My First Riot

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Thousands+Greek+anarchists+protest+squatters+court/7811782/story.html

Mycenae

Today was our visit to Mycenae!  Bit of a busman’s holiday to go to an archaeological site, but I plan to hit a bunch of them.  It’s an addiction.  So beautiful – blue sky, olive trees, goats with bells ringing around their necks on the hillside.  And we’re the only people here because no one else is crazy enough to come to Greek tourist sites in January.  All the employees look confused by our presence.  The plus is we have the place all to ourselves and it is completely peaceful.  The minus: the bus driver gets lazy and doesn’t come back.  So we walked.  From Mycenae to a few km short of Argos where a trio of orange pickers picked us up in their truck and dropped us off at a bus stop where the bus did in fact arrive.  All told, we walked about eight miles.  I deserve this baklava!! 

Mycenae from below.

Brianna in the ruins.

There is snow up there somewhere....

The famous Lion Gate.

I did say I was going on the European rails, but this isn't exactly what I meant.  It was just safer walking here than on the shoulder-less road.

Fire

Brianna: Oh!  Is that the Olympic flame?
Me: Um, no.  That's a refinery.

Optimist and realist?

Nafplion

Two days in Greece, two frappes later...  That would be a traditional Greek iced coffee with milk and sugar.  Hear that?  I may have FINALLY learned to drink coffee.  Also eating yoghurt with honey in a sundae dish.  It's hard to think of that as breakfast when it is so sweet and tasty, but I'll struggle through somehow.  And because we arrived for Epiphany, they are making the special and seasonal tureki bread.  Yum!

It's wonderful here.  Sunny and beautiful, and the weather report says it will snow tonight.  So confusing, as it must have been in the 60s as we climbed up to the Fortress of Palamidi.  With all the ancient ruins in Greece, we managed to instead hit the (relatively, CE 1710) modern Venetian fort.  Dur.  But the climb was great, and although I have no real proof, I think my butt is getting shapelier under this regime.

Yo Venetians, Turks coming..... (so glad I read John Julius Norwich all those years ago).

Greece!

Few words, because I am FULL of Greek food and headed to bed.  But so far, wow I love Greece.

And here's Brianna, who is showing me the Peloponnese!

Solo Prague

Okay, you’ve had a lot of photo-heavy posts of late.  Now it’s time for a wordy one.  I have to admit that I don’t love Prague.  I never expected to, given my background.  As most of you know, a careless driver killed my bonus-father Hank here nine years ago while he was visiting.  It has certainly made me a twitchy pedestrian.  But everyone kept telling me how charming the place is, cheap, great architecture, etc.  So I’ll go along with that.  It is cheap – or at least cheaper than other European cities with castles.  But only by a bit.  And there is a trade off to that.  While this place is teeming with tourists like other cities, it does a poor job of corralling them.  The ticket offices are always jammed with only one or two clerks selling.  I suppose that keeps things cheaper by under-employing, but it’s a bad bargain.  Great architecture – check.  Czech!  But I’m not sure I find it more charming than Salzburg, or Heidelberg.  Maybe it is just part of the “we weren’t badly bombed” rah-rah?

Today is my last day here in the city, and I am once again solo.  There are plusses and minuses to this.  One plus: amid all the hordes you are able to move faster without having to check-six to see if your companions are still with you.  A minus: no pics.  I figure I have enough thanks to downloading Lindsey and Kate’s cameras, and it’s raining today anyway.  Lindsey took off before dawn and Kate headed out before noon.  Since I am alone in the city I did the obvious: my laundry.  Another thing I really dislike about Prague is the cigarette smoking.  As I have moved further and further east I have been encountering more smoking.  It’s been causing me headaches and Lindsey’s been sneezing up a storm.  So I took the opportunity to hit a Laundromat – looking quite fetching in my yoga togs, as they are my only clean clothes left.  Then I checked into a hostel for my last night.  This is my first experiment with hostels.  They are much more economical than hotels, especially if I am not sharing, but there are usually downsides.  I am very pleasantly surprised by this one.  No smoking anywhere in the place – unlike our hotel!!  Furnishings are obviously a bit spare, but it’s quiet and seems very nice.  The front desk clerk is much nicer than those at the hotel we just checked out of.  She was quite impressed that I am reading the history of Prague, and commented that I now know more about the country than most Czechs.  The book: Prague in Black and Gold by Peter Demetz is dense, long, and has bad font.  Thanks so much for the gift, Andrew!  But one of the consequences of reading it is that I have a more layered view of the history of the place, as opposed to the sanitized for tourists and neo-nationalist pap we’re getting from the Castle guides, etc.

So my afternoon was spent trying to subvert some of that simplicity.  First I hit the Mucha Museum.  Somewhere buried in my disposition I have a huge fondness for the Art Deco romanticism of Mucha.  But while the museum celebrates this national artist, they do have to admit he did his most recognizable work while living in Paris.  Then I toddled off to the Lobkowicz Palace.  Unlike the unheated and generally empty Castle museums, this place is a fascinating story that you are invited to walk through.  The Lobkowicz family feature in my Demetz book as major power players in the history of the city.  They eventually become Princes, then Dukes, then lose their titles (with their support) when the Czechoslovakian nation is created and hereditary titles are abolished.  Unfortunately, the family art, palaces, and other goods were first looted by the Nazis, returned, then taken three years later by the Communists.  After 1990 the family returned to Prague from the US and fought to get it all back.  Through laws, lobbying, and a good lawyer, they got most of it.  And they have worked to curate, repair, and showcase what they have.  But it is very clear that without the money from the US that they have been able to raise, much of this would have just rotted away.   Both Mucha and the Lobkowicz stories remind you that globalism is a reality, not an abstraction.

Mucha

Old Friends, New Friends, and Opera

This was Lindsey's last day in Prague and we hit the usual tourist places, joined by Kate.  First, the Charles Bridge.

Then we climbed the castle walls and posed as a couple of American tourists.

To make things interesting, we then posed as typical Russian tourists.  The Slavs are a dour people....

We toured the castle and came to realize there was a reason the Hapsburg royals chose to live in Vienna.  This place isn't heated!!  None of it!  The cathedral, the basilica, the palace....all icy cold.  Hilariously, there are three ceramic heaters in part of the palace but none are in working order.  I didn't tell Lindsey and Kate that I had put on long underwear this morning, because I was was worried about mockery.  So glad I did.

I think I could get a job in Prague as a copy editor.  I'm pretty sure this doesn't mean what they think it means.  Or if it does, I am wildly curious.

The last stop in the palace was the armory.  My peasant genes came to the fore - I picked the pitchfork as my weapon of choice.  

Following the castle complex, we met up with Kate's friend Natalie who is living in Prague with her State Department spouse.  We hit Cafe Louvre, famous for its clientele including Kafka, Einstein, and now us.  We have a lovely meal and scooted out of there to go see our last opera of the trip - Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville'.  Dropped into the St. Augustine for after-opera drinks and dessert.  Between the four of us, we are a scary well-travelled group.  Considering most Americans don't have passports (I think I read the statistic that only 20% have them), every one in this crew has lived abroad in multiple countries and travelled in many more.  I now have a goal - 40 by 40.  I should be at 36 by March, so I'll have to get a bit creative before my birthday.  It's doable.

Kate P., Lucy Z., Lindsey H., and Natalie S.

Signs and Omens

Prague has a lot of whacky signs.  They could really use a good copy editor.  But here are some favorites:

This one might actually be art.  I'm not sure what a 15 foot human femur hanging over the street actually advertises.

Also not sure about the educational value of this museum.

But Patrick - this one's for you!

New Year's Day, still Prague

Tourism day.  Charles Bridge....

And because once isn't enough for the Czechs, they do a second fireworks display at 6pm on NYD  While I generally consider the words, "it's for the children", to be some of the worst in the English language, I applaud this.

New Year's Eve in Prague

Because really, what doesn't say New Year's like a Beatle's tribute band in the Old Town Square?

Then we went for a traditional Czech meal before the fireworks.  "Traditional" means HUGE!!!  I was not a member of the clean plate club.

But really, the best part was sharing it with my best friend.  Happy New Year everyone!!  I hope the new year brings you lots of fun and love.