It was raining when we woke up this morning, and it rained for most of the day today. I was glad, in a way, for this as we had been warned by Viking that the water level in the River Elbe was so low that we might not be able to complete our cruise, that we might be bussed from place to place along our route. So I decided to make the best of it and try to enjoy the day, however damp.
And damp it was, as you can see out the window of our bus.
Despite this, the tour guides tried to carry on more or less as if it were still sunny. This included long breaks where we were supposed to enjoy outdoor cafes. This annoyed almost all the passengers and rightly so: not even the French are boulevardiers in cold, rainy weather. All I could think was that the guides were told to give us a three hour tour and if it was even a minute less than that they would be in trouble.
During one of those breaks three of us went off to a nearby church to stay dry and see if there was some good art inside this splendid baroque edifice. The church is apparently one of two in Prague dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Perhaps because of its dedication to the fourth century bishop of the city of Myra in the Roman province of Asia Minor, today part of Turkey, many of the statues inside were of saints from that region such as John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazienzen. But the overall impression made by the art and architecture was the triumphalism of the Counter Reformation.
This is Tridentine confidence and Jesuit assertiveness at its best.
After leaving the church, we continued to stroll through the old city in the rain.
I could have taken more pictures, but the camera lens kept getting wet. It seemed pointless.
They took us up to the castle, but we were not particularly given a tour of it. We did step briefly into Saint Vitus’ Cathedral there where we were allowed to stand in the back of the nave. I was not all that sorry not to tour the building as the majority of the structure only dates from the 1920s. The choir and the ambulatory are medieval, but even they have been altered when the church was “completed” in the twentieth century. There is some adequate modern stained glass, but that is about it.
Towards the end of the tour, there was a bit of a break in the rain. We went back to Wenceslaus Square
and watched as the famous town hall clock struck the hour.
We returned to the hotel and tried to dry out. I had arranged a bike tour of Prague for the afternoon, but decided I was not up for riding around in the rain. I suspect I will not get my money back, but it was only twenty five dollars or so. Staying dry is worth that. We napped instead.
It was only sprinkling in the late afternoon. I wanted to see the famous Slav Epic paintings by the Czech painter Alfons Mucha. I figured out using Google Maps that the “Trade Show Palace,” an old communist era building now converted into an art museum, was not that far from us. Still, we decided to take an Uber just in case it rained.
When we arrived, we were seriously disappointed. The woman at the ticket desk seemed annoyed that we were there. When she finally looked up from her computer screen she sighed and told us that “…the paintings are in Japan.” We decided to look at the rest of the collection as we were there. She seemed irritated that she had to go to the effort of selling us the ticket.
As it turned out, the museum was interesting. It showcases Czech art from the late nineteenth century to the present. None of it is particularly great, but it is interesting to see how the larger trends in European art were reflected here in this distant and often isolated part of Europe. There were lots of landscapes and still life paintings. I find those frankly dull. I started to get more interested when I found a room of those wonderful late Romantic narrative pieces. There was the inevitable ship wreck
and this horrible murder.
I am not even sure the artist knew what was happening in this picture.
John particularly liked some of the twentieth century stuff like this vaguely cubist sofa.
And, horrible as socialism was, who can not be sort of moved by the naive optimism shown in this early bit of communist art?
Later Czech art became less political, more personal
and even probably somewhat cynical.
We could have spent more time there, but by the end the guards were more or less chasing us out.
Tomorrow we head off on the river cruise, but I have arranged a tour of religious Prague for the morning. Plus we get to pick up our laundry. I can hardly wait to be reunited with genuinely clean tee shirts!
