Prague Journal

Sunday, November 14, 2004.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed to Vyšehrad, the site of the original castle and the twin-spired church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Next to the church is a cemetery where artists, scribes, musicians and politicians are buried, among them Dvořak, Smetana and Alpons Mucha. We walked through the now-barren gardens and around the old fortress walls, and stopped for coffee and sweets at a small café near the church.
We then headed back to Prague Castle to see the museum that we didn’t have time to see yesterday. It was well worth the time. The museum is “the thousand-year history of the place where Czech statehood unfolded,” a permanent exhibition of artifacts, garments, and tomb remains at the Old Royal Palace. It was interesting to learn the sequence of events that built and restored the present structures.
Finishing our self-guided tour, we were just in time to go to St. George’s Basilica for a string quintet concert. A typical Czech experience—Shubert’s Ave Maria and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons—in an unheated barebones stone church.
We headed home to relax over a few glasses of Becherovka before heading out for dinner at our favorite pizza restaurant on Na Piskach.

posted by JWinn @ 10:09 PM