A trip to Pilsen

Photos are here.

We got up early because Vaclav had another appointment with the eye doctor (they had forgotten to dilate his eyes the day before, so had to do everything again), and Vera was determined to get me to St. Vitus Cathedral so I could see it before the line got long.

Before heading to the cathedral, they had to go to the post office with the car because there was something being held for Vaclav and they didn’t know if it was a letter or a big package. Turns out it was the package from my parents with all the Hawaiian stuff in it. This was a good way to get the Hawaii dialog going.

We braved traffic in the car this time, and got there before there was any line at all. I’m so glad we went again. It’s beautiful. Huge stained glass windows, one painted by Alfons Mucha (I have one of his paintings at home… classic art nouveau stuff), statues, everything. Even a solid silver statue. Vera asked if I wanted to go up, and I said yes, thinking we were going to a second level inside the church, but it turns out we went up to the tower. Huffing and puffing at the top (300 steps to be exact), we saw all of Prague. Gorgeous. Wonderful.

We went to Vera’s apartment where she had to feed her pet rat (a very nice rat) and we took the subway to Wenceslas square. I must say that after having been on the trams and busses, the subway was awesome. The stations were clean and interestingly designed, all in all quite a treat. But the escalators… because the subway is SOOOO far undergound, they have really, really long escalators. The two times we were on a long one, I got really disoriented and dizzy because I couldn’t see the top or bottom, and my brain was having issues with feeling like I should be standing at a 90° angle, parallel to the posters on the sides of the walls, but all the people were at 45° angles… very strange sensation.

At Wenceslas square, we of course had to have a coffee break and have some cake in a place that was there before the revolution (they, especially Vera, talked a lot about before and after the revolution, but I never really got to hear what it was like under communism), and hadn’t changed at all in many years, which I guess is not typical. We had cake of Prague… sort of two dense cookie-cake circles with custard in between, cinnamon and sugar on top. Very good. Especially with Vienna coffee.

We walked around and I bought souvenirs, then we went back to Vera’s, and then on to Vaclav’s.

Vera’s daughter, Vera (who I’ll call Verushka, since that’s what they called her… sort of an endearing nickname), was singing in Pilsen that night (she’s almost done with her opera studies), so she and her boyfriend Alecz (I think that’s how it’s spelled… pronounced Alesh) picked us up and we were off. Alecz is a sarcastic guy and he speaks good English. He’s a professional cello player. We got along well.

They spoke in Czech all the way to Pilsen, and when we got there, we had dinner at the Pilsner Urquell brewery… more goulash and more beer. All of it very good.

We went to the centrum where we had coffee. Vera and I went to the operahouse (gorgeous, of course) and watched two one act operas, the first a comedy about a slutty wife of a watchmaker, by Ravel, the other a tragedy about a nun whose son has died by Puccini (in which Verushka had “not the main role, but a good role.”) Afterward, we drove back to Prague. We had a beer (pivo) and said goodnight.