A December Visit to Prague

Prague in December is quite lovely, cold but sunny, at least for the few days I visited.  I went to Prague to give a talk in the Linguistics department at Charles University.  However, I arrived early enough the day before and had time in the mornings to see a bit more of Prague (it's my third visit!).

December begins Christmas Market in Prague, and I saw the one in old Town Square.  Here's one of the main churches in the late afternoon light.

The Square was massed with people wandering about enjoying all the food and small objects for sale at huts all around the Square.  Of course there was a giant tree.  I tried a kind of hot almond flavored liquor that tasted yummy and from which the liquor had burned off.  I also bought some cards in a nearby shop.

I happened to see a concert listed for the first evening I was there; I decided to take a chance in attending it.  Good choice because it turned out to be a wonderful evening.  First of all the location, the Chapel of Mirrors, dating from the 16th century and created by Italian architects, is a stunning hall.  The organ in the left hand picture came from a  church that was destroyed, while the organ in the right hand-picture is the original organ.  As the pictures show, there is a great deal of marble, painted ceilings and sculptured figures.  The chapel (no longer used as such) is in a building that houses an observatory, which was used by Tycho Brahe and (his assistant) Johannes Kepler and visited by Galileo.  Alas, I did not get to see the observatory! A side benefit for the concert was the astounding acoustics of the hall.

The concert was more than I expected, a series of short classical pieces for organ, flute, singing by two talented opera trained singers, accompanied either on organ or piano, and sometimes by flute. I could have listened to any one of the performers for a whole evening.

The next day I visited this monument, to the victims of communism, 1948-1989.  The numbers of victims is quite astonishing, and this monument in its simplicity speaks to their loss.  The sculptor is the famous Czech artist Olbram Zoubek. 

On my last day during my morning walk around the river,  I took these photos of a view down the river, and the kind of sculpture you find on buildings around Prague.