Saturday, 16 June 2007

Vysehrad

Church of St Peter and St Paul, mosaic detail.
The Vlatava.


Rooftops.
The Hunger Wall - built to give poor unemployed people something to do - no real purpose eg defence, such charity.



How to figure out what you are looking at - I like this system.


So, on Tuesday I met Aunty Sonja at the National Theatre by the Vlatava. We conversed in German because she is more comfortable with that than English which was fine except that by now I know the names of most sights in Prague by their English and Czech names, however I do not know many of the German versions. So although I could make to to the Narodni Divadlo/National Theatre because in German that is just National Theater, once she started talking about the Moldau (Vlatava River) I was a bit lost, got worse when she was asking where I had been by the German names and then getting surprised and I had to keep checking whay she actually meant. Beepin Germans and their names for everything here, most every if not all places have both a Cz and a German name, which is okay, just a bit complicating at times as they are not always translations or even close...

We had a drink in Cafe Slavia (opposite Narodni Divadlo), famous for being frequented by actors and former President Vaclav Havel. Pronounced (Vaarslarv).
Then we went to Vysehrad - the ruins of an old fortress (Hrad is Cz for castle) with cemetery of famous czechs (including Karel Capek - who knew it was pronounced Chaarpeck? - takes a while to get used to the effect of accents on words, starting to get it now) - south of the City but still within it. Very pretty, just a really hot day.
After we went to lunch, I had pasta for the first time in weeks. Sonja had a salad. Then we parted after 4 hours company.