Strahovský klášter

The Strahov Monastery, situated just southwest of Prague Castle, was founded in 1143. The Premonstratensian order has used it nearly constantly since then (even yesterday I saw a monk in his white robes walking around), with only two major interruptions: between 1420 and the end of the 16th century, following the Hussite rebellion; and between the 1950s and 1989, thanks to the Communist regime.

You can walk around the cloister and some of the adjacent rooms, and admire the extant Romanesque walls and a few columns. A lot of renovation was done in the 17th century, however, so the original vaulting is gone. There is a "secret" stairway (roped off, unfortunately): it's fitted into one of the walls between two of the Romanesque halls.

Upstairs is the art gallery (Strahovská obrazárna) that has holdings from the 15th-18th centuries. I believe that many of the works on display were commissioned or acquired by Rudolf II (read this article from the MMA for more info), however my absolute favorite piece there is a sculpture dated ca. 1500:

Pictured above is God the Father at the coronation of the Virgin (Bůh Otec z výjevu Korunování Panny Marie). Mary isn't present, and unfortunately neither are God's hands. Still, it's a really powerful piece, and other than the beautifully executed face I can't really explain why. I just like it.

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Image above taken from a people.cz article here.

Nürnberg: the Arrival

As I mentioned in my last post, the Nürnberg visit was an amazing (and far too short) experience. From the moment we disembarked from our bus and took our first breaths of German air (okay, at least since Berlin), we knew this would be a great city.

The first order of business, as it was around 9:30pm when we arrived, was to check into our hostel. We found it easily enough, as it was only a short walk from the bus drop-off point and just inside the medieval wall encircling the old town. Now when I say "just inside" I mean this quite literally. Here's the view out the window:



Just a brief word on the hostel. I don't know about the other rooms, but between the pinkish walls illuminated by some sort of papier-mâché chandelier casting a golden glow on everything - not to mention the bangles hanging down from the ceiling from various places - it felt more like a brothel than a hostel. But it had beds, and a place to chuck the bags, which was all that was needed.

After check-in, Rebecca and I walked around for a bit just to get our bearings for the next day. We found out that the Germanisches Nationalmuseum was pretty much right next door. Apparently there was some black-tie affair going on inside, so we didn't linger long, but here's a picture of how it's illuminated at night:



Now, don't let that modern façade fool you. Sure, that part is from 1993, but the museum is built around the remains of a Carthusian abbey. What was in the museum? Well, that's going to have to wait until the 2nd installment.