Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.
We are 2/5 through our current “vacation” in Prague. We start each weekday by getting up and traveling across town via metro train to attend language school. We are in class from 9:00 to 1:45 each day. Hence the quotation marks around the word vacation.
This is our second summer in the intensive language course attempting to learn the Czech language. The first year we had a great teacher and it was very fun. This year we have had three teachers within the first two weeks. It is less fun and less effective, I think. There is an insistence on immersion – teacher refuses to speak English. Therefore, the teacher is explaining a language I do not understand in the language that I do not understand. It leads to a lack of understanding, as one might imagine. Students have taken to asking each other what something means during breaks because we are all trying to deduce what is going on. Immersion technique has value in a long term program, but not so much in a short term intensive program.
In the afternoons sometimes we go out and about, but we also sometimes just head back to the hotel to rest or do our homework for the next day.
Our plan was to get out of Prague on weekends to other cities or towns. This is a good plan, except that towns tend to “roll up the streets” on weekends. Businesses are closed, other than restaurants.
Travel is very easy and inexpensive. Our first weekend we took a train to Olomouc which is to the east.
This is Our Lady of the Snows Church. Across the street is the history museum and it was open and free due to the holiday – Jan Hus Day. We had lunch in a charming beer restaurant – Svatováclavský pivovar.
Then we toured the museum.
The woman’s costume includes an embroidered apron. Notice the back view. I am curious just how many yards of fabric make up the skirt.
These are targets. I am not sure it they were used with arrows or guns. I find it interesting that they took the time to paint beautiful scenes on something they were going to shoot.
This is Saint Vaclav Church and the Holy Trinity Column which is in the upper square. Olomouc is a university town, so being summer, a weekend, and a holiday meant that we very nearly had the town to ourselves.
During the week there are some after school activities offered for students. One involved a tour of a brewery, so of course DaddyBird wanted to go. I didn’t tour the brewery, but I did help taste beer afterwards.
The brewery had originally been a monastery, so we ducked into the church to take a peek.
Along the sides of the sanctuary are huge paintings which also have large frames which are trompe-l’oiel paintings.
Another school organized activity was a boat tour on the Vltava River.
Our second weekend trip was to Liberec in the north. There was no direct train route, so we almost gave up the plan, but our teacher said there would be a direct bus trip that would only take an hour. That is what we did. We took the metro three stops to the Florenc stop which is also a bus depot.
Once we got to Liberec, it was quite cool and rainy. The major attraction is a mountain top hotel/restaurant/television tower. We took a taxi up to the top. However, the clouds were surrounding the top of the mountain, so we did not see the panorama below. We had a nice lunch in the restaurant. Then we took the cable car down. The base of the cable car ends in the woods. So, we had to walk through the woods to reach the nearest tram stop.
In addition to the usual weekend lack of activity in smaller towns, the tram lines were under reconstruction, so our plan to just ride the trams around town to see the sites was a wash. We walked to the town hall.
Behind the Town Hall is a bus stop designed by David Černý. Černý is a controversial artist. He wants his works to be provocative. Of his works that I have seen, this one makes the most sense. It is connected to Liberec history. The town was a center of the Nazi movement, therefore in 1938/39, Jews had to get out of town. The synagogue was burned. After WWII ended, the Germans had to get out of town.
So, this work is called the Feast of Giants. On the table are two beer steins – Czech and German – a venus flytrap, an overturned menorah, and the head of the German/Czech politician, Konrad Henlein, who was Hitler’s puppet.
This is what we have been up to so far. We have two more weeks in Prague and our last week will be spent in Plzen to the south.
Měj se hezky! Have a nice day!
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