My plans to go to Bad Elster (or Leipzig) for a concert this weekend were thwarted by lack of time to buy the tickets, but I decided that this was actually good thing, because now I would have two more days in Prague. Two days to wander around on my terms rather than according to a schedule (an admittedly amazing schedule, but with little time just for wandering).
So that is what I did. I found an amazing cafe that looked like it had dropped out of a Bohemian Art Nouveau-era Paris, which is not surprising since the Czech Republic really is Bohemia. There were old pictures of early film actors and lithographs lining the wall. A piano in the corner that demanded to be played with Marlene Dietrich singing under the Art Deco bronze chandelier, or Sarah Bernhardt reciting in the corner next to the wraught-iron lacing over the cafe bar. And, as if this cafe wasn't speaking directly enough to my sensibilities of the Bohemian artistic cafe culture, there was a print of Pushkin staring at me in the reflection of the tilted ceiling to floor mirror on the wall opposite my table. Did I mention that nearly 1/4 of the small menu was vegetarian? The more I describe the cafe, the more I feel that I need to take it back with me as my souvenir to myself. I also found a flyer for the most recent production of an English language theatre troupe in Prague.
Of course, after this cafe, I was feeling particularly inspired by the early 1900 Prague-Parisian zeitgeist, and this morning I went to see the Museum of Alphonse Mucha. It is strange to visit a museum of someone whose art was based on lithograph reproductions. They had amazing prints of his work, and they looked like original copies, but... his entire work was making poster that could be copied over and over without losing detail. But it was still interesting to see many of his posters in the same place. Although, strangely absent was his massive life's work "The Slavic Epic," which he returned to the Czech Republic to work on before the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Other than that, I've spent today just wandering. Well, and I bought an overpriced souvenir - a pub glass. Our guide suggested just stealing a glass from a real pub, that's how she got her glasswear, she said. I decided that I did not want to include a Czech prison as the final stop on my trip, so I payed the "tourist tax" and bought one in one of the less disreputable souvenir shops.
Tonight is the quarter final soccer match between Czech Republic and Denmark. I think I will watch a real European soccer match at a small local pub (less risk of rioting that way... although the Czechs don't seem to be the rioting type of people anyway).
Posted by silsby at June 27, 2004 05:57 PM