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Today was my other big day to see Prague before the workshop.
And, though I again toured through bits of Old Town, and though I biked along the river in Old Town (not very successfully; the path is all broken up and the tourists are numerous) and Lesser Town (more successfully, as they have wonderful cobblestone streets there that aren't very crowded, comparatively), the focus today was on islands and artists.
I got a bug in my ear about islands because Stvanice island is on the Vltava right on the way to Old Town. So, I hopped off the metro and walked over to the Hlávkův bridge. Which turned out to be somewhat adventurous because I kept heading into tunnels under roads, and they were pretty sketchy. In any case, that island was not a particular success. I did find a pink bike, so I got to bike around a bit, and I found mostly closed off buildings (apparently including a skate park and world-class tennis courts) and beyond that a really straggly, poorly tended park. Ah well.
But later in the day, I was further up(?) the Vltava and noticed two islands that looked much better tended. Strelecky island was a quiet little park with lots of paths and benches, accessible by the Legion Bridge via a wide stone stairway, so not sketchy at all. Then Slovansky island was the prize, because it's been wholly landscaped, with beautiful brick walls and pathways. I enjoyed walking around these two islands, and boy they'd be great places to go out and read and write and relax if you lived in the area.
Meanwhile, the art was the main point of the day.
At 10, I met up with C+M and we saw the Mucha Museum. Alphonse Mucha was one of the leaders of the art noveau movement, and the (small) museum was a great retrospective of his work, running from his early Parisian work, to his later more slavic-influenced work. (One think I've learned while visiting Czechia is that I really enjoy Slavic art because it has such a strong cultural character.) Mucha is one of those artists where you want to stop and look at all the details of every work, so the fact that it was a small museum probably kept it manageable.
The museum was mostly his professional posters, with a few of his paintings. The thing missing is his Slavic Cycle, which is a set of 20 huge canvases that he did depicting the myths and history of the Slavic people. Sadly, they're not displayed _anywhere_ right now due to arguments over ownership.
The other museum that we went to was another branch of the National Gallery (scattered in historic buildings across Prague) that had a special exhibition on French Impressionists. I mean, how could I miss that? It was all from the collection of a Scandinavian, Wilhelm Hansen, who collected impressionist art during WWI, then eventually gave it to Denmark. I don't think I'd seen any of the pieces before in the great touring shows we've had in SF in the last decade or so, so this seems mostly stuff that hasn't been circulating.
In any case, there was some Monet and some Pisarro and Degas and Renoir and a room of Gaugin. I was impressed by a female impressionist named Berthe Morisot. Oh, and there was some pre-Impresionist influences as well, but I was thinking: let's get to the impressionists! This was another exhibit that was small, but it was great to get to see a number of additional paintings by the masters.
While touring around the city, I also saw the Lennon Wall, a graffiti filled wall that has a few messages and images related to Lennon that are distinguishable. The first art went up in 1980 and it's been constantly reinventing itself since. I was surprised how much of a pilgrimage spot it was, particular for youngsters (teens and twenty-somethings).
I also made it back up to the Castle to see the St. Vitus Cathedral. It's a beautiful cathedral, and one of the bits of Prague Castle that you really see from below, but what I really wanted to see was a nave filled with the stained glass of ... Mucha. We'd seen it in a movie at the museum, and I could mostly see it when I got up to the Castle (it was guarded behind the paid area, but you could see 80% of it from outside). It was entirely stunningly gorgeous.
My czech words of the day: ostrov (island), most (bridge).
And then ...
The RWOT9 scrum began this evening in a Meetup, much as we had in Barcelona. We had the RWOT people talking, but also local experts on identity, such as a member of the Czech Pirate Party ,and new members of the RWOT community such as Holochain.
As with Barcelona, it was nice to have an interface between Rebooting the Web of Trust and the local communities.
I was increasingly crashing though. I haven't caught up to the time zone here as well as I did in Barcelona, alas. Hopefully one more day and I'll be increasingly alert, as the RWOT workshop itself starts tomorrow!
And, though I again toured through bits of Old Town, and though I biked along the river in Old Town (not very successfully; the path is all broken up and the tourists are numerous) and Lesser Town (more successfully, as they have wonderful cobblestone streets there that aren't very crowded, comparatively), the focus today was on islands and artists.
I got a bug in my ear about islands because Stvanice island is on the Vltava right on the way to Old Town. So, I hopped off the metro and walked over to the Hlávkův bridge. Which turned out to be somewhat adventurous because I kept heading into tunnels under roads, and they were pretty sketchy. In any case, that island was not a particular success. I did find a pink bike, so I got to bike around a bit, and I found mostly closed off buildings (apparently including a skate park and world-class tennis courts) and beyond that a really straggly, poorly tended park. Ah well.
But later in the day, I was further up(?) the Vltava and noticed two islands that looked much better tended. Strelecky island was a quiet little park with lots of paths and benches, accessible by the Legion Bridge via a wide stone stairway, so not sketchy at all. Then Slovansky island was the prize, because it's been wholly landscaped, with beautiful brick walls and pathways. I enjoyed walking around these two islands, and boy they'd be great places to go out and read and write and relax if you lived in the area.
Meanwhile, the art was the main point of the day.
At 10, I met up with C+M and we saw the Mucha Museum. Alphonse Mucha was one of the leaders of the art noveau movement, and the (small) museum was a great retrospective of his work, running from his early Parisian work, to his later more slavic-influenced work. (One think I've learned while visiting Czechia is that I really enjoy Slavic art because it has such a strong cultural character.) Mucha is one of those artists where you want to stop and look at all the details of every work, so the fact that it was a small museum probably kept it manageable.
The museum was mostly his professional posters, with a few of his paintings. The thing missing is his Slavic Cycle, which is a set of 20 huge canvases that he did depicting the myths and history of the Slavic people. Sadly, they're not displayed _anywhere_ right now due to arguments over ownership.
The other museum that we went to was another branch of the National Gallery (scattered in historic buildings across Prague) that had a special exhibition on French Impressionists. I mean, how could I miss that? It was all from the collection of a Scandinavian, Wilhelm Hansen, who collected impressionist art during WWI, then eventually gave it to Denmark. I don't think I'd seen any of the pieces before in the great touring shows we've had in SF in the last decade or so, so this seems mostly stuff that hasn't been circulating.
In any case, there was some Monet and some Pisarro and Degas and Renoir and a room of Gaugin. I was impressed by a female impressionist named Berthe Morisot. Oh, and there was some pre-Impresionist influences as well, but I was thinking: let's get to the impressionists! This was another exhibit that was small, but it was great to get to see a number of additional paintings by the masters.
While touring around the city, I also saw the Lennon Wall, a graffiti filled wall that has a few messages and images related to Lennon that are distinguishable. The first art went up in 1980 and it's been constantly reinventing itself since. I was surprised how much of a pilgrimage spot it was, particular for youngsters (teens and twenty-somethings).
I also made it back up to the Castle to see the St. Vitus Cathedral. It's a beautiful cathedral, and one of the bits of Prague Castle that you really see from below, but what I really wanted to see was a nave filled with the stained glass of ... Mucha. We'd seen it in a movie at the museum, and I could mostly see it when I got up to the Castle (it was guarded behind the paid area, but you could see 80% of it from outside). It was entirely stunningly gorgeous.
My czech words of the day: ostrov (island), most (bridge).
And then ...
The RWOT9 scrum began this evening in a Meetup, much as we had in Barcelona. We had the RWOT people talking, but also local experts on identity, such as a member of the Czech Pirate Party ,and new members of the RWOT community such as Holochain.
As with Barcelona, it was nice to have an interface between Rebooting the Web of Trust and the local communities.
I was increasingly crashing though. I haven't caught up to the time zone here as well as I did in Barcelona, alas. Hopefully one more day and I'll be increasingly alert, as the RWOT workshop itself starts tomorrow!