Prague 2

On our second full day, we went to the Jewish Museum, which is not one building, but rather a number of synagogues, a hall for ceremonies and a Jewish cemetery.  The area was the Jewish ghetto for about 800 years, until Joseph II gave them civil rights and the wealthier people moved out. The synagogues display objects, with a theme for each synagogue. It’s really well done – the Ceremonial Hall has a series of maybe fifteen large paintings, dating from the late eighteenth century, acting as a sort of strip cartoon explanation of Jewish burial societies and practices. It may sound odd, but it was a fascinating look at a vanished world.

The most moving was the Pinkas synagogue, built in 1535 but largely destroyed in 1941. It has been reroofed and the walls are entirely covered with the names and dates of birth and death of around 80,000 Czech Jews who were murdered during the holocaust. It needs something like that to bring the numbers home to you; you simply can’t comprehend  80,000 without some visual representation. There are also drawings made by children in Terezin, sometimes with photos of the children, which are terribly moving.

The Jewish cemetery is the famous site, and certainly should be seen, but isn’t that surprising to anyone who has seen the City of London church graveyards. Or even Haworth. No wonder the Brontes had short lives, living next to a graveyard so full of corpses that the ground level is feet higher than the surrounding area.

Jewish cemetery

The synagogues were all heated, and Phil commented that it was ironic - he had to keep on his beanie, whereas yesterday in the churches he had to take it off, and they were bone chillingly cold, much colder than out doors. Still, at least he had better manners than a lot of the male visitors, who couldn’t be bothered to show a bit of basic politeness.

Afterwards, we went to St Agnes’ Convent. It’s Gothic, but very much restored – well, in fact it was a complete ruin. St Agnes was the sister of an early ruler, in about the eleventh century. It has a terrific exhibition of early Czech religious painting and sculpture. It was very sophisticated, and looked towards the Netherlands, France and Italy rather than eastwards. There was a brilliant set of paintings for an altarpiece from the fifteenth century, I’d definitely take those home.

Then we  had a gluhwein and some potato crisps in the old town square, and got changed for the opera again. We had an early meal in a vegetarian place – Czech cuisine is a bit heavy on the meat and light on the vegetables, and one begins to feel a little stuffed.

Gate at the end of the Charles Bridge

The opera this time was Tosca. There are surtitles in English and Czech, not that we need them desperately for either of the operas we saw; but when we went to see Fidelio, which we didn’t know at all, in Budapest, it was sung in German with surtitles in Hungarian; which I have to say was something of a challenge.  Anyway, Tosca was really good; excellent singers, and a well acted Scarpia. Tosca was pretty wooden, I’m afraid.

Almost all of the people we’ve dealt with are able to speak English, and English immersion schools are advertised. I suppose Czech is like Dutch, a relatively minority language, so you need a second one. Everyone seems instantly able to identify us as British, it’s a bit unnerving. Except for the lady who said “Dos vidanya” to Phil. I think he must have looked offended, because she followed it immediately with a “Sorry!”  It really bothered him. He wondered if he could really look like an oligarch. I pointed out that I was the let down – if he was a well off Russian, I’d be wearing a fur coat, masses of jewellery and be at least thirty years younger.

We had a bit longer to have a look at Wenceslas Square and saw the Jan Palach memorial at the end. I really like Prague. The painted buildings, arcades and narrow alleys in the Old Town are charming and the site is terrific. There are many interesting Art Deco buildings too, and lots of pedestrian only bits, which makes it thoroughly pleasant to wander round.

We tried to visit the Bethlehem chapel, where Jan Hus preached, but it was closed. It was open every other day in February, so we really had managed to pick a bad day.

The third full day in Prague, we took the metro to the Vysehrad fortress.  It’s the original castle, high up on a bluff over the river, on the other side to the present castle. As it was the fortress and palace of the early medieval kings of Bohemia, it has a mystical significance for Czechs. I wanted to go because “Vysehrad” is one of the movements of Ma Vlast.  However, it was a highlight of the trip, and we both really enjoyed it. 

Massive gate into the fort at Vysehrad

View from Vysehrad

Virtually all the medieval stuff  has been destroyed, but it was turned into an enormous artillery fort in the eighteenth century, and it’s now a lovely park, with lots of interesting features. The National cemetery is there and we found the graves of Smetana himself, Dvorak and Suk. I was quite excited. 

Smetana's grave

It was a glorious day, frosty to start with but brilliantly sunny, and spring like, with birds and flowers. We even saw a woodpecker up quite close.

The views of Prague and the river were spectacular, and the café did us a typically powerful coffee.

View from Vysehrad, St Vitus' cathedral and the castle in the distance.

We walked down off the bluff and got a tram to the Veletrzni Palac. This is where the National Gallery displays its collection from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first centuries. They own a fabulous collection of impressionists and later French art, including some striking sculptures by Bourdelle. There are more Picassos than in Malaga. I’m having Van Gogh’s “Green Wheat”. It was painted when he was in the asylum in St Remy, but apparently on a good day, as it’s calm and peaceful, as you can imagine by the main colour being green. Phil wanted it too, but I beat him to it. He chose a Monet instead.

There’s a very comprehensive collection of Czech art, and design works are also shown, with models and plans of modernist buildings from the twenties and thirties. It just shows how forward thinking the Czech independent state was; and in fact the Veletrzni  Palac itself is a superb modernist building, designed for a trade fair in the thirties.

The last night here, we went to a concert in the Municipal House. The concert was good (the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Valentina Lisitsa) and the municipal house is just brilliant. It’s the most amazing Art Deco extravaganza you can imagine, beautifully restored.  If you ever go to Prague, don’t miss it – there are restaurants, so you don’t have to go to a concert. It’s better than the astronomical clock, I’m telling you. And a glass of prosecco only sets you back a quid. 

Prague

This is our third attempt to visit Prague; each time before, something happened to stop us, so third time lucky. We're staying in the centre of the old town, just off the Old Town Square, which is lovely; on arrival we had a potter round to  get orientated and saw the astrological clock. I liked Death turning over his hour glass. You have to remind yourself how very old it is. 

Hotel Rott - a success.

Today, we crossed the Charles Bridge and set off for the castle. Prague is pretty busy, with large parties of young people milling around, and although it is quite chilly, we are not glad to be here in summer.

On the way to the castle we got distracted by Saint Nicholas Church, and went in for a look round. It is rococo; it's unbelievable elaborate, with a plethora of enormous sculptures all covered in gold. The ceiling was interesting because it's frescoed with a trompe l'oeil effect that was truly remarkable. It was genuinely difficult to tell what was a feature of the architecture and what was just painted. The organ was staggering; it was covered with massive golden cherubs and angels playing instruments. Phil and I wandered about muttering to each other.

"Have you seen that ? "

"Yes, hideous, isn't it?"

I'm not sure how much  church  visiting we're likely to do here, as they are virtually all rococo or baroque, and there seems to be a penchant for bones and reliquaries. We did make a rapid tour of the Loreto, which was not quite as bad as Saint Nicholas as a building, but had a treasury full of monstrosities, with unbelievable quantities of diamonds and other jewels. One thing the Loreto had, though, which made the visit worthwhile, was a statue of a crucified bearded lady. The sculptor used a real dress and a real hair beard. Apparently it was some saint who prayed to preserve her virginity, and got given a beard. She was crucified by her own father, for reasons which escaped me. It was horribly funny, as though Conchita Wurst had had a stroke of inspiration for a music video.

It was quite a haul up to the castle, but well worth it. All around are large palaces of the noble families, now galleries or government offices or embassies, and there are wide squares and lots of gardens. The old Royal Palace was the best bit; it still had the huge tiled stoves, actually working, which was nice as the cathedral was freezing. There is a magnificent great hall with a most unusual vaulted stone ceiling, very impressive. 

Tiled Stove

There is a replica of the crown of the kingdom of Bohemia on show. Because the crown is so old, the stones are not cut, but they are huge. Best of all you can see the actual window of the second Defenestration of Prague which started the Thirty Years' War. It's a long way down, they were lucky to survive.

Apse window, St Vitus'

St Vitus' Cathedral is Gothic and has a beautiful soaring nave. It's not too cluttered and for some reason it was not finished completely until 1929, so the windows are by relatively modern Czech artists, including one by Alphons Mucha, which was lovely, but I thought that all the windows were superb. The ancient Kings of Bohemia were crowned the kings here, and there is a special pulpit with a private way in from the royal residence. 

The "Golden Lane" consists of tiny houses, originally for the musketeers guarded the castle. Some are on display as they were used at various times, which was interesting s they gave you a bit of a course on Czech history.

In the evening, We had tickets for the opera (the internet is a wonderful thing!). It was Verdi's Otello, with Jose Cura in the title role, and Czech singers, Paul Vykopalova and Richard Haan, as Desdemona and Iago. They were brilliant, all of them. The love scene was piercingly beautiful.

We had brought` smart clothes for the opera, and it was an uncomfortable walk over the cobbles in high heels, which I don't like wearing at the best of times,  but the opera house is just at the far end of Wenceslas Square, so it was not worth taking public transport. And I still felt quite dowdy. There were plenty of men in black tie, and women in evening gowns, so I felt a day dress did not really cut the mustard. We might have been OK in the gods, but the seats were so cheap, by British standards, that we were in the stalls. Luckily, Vykopalova is young and attractive, and Otello is Meant to be older. Sometimes, though, at the opera, it pays to be further from the stage.

Half term trip to London

Just before Christmas, Phil spotted an offer for rooms at a new Premier Inn opening in London, close to Tower Bridge. He booked for us to take the grandsons at half term. We quite keen on Premier Inns – they make a big point of the comfort of their beds, and they are actually wonderfully comfortable: and they make a point of keeping the corridors quiet, too, so you do get a really good night’s sleep.  We’re not very keen on B & B; at the risk of sounding a pair of miseries, we don’t like having to make the effort to be friendly and pleasant to the owners and prefer the anonymity of a budget hotel.

When we got to the hotel it became obvious that lots of parents had also picked up on the offer and the place was packed with kids on half term. The boys really enjoyed staying on a hotel, especially the breakfast!  Thomas, the older grandson is more or less permanently hungry, and the younger one, Marc, had a massive breakfast and then no lunch to speak of, which was fine with us.

We toured Tower Bridge and its workings, and then Marc was tired, so I took him back to the hotel while Thomas and granddad went round the cruiser Belfast. They were shattered with going up and down so many companion ways, but I think it was the highlight of the whole trip for Thomas.

Looking through the glass walkway high on Tower bridge

H.M.S. Belfast

Next day we rushed them out and to the Tower, which they understood later, because we walked straight in to see the Crown Jewels, and by eleven o’clock the queue was all the way back to the gate into the Tower. Thomas liked seeing Elizabeth I’s pearl earrings on the crown, because he did the Tudors last year in school. They also liked the fact that the jewels have a history; they weren’t as impressed as us by the Stars of Africa. Perhaps they have less to compare them with.
There is so much to see at the Tower, too much really for Marc, and it got very busy indeed, so we gave up in the end. 

Welsh Guardsman. When the guard changed, the corporal
kept having to call out "Make way for the Queen's Guard" - and
dopey tourists still stood bang in the way.

Raven - this one seemed to like the tourists, but they have a wicked
beak on them - everyone had the sense to be cautious.

The next day was brilliant. We got the Docklands Light Railway to the Excel, and the took the cable car across the Thames, which  I highly recommend. It was a beautiful clear sunny day and the views were amazing, and the water in the docks was sparkling – it was wonderful. Then we had a quick look at the Dome, and then took a bus to Greenwich. Greenwich was great. You can’t fail to be impressed with Cutty Sark and the Naval Hospital, and the tide was right in and the river was so choppy that waves were splashing people on the pavement. That’s bound to be a success with boys. And on top of all that there was filming going on – a Michael Caine film, a follow up to Now You See It, apparently.

Canary Wharf

The Millennium Dome

Royal Victoria dock

 Then we walked through the tunnel under the Thames and got the DLR back.

We had time to pop in to King’s Cross to see platform nine and threequarters, or whatever it is – the Harry Potter thing. We would have taken photos for the boys, but there was a queue of about a hundred adults. I simply don’t get the Harry Potter thing in adults. Kids, yes – anything that gets them reading with pleasure – but really, not adults. And I speak as one who likes quite a lot of SF and enjoys many superhero films.

I have to say the boys were perfectly behaved and extremely good company, and that's not just because I'm their granny.

Stratford and nuclear physics

We were booked in to see two plays this month. One was The Shoemakers’ Holiday, by Thomas Dekker, and the other was Oppenheimer by Tom Morton-Smith.

The Shoemaker’s Holiday was very well produced and acted, with David Troughton as the shoemaker who ascends to be Lord Mayor of London, and a young man called Joel McCormack, who seemed to be pretty fresh out of drama school, as one of his cheeky and determined journeymen. I shall watch out for him in future. 

Oppenheimer is a new play written specially for the RSC, and we were beginning to wonder if we had made the right choice between that and a good concert in Nottingham on the same night.

Well, it was brilliant. It set out the technical, logistical,  (do you know that 10% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. was supplying the Manhattan Project?) and moral problems of the Manhattan Project so clearly, and the issue of surveillance, distrust and government control is so deeply relevant today. We were gripped. John Heffernan as J. Robert Oppenheimer, was wonderful, but there wasn't a weak link in the cast.

I’ve been down to the library and got a biography of Oppenheimer, which I fear may be like a Brief History of Time; while I was actually reading it, I understood it perfectly, but as soon as I closed the book, it sort of slipped away. So I read it again, with exactly the same result.

The play has also provided us with after school activities with the grandsons, who were fascinated by exponential mathematics, and how exactly the bomb was built and detonated, and why there wasn’t a crater at Hiroshima. Some of our google searches may look dodgy if GCHQ is watching us. 

January

I’ve been surprisingly busy for the last month or so, and I haven’t been keeping up with the blog. So this is a kind of update.

We had a few days in Edinburgh, which we enjoyed, although the weather was grim. But we didn’t expect anything else. It’s been grim every time we’ve been to Edinburgh, even in the summer. There was nothing on at any theatre – post Hogmanay hangover, I suppose – but we did have some excellent dinners. We stayed in a budget hotel, but it was right on Princes Street, with a terrific view of the castle, and very well placed for restaurants in the New Town. 

View from the hotel.

Apparently there is a modern Scottish cuisine which uses cheaper cuts of meat and local ingredients, and very good it is. We really had to force ourselves back out of the hotel and into the freezing wind to go out for our dinners, but it was always worth it.

A "mortsafe" in Greyfriars churchyard. There were lots of them
to stop graverobbers digging up the bodies and selling them to
Edinburgh University anatomy school. 

There was a fantastic show of Turner watercolours at the Scottish National gallery, which are only ever on show in January, to preserve them from fading, and we walked down the Royal Mile, where all the tartan shops are now run by Sikhs, and went round the Scottish Parliament.

 I had mixed feelings; I like clean lines, and there were a lot of very cluttered bits, especially the ceiling of the debating chamber, and the roof lights. One bit I really disliked was the offices; they all have a window seat as “space for contemplation”; it was obvious that the block had come out as a rectangular building, but the architect thought that was too boring, so he’d stuck these pods on. And then each of these window seats had an external fence of wooden poles across them, blocking the view. That is simply stupid. 

Idiotic fence over the window.

And there was a long screed about democracy and women where Mary Queen of Scots, that well known champion of freedom, the rights of women, and democracy, was cited. But the building seems to work well, and the debating chamber, with its modern layout and modern systems, did rather put to shame the bear pit of the Westminster Parliament.

Leith - there are some massive oil rig supply vessels in dock.

We also went to Leith, which is still in the process of coming up, and visited Britannia. It was much more interesting than we expected, to be honest: between the fifties classic understated design, the crew accommodation, the artefacts presented on the Queen’s tour of various Pacific islands, and the complete contrast with the overwhelming bling of modern yachts of oligarchs, it was a fascinating tour. The thing that really impressed us may sound funny, but it was the laundry. It was massive, as a proportion of the ship’s size, and fully equipped with extremely solid fifties laundry equipment, because on tours in the Pacific, the crew got through so many changes – the crew of the launch might get through five sets of whites in a day.

The other thing I should update you on is Nottingham’s naughtiest dog. I’m glad to say, the title is no longer remotely appropriate. I mean, he’s not Nottingham’s best behaved dog, but he is much much better. A great many treats and a great deal of patience have had to be expended, but at least he has calmed down enough for treats to work. If he won’t come back for a treat, a squeaky toy is the weapon to deploy. It’s difficult, as you do have to let him play with it for a minute or two, and he can destroy a squeaky toy in a few seconds; but we try to regard it as natural wastage. 

Doing his best imitation of a greyhound - BUT returning to owner!

He has to be tired out to give you any peace in the house, but he has stopped bounding over the furniture like a berserk kangaroo. And now he’s keen on licking your hands or ears rather than nibbling them. I’m quite willing to have my ears licked if it keeps him happy, although my daughter thinks it’s awful. I tell her our dog washed all of their ears as babies and toddlers, and it never did them any harm, but I think I lost mothering points for having allowed it. 

Durham, Doddington, and cheese

Yesterday we went to Doddington Hall for a pre-Christmas outing. Doddington is near Lincoln, and is a Smythson house. For many years we lived in Wollaton, and Wollaton Hall is  very famous and elaborate Smythson house, although quite spoiled internally. Hardwick hall, just up the A1 is Smythson, and a wonderful survival, with most of the original furnishings. Smythson is buried in St Leonard’s, Wollaton, and his monument actually calls him “architect”, which must be a very early usage of the term, if not the first.

Doddington, front, with sculpture by Andrew Smith,
last summer

Doddington, rear, with frost

Doddington is smaller and simpler than Hardwick or Wollaton, but it is lovely. We went in the summer for the biennial sculpture exhibition; it must have been at least twenty years since we last visited, and the next generation of the family have succeeded. The gardens are improved and the produce of the enormous kitchen gardens are sold in a shop, along with high quality meats, cheeses, pies, cakes, bread etc. It’s jolly good. And there’s an excellent café and restaurant.

So this weekend we have friends staying, and saw that Doddington is open for a brief period in winter, with the house decorated for Christmas. So we booked the restaurant for lunch and went off.

It was a cold and frosty morning, (though way past three o’ clock) so we didn’t spend as much time in the gardens as they deserve, although we did make sure to do the turf maze. Can’t resist a maze or a labyrinth.

Trying the maze

At the centre

The house decorations were just gorgeous, and perfectly in keeping. There were huge displays of dried hydrangea heads, holly, ivy and white stalks and seed heads. There were ivy leaves made from cut up sheet music, origami flowers, and paper bells. A group of wicker work angels, whom we had seen in the gardens during the sculpture exhibition, were suspended from the ceiling. One room, which contains a wonderful decorated Egyptian tent, brought back to the house by a previous owner, had paper silhouettes of the three kings. A choir sang carols in the main hall.

Choir in the hall

But the piece de resistance was the long gallery at the top of the house. You opened the door into near darkness, and walked into a softly lit forest (and I mean forest – there were countless trees). The pine smell, and the cold and the subtle lighting, made it feel just like going in to Narnia. There were wickerwork angels here, too, standing so their shadows were cast on the ceiling. You followed the meandering path through the forest, and reached a large tree, decorated with white lights and “icicles”. It was brilliant.

The forest, in the gallery

Then we had an excellent lunch, with crackers and mince pies.

The best thing about the decorations was the imagination and work that had gone into them, not expensive or showy ingredients.

Last weekend we went to see friends and family in the north east, which was delightful in itself, and as a bonus we went to a short, informal carol concert in Durham Cathedral. The choir wasn’t singing, unfortunately, but it was lovely. After the service we visited the Venerable Bede, and St Cuthbert. Durham may well be my favourite cathedral in the whole world. 

 I do like singing carols, and know nearly all the words of nearly all the carols, because for about twelve years the children and I, and any friends we could persuade, sang carols on a Saturday before Christmas outside the shops in Wollaton, just by the pedestrian crossing and outside the post office, and collected for Save the Children. We used to get about £100, so it was very well worthwhile, although sometimes we were frozen by the end.

On the way back to Nottingham we stopped off at a farm shop and got a beautiful small whole Coverdale cheese, to eat with the Christmas cake. Once back, we went out to Long Clawson and bought the Christmas half Stilton. So now I feel madly Christmassy, and almost organised.

Theatre feast

We’ve been having a very busy time theatre going. We’ve seen five plays in less than two weeks. It’s been brilliant.

Last week, we went to Stratford to see The Witch of Edmonton and The White Devil. They aren’t Shakespeare, of course; The White Devil is written by Webster, and The Witch of Edmonton is written by a consortium of Ford, Dekker and Rowley.

The eponymous witch is played by Dame Eileen Atkins. She is a shrewd, lonely, somewhat embittered individual, and has quite daring speeches to make, which are withering to the men who run things. The interplay between her and her familiar, a black dog, athletically played by an actor equipped with a flexible skeletal tail, was excellent. The subplot was also very well played, particularly when the murder victim’s sister realises her brother in law was the murderer. I was on the edge of my seat then. The writers were pretty ambiguous about the existence of witchcraft and magic, and surprisingly on the side of the women – the sensibility was more modern that I expected, I think.  

The same was true of The White Devil. In that play, women were used by men. They are not better than the men, but they are made to take the responsibility which the men can avoid. Of course the director may bring out this, because it chimes with modern ideas, but they can’t put in something that isn’t there to start with.

It was quite gruesome. It ended with three women murdered on stage – remember we are in the front row – and then one of the murderers cut his own throat. By this time, I was so involved that I clapped my hands over my eyes. I bet the actor found that satisfying, if he happened to notice.

The next day, we went to see Arcadia at the Nottingham Playhouse. We used to have a bit of a thing about Stoppard, but Arcadia came out during the long gap in theatre going occasioned by children. So we were really looking forward to it, and it didn’t disappoint. The cast was mostly young, with a couple straight out of drama school, excellent, and Ilan Goodman,  the actor who had to explain chaos theory and the mathematics, did it very well indeed. Stoppard does make you work, though. But there’s plenty of emotion too.

This week, we’ve had another trip to Stratford, to see Love’s Labours Lost and Love’s Labours Won, as the RSC is calling Much Ado About Nothing. (They have historical justifications for this, if you’re interested.) Well, it was just superb. The plays have been set either side of the Great War – Lost, just before, so the idea of the lovers deciding to wait a year became terribly sad; and Won, just after, so the more mature and serious atmosphere made sense. The whole company were tremendous, although two such wordy plays must be exhausting – and the same company is doing a new play, The Christmas Truce.

The set and costumes were spectacularly good, and both plays were scored by Nigel Hess. The music was integral and wonderfully effective – marches, Ivor Novello type songs, and incidental music which scored the action superbly.

There was a Q & A with the cast after the second play, which we found enlightening. Most of the audience seemed to have seen both plays – only a small minority had only see Much Ado. So most of us had done the marathon – although, of course, it was the cast who had really done the work, the emotions generated take it out of the audience too!

If you can, go and see both plays. They are wonderful.

Seeing Love’s Labours Lost means we are now in search of only three plays, and then we have seen the whole accepted canon. We still need Cymbeline, Pericles and Henry VIII. They aren’t very often performed. But Greg Doran has promised to do all the plays during his tenure – so we just have to live long enough. And there are plenty of plays we’d like to see again, so we’ll be driving a groove to Stratford for as long as we can, I think.