Prague Blogue: Museums And The Prague Zoo

The Lobkowicz Museum occupies a corner of the Prague Castle.  Fritz and I ducked into the museum when it started to rain, and it turned out to be a fascinating detour.  We were given an interesting history of Prague as we strolled through the galleries of paintings and artwork.  

Lobkowicz Palace was built in the second half of the 16th century which means it has witnessed some of Prague's most significant historical events.  One of the more miraculous facts about the Lobkowicz collection is that all of the art was lost and subsequently recollected not once, but twice.  The Nazis confiscated the palace and all of its artwork during WWII and the Lobkowicz family fled to the US.  The Palace was returned in 1945 only to be seized again in 1948 after the Communist takeover.  

In addition to a plentiful number of paintings, the museum also houses an extensive collection of antique musical instruments and the original scores for some of the most influential classical music.  Handel, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven all composed works in Prague during the 18th and 19th century.  The 7th Prince Lobkowicz had a tremendous impact on classical music as he provided Beethoven with a generous annual stipend.  This patronage allowed Beethoven the freedom to compose without dependence on commissions or other time-consuming obligations to support his work.  As a result, Beethoven composed some of his most famous works in Prague.   The score in the picture above is Beethoven's Symphony in B, the 4th which premiered in March 1807 at the Vienna palace of the 7th Prince Lobkowicz.  Clearly it pays to fund the arts.  Where would we be without Beethoven?  From now on, anytime I hear that another school district is cutting funding to their arts department, I'm going to think fondly of Prince Lobkowicz, send my gratitude to the past, and pray for more wisdom in the future. 

The Prague Jewish Museum is actually a series of buildings and historical sites scattered throughout the Jewish Quarter.  It contains a history of the Jewish community in the region as well as some of the Jewish relics and art produced in Prague over the centuries.  

The museum took us on a path that wove through a beautiful Jewish cemetery. 

Stones and shells have been left on the headstones as a sign of remembrance. 

We were fortunate to have 5 days in Prague which allowed us to get out of the touristy center and hit some less-visited spots, like the Prague National Gallery.

Double exposure art

The modern building was, in many ways, its own form of artistic expression. 

Momma hippo opens her mouth for some veggies while baby munches an apple.

Before jumping on an overnight train to Paris, we skipped over to spend our last day at the Prague Zoo.  

It was AWESOME!  First of all, it's huge!  Second of all, it's beautiful.  And third of all, there were soooo many babies!  Note to self: always visit zoos in the spring when all the baby animals are born!

Sleeping on the ground is a one-month-old baby elephant - the first one to be born in the Prague Zoo. 

The elephants were really cool!

The wild cats were all so beautiful.

Little ones could take a pony ride through the zoo.  If I had come here as a little girl, I know I would have been in heaven peering at the animals from the back of my pony.

The flamingos were just funny.  They make a silly honking noise as the flick their heads nervously back and forth.  

We tried to go to the gorilla house earlier in our visit, but when we arrived, the enclosure was completely empty.  Not an ape to be seen.  We asked a zoo keeper where all the gorillas were and she explained that they were out having their lunch.  

Not wanting to miss the gorillas, we circled back before leaving the zoo hoping they might be back from their luncheon. 

They were!  And I'm so glad we went back so we could see this little cutie hanging out on his momma's back.  Hold on tight little guy!  

The loved the Prague Zoo, but we had to book it back to our apartment in order to pack up and catch our next train to Paris!  The adventure continues! 

BUDAPEST!

Is anyone Hungary?  Anyway, I figured I'd write a Buda-post... about Budapest.  Poor Fritz has had to listen to my bad Hungarian puns for a solid week without cease.  Ok, let's be honest, he has to listen to my bad puns every day.

In any case, Fritz and I spent 6 days in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary (the country, not that grumble in your tummy).  In addition to an archive visit, Fritz arranged meetings with several historians that have expertise in Hungarian Cold War economics.  In between meetings and archive scrounging, he explored the city with me!

We began our journey with a train ride from the airport to the city center.  The old-school turquoise train car made me feel like I was riding in the public transportation version of the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo cartoons.  

The M3 line connects the airport to downtown Budapest.  If we can break out of chronological order for a moment and jump to the end of our visit, I'll tell you that just after we got off the train in route back to the airport for our departure, Fritz said, "Now that we made it through that alive, I can tell you that apparently the M3 catches on fire about once every two months."  Lovely.  I'm glad we caught the M3 on a good day!

The escalators to get up down to the subway were super long but they were also super speedy.  I've never seen an escalator move so fast!  I don't think the US could ever adopt this kind of machine with all the potential lawsuits after people break their face trying to get on and off this speedy thing.  But they sure were efficient! 

The city of Budapest (pronounced Buda-pesht) is absolutely beautiful.  Like many European cities, Budapest was badly damaged during the Second World War, though much of the architecture either survived or was very nicely rebuilt afterward.  Above is a picture of the train station that was around the corner from our AirBnB.  Beautiful! 

We stayed at a cute little AirBnB just north of the city center.  It had an arched entranceway leading to our door and a sunny courtyard. 

Our funny little apartment had a lofted sleeping space with two twin beds pushed next to one another.  It felt a bit like bunking up in an indoor treehouse.  

Budapest is the result of two cities coming together in 1873.  Buda on the west bank of the river Danube united with Pest on the east bank.  There are multiple bridges providing river crossings.  They are all quite new because, sadly, every bridge was destroyed during WWII.

The stone lions that have decorated the Chain Bridge since 1852 survived the war without being damaged and they watch over both sides of the river.  Behind the lion, you can get a glimpse of the Hungarian Parliament building. 

The construction of this striking building was completed in 1904, during which 40 million bricks, half a million precious stones, and 88 pounds of gold were used.  

In general Budapest is just a beautiful city.  It has a very quaint aesthetic and it also is not too large so we were able to walk to most places of interest.  

And when we didn't want to walk, the public transportation did the job.  

The food was quite good and we found a hip little neighborhood in the Jewish district that had some really great restaurants, cafés and craft beer establishments like the one in the picture above. 

This was a classy café that we visited on the morning of Fritz's one free day.  

We spent the rest of that day up on Castle Hill.  We hitched a ride on the Budavári Sikló (or the Budapest Castle Hill Funicular) to get to the top of the hill, which originally opened in 1870.  

Funicular Friends! 

The view from the top was lovely! 

Castle Hill was first established in the 13th century after the Mongolian invasion.  Its golden age was in the 15th century when King Matthias Corvinus married Beatrix of Naples in 1476.  At this time, many Italian artists and craftsmen came over and Buda became a very important European city.  

A Fritz double exposure!

Fisherman's Bastion was named after the guild of fisherman that defended this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages.  It was built between 1895 and 1902 and has a lovely view of the Danube river and the city. 

Matthias Church constructed in the 13th century on the grounds of the former first church of Castle Hill, which was founded by the King of Hungary in the year 1015. 

The weather was perfect during our visit and all the spring flowers were out soaking up the sunshine. 

St. Stephen's Basilica is a Roman Catholic church named after the first king of Hungary.  Interestingly, it is the same height as the Parlament Building which is meant to symbolize that worldly and spiritual thinking have the same importance.  Regulations in Budapest prevent any buildings from exceeding the height of these two buildings so all the other structures in the city are under 315 feet tall. 

The inside of the basilica was very lovely.  Fritz took this picture of the dome. 

I was more interested in taking pictures of all the art students who were scattered throughout the church, eyeing up the angles and perspectives of the beautiful architecture by holding their pencils at arms-length while squinting through one eye.  

On the days when Fritz had academic meetings and archive time, I strolled around the city.  I found lovely outdoor markets selling handmade Hungarian crafts. 

I also took this random double exposure with a rusty, graffiti door. 

But my biggest mission was securing bathing suits for the two of us!  

"Bathing suits?" You ask.  Yes. Bathing suits.  Because Budapest is well known for its famous thermal baths.   

The Széchenyi Medicinal Bath is one of the largest bathing complexes in all of Europe.  Unlike many of the European bathhouses, at Széchenyi people actually keep their bathing suits on while in the company of others.  This factor mixed with a weather forecast of 75 degrees and sunny made going to the bathhouse imperative.  Thank you H&M for carrying affordable bikinis and men's swimming trunks that aren't too... European, if you know what I'm saying.  (Some of these guys like to rock the short shorts!)

The bathhouse has 3 outdoor pools and 15 indoor pools, each with varying temperatures for a complete therapeutic experience.  Fritz and I rented a private "cabin" (also known as a stall or dressing room) where we could change and store our belongings while enjoying the amenities.  We spent about 30 seconds wading through a steamy indoor pool filled with a bunch of old guys before we were like, "What are we doing floating around in here?  It's a beautiful day.  Let's go outside!" 

And man was it perfect!  We got there nice and early, so we staked out two lounge chairs in the sun and went for a dip in the thermal pool!  The sulfate, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, fluoric acid and metaboric acid in the water are supposed to be good for all kinds of medical remedies.  For me, the water felt nice, but laying in the warm sun and soaking up that vitamin D for the first time since last summer was like heaven on earth!  Don't worry, we wore our sunscreen.  

We weren't the only ghostly white couple at the pool, but there was also clearly a group of local men who must come and play cards together at least 4 times a week judging from their sun-kissed bods.  These men looked like a pack of bronzed buddhas sitting around with a beer on a Friday morning.  As one does.  Anyway, it was a perfect day!  

And before we knew it, the week was over.  We were walking down the street passing sidewalk-couch-geese on our way to the airport.  Random?  I think so.  

But it was a wonderful week from start to finish.  Budapest was absolutely beautiful and the trip was the perfect combination of very productive for Fritz and a delightful adventure for the two of us.  Goodbye Hungary.  Back to Berlin we go!