Day 2 - Prominte, prosim, mluviteh anglitske? (Excuse me, please, do you speak English?)

I am a little later writing tonight than I had planned due to crashing into bed around 9pm (for those of you who know we well... that's a rare occurrence), I tend to be a night person, except when tired, but unsurprising given the amount of work accomplished, and the nearly 14 miles of walking that googlemaps approximated that I did today. It's now 3:30am, and I'm wide awake, and glad to have a little peaceful time to write. Holesovice has proved to be more active a nightlife area that it's sedate visual nature let on... or at least my street is (Milady Horavice).

A non-insubstantial part of my day was taken up with shopping... a task that I simply don't care for. First on the list was buying clothing.... a task I personally loathe, but as necessitated by the fact that my bag hadn't arrived, and I desperately needed toiletries and a change of clothes.  I headed into town my "regular way over Stephanov Bridge and down to Namesti Republicky (Republic Square)... an area that I ended up in three subsequent times today looking for other things. Across the street from one of the major shopping malls is the Obecni Dum or Municipal House... (#1)

It's a civic building and contains a concert venue (Smetana Hall). it's built in the Art Nouveau Style (early 20th century) with tons of organic-style embellishments and flourishes. One of its' more striking features is the tile mosaic over the main entrance....

from there I circled under the Powder Gate...

and around to Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) (#2)....

which is an open plaza flanked some some rather swanky stores and and some beautiful architecture. Here's one that kinda demonstrates what I was talking about in my last post... the notion of the old and the new living side by side....

The next "wander-ment" was trying to locate a place where we could get some items printed off. This doesn't sound like a ludicrous notion, given that Prague is a modern major city, but it was harder than expected. Mid-afternoon, we finally found a print shop located in the basement of the very shopping center that I had started the day at, in Namesti Republicky!

Following the day's work (which I'll write more about in a minute), I circled up to the Rudophinum (#3), which is the concert hall for the Prague National Orchestra. It's located right along the river near the Manisuv most (Manisov Bridge).

the Rudolphinum

they were about to have a chamber orchestra performance as I was walking by, and though really tempted, I was starving and decided that feeding the body was a better idea than feeding the soul, for the moment.

looking across the Manisov Bridge toward Prague Castle

across the street from the Rudolphinum is the Museum of Decorative Arts. I neglected to visit this last time I was here, in 2011, and am deeply regretting it now, as it's it is closed until 2017 for a major overhaul.

 I then snaked through Josephov, the northwest-ish corner of Stare Mesto (Old Town). This contains the vaunted Jewish Quarter, with its range of synagogues and Old Jewish Cemetery (which I'm hoping to tour later in this trip.)

Again, the pairing of old and new fascinates me.. seeing a clearly neo-classical (18th century) building with a contemporary Prada store in it, standing next to a 13th century synagogue, just SEEMS strange when you write about it, but that visual coexistence is stunning, and kinda beautiful too. All in all, some lovely sightseeing, paired with work today!

the Spanish synagogue.

detail from the Spanish synagogue