We took the tram (#22) up to the Gardens, and entered just in front of the Queen's Summer Palace (sorta like a summer home I guess ... only just across the moat from her regular one!) - - here are some pics of that, the first Renaissance building in Prague.
Built in 1538 by Italian architect Paulo della Stella. You can see the typical Renaissance styles of an arcade with repeating rounded arches (for a sense of rhythm), ionic columns holding up the arches, a horizontal building orientation, and small recessed in-between the 2nd story windows that would have held statues.
A close-up of the decorative impressions in-between the arches of the arcade, very pleasurable scenes they were too. Renaissance was all about pleasure.
We did not get to go inside the palace unfortunately, as it is being restored. But, the rest of the gardens were just as fabulous ...
This is the view that the Queen and her retinue would have looked at if lounging on her porch, ummmm - I mean arcade don't 'cha know!!
This is a view of the castle from the Royal Gardens - again, basically were are looking across the moat as the gardens were only created in the Renaissance Era when pleasure became viable and some defensive rules could be relaxed ... like building a bridge across a moat. This is a view of the castle that was NEVER seen by the public before the 1500's, as it was completely inaccessible to anyone outside royalty. That tower you see, is the dungeon. That one window is the concession to light for that level, and as you go further down the windows get smaller - until at the bottom (as a prisoner, you did NOT want to be at the bottom!) there are none. Ugh!
From there, we wandered west through the Gardens until coming upon the ...
Ball Game Hall! For ... well ... games that were played with a ball! Like - tennis apparently! Back then tennis was not an outdoor sport. Really cool and intricate designs on the exterior, a Renaissance style called sgrafitto. Sound familiar to anyone?
Another shot of the Ball Game Hall (built between 1563 and 68) ... a better one to show you the size of the building. It was LARGE!
A close-up of the sgrafitto work, to show you the impressive detail! The female figure on the left is "ingnis" and the one on the right is "aqua" - - yup, fire and water. And of the left of the column to the left of ingnis, is earth and air too. Really cool!!
So, here you see the Ball Game Hall on the right and the castle water tower in the background ... the glass structure that you can just see the top of is the orangery, or greenhouse as we now call them. Cool!! This was after all the Royal Gardens, so there are flora and fauna from all over the world here - - as that was how royalty showed their status. The more exotic things they had, which showed that many lands had paid tribute, they higher up their status went. And naturally, some plants would not survive the winters without a greenhouse.
Now this ... is a great freakin' shot!!! With the spires of St Vitus Cathedral peeking up over the exotic trees in the Royal Gardens, and the orangery just peeking its head up in the lower left corner. Wow - - with views like these, the pics are just SO easy to get!! Oh, and for the record - that is not the original Renaissance orangery, but a newer one.
Ahhhhh ... St Vitus again, you just can't go wrong with images of that magnificent place of worship. Again, this was a view never seen until the 1500's when this side of the moat was developed. That round tower in the foreground is the ammo tower. You can really see the VASTNESS of the cathedral from here, as you just can't get a good shot of how bit it is when you are in the courtyard of it. Love those flying buttress' on the back!!
This is the President's Villa - - obviously built much much later, as monarchy ruled Bohemia until the end of WWI. Nice place though!
From there we continued walking west, toward the bridge over the moat - which is at the farthest end from the Queen's Summer Palace. We eventually came upon the old Royal Menagerie area ... the only thing still happening there is some falconry.
It was pretty spooky to see this falcon turn its head and look RIGHT at us when we were walking up the path ... seeing how it is blinded and all!
Now this, is a GREAT shot too! The small hawk (I think) with a representation of a desert environment behind it ... very very nice!!!
Another FABULOUS shot ... with this bird of prey looking RIGHT at me!
The birds were really cool, and I am a sucker for animals of any kind really. Now, the menagerie was actually full of real exotic animals - - lions for example, which I know don't sound exotic ... but they are not, despite what you might think, native to Bohemia!
One lion in particular played a real, and historically documented, role in Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II's reign ... to give you some idea of why the lion was allowed to be involved, the Emperor's nickname was "Crazy Old Rudolf" - - uh huh. Put it this way, if the lion was in a good mood - so was Rudolf ... if not, Crazy Ole Rudy would go into isolation in rooms specially prepared for this very thing. Very very i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g!
And now for something completely different!
Just to the right of the menagerie (back toward the Queen's Summer Palace) was more lovely garden ...
The gardens were HUGE ... they ran the entire length of the castle, just on the other side of the moat.
A close-up of the beautiful fountain and statues.
From there our tour of the Royal Gardens ended, and we headed into the Castle proper. We were headed to the Royal Picture Gallery (created in the 1570's), which was Crazy Old Rudolf prize and joy - - there were over 3000 paintings from masters all over Europe, many of which can still be found in collections in Germany for example ... as the castle was looted badly after Rudolf's death.
Here is the entrance to the Castle, coming from over the moat bridge.
And look, that IS the old moat! You can go down there and hike around.
And so we entered the Picture Gallery and viewed the 100 or so pictures that are left from Rudolf's magnificent collection. Most of them weren't to my tastes, all very Renaissance in style - - from Italy to Amsterdam masters. Lots of naked people, in many sensual and sometimes sexual poses. Lots of allegory.
I did however like the stuff my Arcimboldo ... he uses fruit and other foods to paint pictures, usually portraits. Very interesting really.
Another thing about Rudy, was his interest in all things peculiar if you will. He kept a cabinet of curiosities ... which is defined as "an encyclopedic collection in Renaissance Europe of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archeology, religious or historical artifacts, works of art (including cabinet paintings), and antiquities."
Because Rudy was of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and therefore Austria (who speak German) ... his was called a Wunderkammer ... or Room of Wonders.
And that was our A+A excursion.
From there I went to meet Tereza, or Teri ... an old high-school exchange student of my math professor turned friend at Bunker Hill. My professor (Katherine) gave me Teri's name and contact info and said I should meet her, as she was a Prague native. Then, when Katherine couldn't attend Teri's wedding in April (due to the Iceland volcano) ... she asked if I would take wedding and baby gifts with me, which I readily agreed to.
So, I met Teri "under the tail" ... of the huge statue of Wenceslas on his horse, in his square. This apparently is a most typical Pragian place to meet ... under the tail, love it! From there we went to a neat little cafe that was actually a program for teaching the mentally challenged how to work and maintain a job. Really cool idea!!!
We had a FABULOUS night ... I have made a friend for life, and I knew it within an hour of spending time with her. And she feels the same - - really really neat! She is just a lovely human being, friendly and open and witty and beautiful and non-judgmental and really really great!
I didn't get any pics that night - silly girl - but I did get some last night (July 13) when I saw her again, so since one of the upside to being in blogging is hindsight ... I will show the pic here so you can see wonderful Teri!
Awwww ... aren't we sweet?!?
This day ... was ... all ... around ... a ... great ... damn ... day!!!
;-}
Thanks for coming along for the trip! See you in Praha tomorrow.
under the tail...love it!
ReplyDeleteteri looks lovely. i'm so glad you met and took to one another instantly!!
again...today's adventure was worth the time! thank you for sharing all your knowledge and experiences...love, mom