Prague Day 5
Today we headed over to the other side of the Vltava River with the intent to visit the Prague Castle. We also wanted to visit the Strahov Monastery, so following the suggestion in one of the guide books we took the tram to the monastery first, as it is further up the hill than the Castle and we intended to then walk down to the castle. However, we became so engrossed at the monastery that we never made it to the castle. That will be tomorrow. The monastery is still an active order of the Premonstratension Order, originally established in Prague in the early 12th century. The monastery grounds are quite extensive and include a church, a library, several museums, the monastery itself which is part museum and part active monastery, gardens and vineyards and a brewery and wine cellar. At the monastery, we first visited the church which is named for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church was originally built in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 13th after a fire and rebuilt several other times until the 18th century when its current, very Baroque style was employed and retained to this day. The interior is extremely ornate, with gorgeous frescoes on the ceiling and a lot of gold gilt trim and statues of saints and angels. After viewing the church we wandered around the grounds and looked out over what were once vineyards towards the Castle. It is a spectacular view. Then we went to the Museum of Miniatures, where there are the most remarkable works of art in teeny, tiny miniature forms. There are teeny little paintings on bits of ivory or stone, which you can only see with a microscope. The most amazing pieces include little metal cars built on a mosquito leg, a "camel caravan" built inside the eye of a needle (no kidding- you look through the microscope at the eye of a silver needle and lo and behold, there is a teeny tiny little sculpture of a procession of camels. It looks like they are made from some kind of soft metal. Truly mind boggling!) There is also a strand of human hair on which is written the Lord's Prayer. There are a couple of figures built into half of a poppy seed. The entire collection has to be viewed through powerful microscopes and I cannot imagine how the artists actually managed to make those works of art.
After the miniatures we went over to the monastery building and spent several hours wandering in there. There are exhibitions in the cloisters showing the history of the monastery and the order, and then an amazing gallery of paintings, all of which had been confiscated and hidden by the communist governments that ruled Prague from 1948 through 1989. These paintings, mercifully were not destroyed and are now being brought back out of storage and restored and exhibited. Lots of gorgeous Czech art, but also paintings from all over Europe that had been tossed away for decades. We spent a very long time going through that gallery as the work was beautiful. At that point we were a bit tired, so we wandered over to one of the many cafes on the grounds for goulash in a bread bowl and the monastery brew of beer. I had "wheat beer" which is unpasteurized and all natural. It is cloudier than regular beer for that reason, but it tastes delicious. After our "light" lunch we went to the monastery library, which is absolutely gorgeous and houses thousands of volumes of theological and philosophical works.
After we finally left the monastery grounds it was getting late so we went across the street to the Loreto Church where there is a holy shrine, the Santa Casa (Holy House) believed to be part of Mary's home in Nazareth that somehow wound up in Prague! It is a pilgrimage site for those who are setting out on the great pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela. Those from the Czech Republic who go on that pilgrimage start here at the Loreto church. The shrine itself is a small house inside a cloister. It has a famous Black Madonna and Child and contains a beam believed to have been in Mary's home in Nazareth. It is extremely ornate, with lots of angels and cherubs and a very baroque style to the paintings. In the treasury are kept a whole collection of liturgical items including a monstrance that contains 6220 diamonds embedded in gold rays that surround the round center where the host would be kept. It is truly a stunning site to behold.
After we left Loreta Church is was dark so we walked around a bit in the neighborhood there and then got the tram back down the hill and got off near the Charles Bridge. We wandered through the shops in that area which was filled with activity. We had dinner at a little restaurant near the Charles Bridge and then walked back over the bridge and through the Old Town Square where we saw the Astronomical Clock chime 9 PM. Every hour on the hour the clock goes off and doors open at the top while a procession of the 12 apostles (little statues thereof, of course) process by two little windows and two figures on the side of the clock chime bells. Then the clock chimes the hour and it does the 24 hour clock so for 9 PM it chimed 21 times! The Old Town Square is still full of Christmas festivity with a beautiful big tree and a market selling all kinds of goodies. I had my trdelnik of the day there to fortify me for the remainder of the walk back to our apartment. We got back about 10 PM. It was a full and most interesting day. Tomorrow we're heading back over there to actually get to the Castle, which is the "must see" sight in Prague! At least at this point we have pretty much figured out the trams so we know what we are doing as we make our way over there. The pics are a shot of the monastery grounds, a shot from one of the interior ceilings in the monastery, the Black Madonna at Loreto Church and the astronomical clock.
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