I need to get back on the street and find some local material. No fall color here at all - much too warm and dry. So more from the trip. This is the famous astronomical clock in Prague's Old Town Square. Obviously, the display is complex and if you would like an explanation check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock . On the hour, figures come out of the door on the left and march around but it gets so crowded you can't get a good picture.
A sign seen in Prague. They love their pivo - beer - and it might be the same price or a little cheaper than bottled water in restaurants. Czechs consume more than any country in the world.
This is an ad for a college, The top text reads "Through this motif, I wanted to celebrate human relationships—families, friends, and colleagues." The smaller print at the bottom says "In this new beer mug made of Czech crystal, he has combined the classic forms of Czech beer glassware into a motif representing a symbolic companion to share a beer with." Well, that's how Google Translate has it.
We are opera fans and this trip was planned, in part, as an opera tour. The 19th Century houses were quite small by the standards of the big venues we've visited in the U.S., like New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, or European houses like the London Coliseum, Paris' Opera Bastille or the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. There were hits and misses at each of the three cities we visited.
Prague: we heard Shostakovitch's lurid, violent Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. I love the music and the cast was flawless. We had what we thought were the best seats in the house, first balcony, first row, center. There was about enough legroom for a modern eight year old, and it was painful for 6 ft. 3 inch / 196 cm me. The show wasn't sold out so we found some seats at intermission a few rows back that worked out.
Vienna: this was like a visit to the temple for me, the Wiener Staatsoper where Gustav Mahler was conductor for 10 years. You might tell from the photo that we were in a second-tier box. Never been in a box in all the opera houses we've visited. We were in the second of three rows. My advice: NEVER buy tickets in a box unless you can get first row. There was a was a quite large person in front of me who blocked my view of a third of the stage. The production of Carmen was a disappointment, with particularly minimalist staging and not that great principals.
Budapest: I thought this would be the highlight, a 100th anniversary of Zoltan Kodaly's Hungarian singspeil Hary Janos. It may have had much cultural significance but the very long musical introduction was not that interesting. There were long stretches of dialog, with English surtitles so small and quickly moving that we couldn't follow them. And then again the seats were fit for a eight year old. We left at intermission.
But then we'll be hearing Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in January, and at least we know what we're in for.
Our flight from London to St. Louis has gone way up north, passing over the southern tip of Greenland. Just an iPhone shot, but what a gift.
Good morning from soggy Heathrow Airport. We are not going where this plane is going. We flew in from Budapest yesterday afternoon. It was worth it to spend a night at an airport hotel so we could get British Airway's four-day-a-week non-stop flight to St. Louis. (No more changing in Chicago!)
Home tonight. There is Starlink WiFi on the plans so maybe I'll get some more editing done.
From Berlin to Buenos Aires, we pride ourselves in taking public transit wherever we travel. It is becoming more difficult with my spine issues and need of a cane, and we increasingly use taxis, However, we hired a private guide on Sunday and took several trios on the Budapest Metro. Public transit here is free for 65 and older. The stations, trains and cars are tiny by New York/London/Paris standards but they are impeccably clean, run frequently and get you where you want to go.
We visited the two major cathedrals of Budapest today, St. Matthias and St. Stephen. I didn't know anything about the former. He was chosen by the other eleven apostles to replace Judas Iscariot. There are a couple of St. Stephens around but this one became the first king of Hungary in about 1000 CE.
The first photo is an amazing window in Matthias, The second is a wide view of the transept of Stephen. But while editing it there was something I couldn't get out of my head, https://tinyurl.com/ykjpasa2 .
We left Vienna on Friday morning on one of the perpetually late trains in this part of the world, arriving in Budapest late afternoon. Beautiful day in another beautiful city. It seems as if we are going down a stream from one linguistic island to another, Czech to German to Hungarian. I learned some beer-related and courtesy words in Czech. We know a little German from school and several visits. Hungarian is a complete mystery. The roots of the language are thought to be from western Siberia and the only related European language is Finnish.
However, the stream we are floating in is English. It's everywhere and we rarely have difficulty communicating. It is the world's second language and, happily, our first.
Sigmund Freud and family occupied spacious apartments a short distance from our hotel. They are now a museum dedicated to his life and work, with emphasis on the harrowing misfortunes he and his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis after the Anschluss. There were some artifacts and photographs and an awful lot of documents written in German. Every section had many text boards written in German and English. It was fascinating but got to be more than our eyes and brains could manage.
Only one room was re-created to look as it did a century ago. This is the waiting room he shared with his sister Anna, also a psychoanalyst. The consultation room is deliberately left bare but for a few old photos. The famous couch and other furnishings were moved to London when Freud fled Austria.
Very few photos on Wednesday. We went to the morning exercises at the Spanish Riding School of Riding with the Lipinzzaner Stallions. No photos allowed of the horses to keep them calm. Then to the Mozart House, where pictures were also not allowed, not that there was much photogenic. But the sign outside the Mozart House was pretty cool.
The architecture of this city is fall over gorgeous. Most of it looks very old fashioned but there are some other, um, touches. This is the new entrance to a famous old museum, the Albertina. But then the second image is just to the left.
Or is was last night. We went to this cool restaurant just down the street from our hotel called Katr. Apparently nothing to do with the Gulf petrostate. Very dapper head chef. Printed English menu available, fortunately. The strange look of the room is because each table had a place for a grill where you could do your own meat to taste. This is no longer a thing but the look is eye catching.
Vienna on Monday.
Wandering around Prague in something between drizzle to light rain, a fairly miserable day. We came across this in part of the building where Woofie lived during his time in this city.
Out walking around Prague yesterday in the old Jewish Quarter when we happened upon this arresting statue of Franz Kafka. I am at a loss to interpret it (you could probably look it up) but we are wearing ourselves out. Philip Glass wrote an opera on Kafka's book The Trial that we had in STL a few years ago.
First opera of the trip Friday night, Shostakovitch"s Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. OMG, the plot is lurid but I love the music.
I don't know when these posts are going up in various time zoned but I wanted to get something published. We got to Prague Thursday afternoon in the usual state of jet lag. Walked around the corner for dinner on a wet evening. The local cuisine is hearty. Ice hockey is a big deal here and Czech teams do well in international competition.
I edited maybe a dozen Artica photos yesterday and I want to get them uploaded before we travel today. Each has something to say for itself but there isn't time to comment on every one. This display was four or five folding tables long, with printouts of a single words wrapped around blocks of wood. Visitors were invited to arrange them into any kind of mini-poetry they pleased. This was one of my Artica favorites.
Check the album with many images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcrowe/albums/72177720336009626/ . All the images will be on my Facebook feed Thursday mirning my time. Today's a long travel day and I'll try to edit some of the burn of Our Lady of Artica along the way.
I'd like to survey some of the work at Artica before I get busy with other stuff. Wednesday into Thursday is a long travel day and there will be plenty to shoot at our destination. This structure invited visitors to write out their wishes and feelings and clip them into a structure called a dream catcher. Zoom in if you can.
It was Artica this weekend, The Lou's wonderful, free-form, outdoor arts event, https://www.articastl.com/ . This was its 25th anniversary and I've made a lot of images here over the years. Sunday concludes with the burning of the effigy of Our Lady of Artica, which we will get to. Finishing touches being applied here.
Rainbows everywhere, but I guess that's part of the point. Probably the last photo from Tower Grove Pride. Artica is this weekend and we hope to go today. Usually get some good pictures and the weather should be good for the bonfire.
More color and fun at Tower Grove Pride. I know who this person is without looking at the festival website, since we've crossed paths through the St. Lou Fringe, where I'm the photographer and board prez. It's Darrious Varner. who performs as DDare Bionic. Darrious also works in the newsroom at St. Louis Public Radio.
Not sure who was sponsoring this tent at Tower Grove Pride. There was a sign to the left of the crop inviting people to dance but no one was. No idea how these machines work but it's not my kind of music anyway. Not into the piercings, either.
