plans to make sure we got to see the Slav Epic (at another museum), and headed back out into the heat.

We decided that since it was so hot, we'd stop by the Tesco on the way back to our pension, and then have a siesta, and maybe blog a bit; there was still a lot of the Dresden trip left to be blogged, so we did that for a while, and then headed back out to have an ice cream on the way to the concert that evening, which we did, and then we went to the church and were almost the first ones in when they opened, so we got front row seats.

The concert was great; it was just seven musicians: 4 violinists, a violist, a cellist, and a bassist. They played Vivaldi's Four Seasons, then the first movement of Mozart's "Prague" Symphony (No. 38), and then a Dvořák Nocturno. The concertmaster (and soloist for the Vivaldi) had a really unconventional bow hold which was pretty fun to watch (I now know what a conventional bow hold looks like, see), and they played the hell out of everything; "Summer" was so good that I choked up at that one part. You know that part, it's that one. Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and they even did an encore, which the dude announced as a "Funny Little Chick Dance" by some Strauss (he wasn't specific), and I've had no luck finding out what it was.

When we got done, it was dusk, so we decided to stop at a café and grab a beer and peoplewatch. I decided I was hungry, so I got some bar food, as well; I don't remember what it was, I think a sausage and some onion rings, and Cheryl had some croquettes and something. We sat and watched the square for a while, had a couple of beers (also going to be a theme), and you might say we closed down the square.

That was it for our first full day in Prague.

My impressions thus far: on the positive side, it's a nice city, I really like the old town, lots of nice buildings and it's just got this feeling that I like. On the negative side, I could do without the ubiquitous shops selling "bro shirts", the pub crawl organizers, the segways, and the stag parties. Oh, and there are tons of tourists; the most of any of the cities we visited this trip. Next time, we're going to go during shoulder season; it won't be as hot, and there will be fewer tourists.

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Comments

[J&J]

Art Nouveau
LOVE Mucha's art posters! Wonder what Cheryl had to say about them.