DAY 11: Trabant Tour - Vysehrad, Baby Jesus, Langweil

Tuesday, 9 SEPTEMBER 2014 [Full Day Trabant Tour]

At this stage, I had already spent two weekends in Praha. By the end of Day 11, I would have been exactly halfway into my 3 week tour of the Czech Republic. Father time really pushes us along when life is hunky-dory.

Well, day 11 was reserved solely for an excursion of Praha via Trabant.

So what's a Trabant or fondly known as Trabbi. It is an Eastern European car produced in the former East Germany from 1957 up until 1991, i.e. production halted a couple of years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Over 3 million Trabbis were produced and exports were made to the entire former Eastern Bloc, so they can still be found in countries such as  Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The vehicle has a two-stroke engine which you normally find in jet skis, lawnmowers or mopeds. These engines are simpler in design hence lighter weight and really pack a lot of power.

However, the Trabbi engines may wear out faster, produce more pollution, are less fuel efficient and cost more to run - and they require that a special engine oil be added to ensure the engine continues to function. Most of the body of a Trabant is not of steel but of Duraplast - a hard plastic produced from recycled materials, cotton-waste and phenol resins (from the dye industry) - i.e. this baby does not rust,or should not...

My guide for the day was Martina, whom I contacted a few days before arriving in Praha. Fortunately, she had a free day on this day.



Accommodation No.3 - Parkhotel Praha

Before the tour, I made another accommodation change (travelling with the ever reliable Prague Airport Transfers of course). This time, the move was to Parkhotel Praha in Holešovice, Praha 7, which is just outside the city centre and motivated by location as two museums are located in the vicinity - the Veletržní Palác (just across the road from the hotel) and Lapidarium (roughly 100 metres away), which I wanted to spend some days at.

I asked for a room on the highest (10th) floor and fortunately one was available - rooms here are more quiet and provide nice views. I was supposed to check in at 2pm the day before (on the 8th) but decided I wanted to stay a little longer at the Vodičkova apartment in New Town so forfeited one night's stay at Parkhotel.

On to the Trabbi tour, which commenced at 10:30am after my hotel transfer. So what does a Trabbi look like...?

Photo from a Tripadvisor contributor. I did travel in this exact Trabant, though.

Original user's manual

 



First stop was Vyšehrad ("castle on the heights") - a historical fort that was probably established in the 10th century, several decades after Prague Castle. In the second half of the 11th century (around 1085), Vratislav II, a prince from the first Bohemia royal dynasty, the Přemyslids, built up the area to include a palace and church and made this his royal residence and base of his kingdom. Vratislav II is considered the first Czech king. About 50 years after the death of Vratislav II, the main centre returned to Prague Castle and Vyšehrad languished. 

In the early 14th century, Holy Roman emperor Charles IV, repaired and upgraded Vyšehrad. However, the place was conquered and ransacked by the Hussites in 1420 and once more in the same century and again left to rot. When the Habsburgs (Austrian empire) ruled Bohemia, they rebuilt, in the 17th century, Vyšehrad as a baroque fortress and turning it into a barracks for the Austrian army. The brick ramparts and Leopold's gate, among other sections of Vyšehrad, come from this period.  

Vyšehrad is also associated with a legend of the founding of Praha. The princess Libuše and her husband Přemysl (there is no documentary evidence they existed, so are probably also legends), once ruled from Vyšehrad in the 7th century. One day while looking across the Vltava river, she had a vision, pointing to a forested hill across the river, she declared that a glorious place/city would arise from that spot. She instructed her people to raise a castle where a man was building a threshold of his house. In Czech, threshold is "prah" and thus the name Praha. [Note: It seems that many houses, apartments and condos in Malaysia no longer have a threshold for their entrances and doors .. so readers from here may not know what it is... it is the strip of wood or concrete or stone, protruding from the ground, that forms the base of a doorway]

Vyšehrad covers a rather large area and comprises a large park with extensive walkways and surrounded by fort ramparts with good lookout points, the church of St Peter and Paul, the Vyšehrad cemetery and various buildings. Today Czech's use it as a park, for celebrations (e.g. New Year) and school excursions, among other activities. It's location can be discerned from afar by the high neo-Gothic towers of the Church/Basilica of St Peter and Paul.

Unfortunately, many large tourist groups also flocked to the place on the day I visited ... which was a little annoying as this was supposed to be an "off the beaten path" destination in Praha ... perhaps not so any more.   

Leopoldova brána (Leopold's Gate) built in the time of the Hapsburgs ... spot the Trabant

Rotunda of St Martin built in the 11th century AD - the only building in Vyšehrad to retain its original Romanesque appearance. It is an active church today. With this, I completed my aim of viewing the 3 Romanesque Rotundas in the city

Next, to the Vyšehrad cemetery where many famous Czechs are buried - artists, writers, music composers, singers, scientists, people who made significant contributions to the Czech nation.

Classical composer Bedřich Smetana

Classical composer Antonín Dvořák



Writer and poet Jan Neruda (The famous street in the Prague Castle area, Nerudova, is named after him)

I missed the grave site of a favourite painter and artist, Alphonse Mucha but here are a few eye catching sculptures in the Vyšehrad cemetery.

?

Abandoned grave with statue that evokes a myriad of emotions

From the cemetery we walked along various paths to certain sections of the fort and through the park

Ramparts

(Replica) of the original Saint Wenceslas equestrian statue

The statue in the above photo has an interesting story. It is actually (a replica of) the original equestrian statue on Wenceslas Square. At the time, the square was not called Wenceslas Square but Koňský trh or Horse Market. The original of the above statue, sculpted in 1678 by famous baroque artist Jan Jiří Bendl, was a popular landmark (placed near Jindřiška street) at which members of the 19th century Czech National Revival movement would gather while at the square. At the behest of the revivalist movement, the square was renamed Wenceslas Square in 1848. However, the original statue was moved to Vyšehrad in 1879 and in 1912 a new equestrian statue that we see today was erected on Wenceslas square. As mentioned, the statue in Vyšehrad is a replica and the original is now in the Lapidarium, situated in Holešovice, near Parkhotel Praha.

From the statue in the park, we headed to a section of the ramparts facing the Vltava, and here I had to sort of jostle with some S.Korean tourists for a spot to take photos.

View across the Vltava

Next stop: the Church/Basilica of St Peter and Paul, founded by Vrastislav II in the 11th century but rebuilt several times over, until the most recent in the early 20th century in a neo-Gothic style. 

One of the church's 2 side doors in the front

Main door. Portal looks incomplete with many empty consoles...?

Fresco that includes the devil with a pillar

Lovely Art Nouveau murals adorn virtually the entire interior of this church

Murals by painters František Urban and his wife Marie Urbanová-Zahradnická

Seems like every space is well covered

Every pillar has a mural with floral or ribbon design on the borders

Absolutely lovely church interior but we had to move on.....!

Stone plaque illustrating the bridges and their positions along the Vltava

Vltava towards the south

Libuše's Bath - at bottom left, ruins of a watchtower. Legend has it Libuše would bathe here and throw her lovers out of a hole in the wall if she felt like it. Sounds like a dragon lady...

Libuše and, hubby Přemysl (a ploughman!) - mythical/legendary 'founders' of the first Bohemia royal family the
Přemyslids. 

Woman attempting to kill man? :) Maiden's War

After the statues in the park next to the St Peter and Paul church, it was almost time to leave Vyšehrad. Due to lack of time and difficult logistics, we had to give the interesting northern section of the fortress a miss. This northern area includes the Cihelná brána (brick gate) and, the Gorlice, which contains some of the original statues from the Charles Bridge. 

Devil's Pillar - these 3 cylindrical stones received their name from a legend, where the devil made a bet with a priest, but the priest won and devil lost its temper

Next stop, back to the Vinohrady area which I had briefly visited a week before, to get to the subway station at Náměstí Míru (Peace square) ... to experience joyrides on an escalator! You must be wondering what ... is he totally NUTS ... thrill from an escalator ... really? 

Well, for an infrequent traveller such as yours truly, who has only ever been on "8-second escalators", this wasn't an ordinary escalator. With a height of 43.5 metres and comprising 533 steps, this is the highest escalator in the European Union and it takes 2 minutes and 15 seconds to go up or down. Yep 135 seconds up or down. It seems only Russia and Ukraine have higher escalators. All Soviet era built of course including this one in Praha.

Buy your tickets at a vending machine. The ticket is good for use on subways, trams and buses. Don't forget to validate the ticket but validate it only ONCE for the entire duration.

The ESCALATOR: Will you get vertigo or feel giddy on this escalator?  2 minutes 15 seconds either way.

Commuters in a hurry would of course totally hate the escalator but I made 3 rounds both ways on this, hah!
 

Subway platform

From the subway, we went up to the Peace square and to Kostel sv. Ludmily (Church of Saint Ludmila) where I had briefly stopped by the previous time without entering. I recall entering the church this second time around, but cannot find a single photo of the interior, maybe I recalled wrongly, perhaps mind playing tricks on me. 

Just a quick note - Saint Ludmila was the grandmother of Saint Wenceslas. She was married to Bořivoj I, who is the earliest duke of Bohemia on record and thus can be considered the founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. Bořivoj I and Saint Ludmilla were both converted to Christianity by Saints Cyril and Methodius (patron saints of the Slavs), but at the time, their subjects were mostly Pagans and not in favour of their proselytising their new found faith. Much later, at a very ripe old age of about 60 or 61 (for those times), Saint Ludmilla was murdered on the orders of Saint Wenceslas' mother, Drahomira, probably from jealousy and power struggles. Saint Ludmila is regarded as a patron saint of Bohemia/the Czechs. Saint Ludmila is also part of the equestrian statue at Wenceslas Square, i.e. the lady in front. On statues, she is often depicted holding a veil with which she was allegedly strangled.

Church of St Ludmila

There is a piano in the square, anyone with ability can demonstrate their skills here

From here, hopped back into the Trabant and back to New Town, specifically to the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Charles the Great (Kostel panny Marie a svatého Karla velikého), where there is also a police museum - but we neither went into the museum nor the church and just walked about the compound and also had a peek at a bridge.  

Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Charles the Great. First built around 1351, in the early days of the New Town. Church was changed from Gothic to Baroque style architecture

Nuselský most (Nusle Bridge) - An Important part of the road system in Praha. The bridge is completely fenced at the sides and a 3-foot smooth metal strip was added to the top of the fence to make it climb-proof and thus prevent suicides

Church of St Catherine in New Town. Built in the mid-14th century AD during the time of Charles IV

Also stopped by at the park nearby (Catherine Gardens) to visit some homeless cats that had made the gardens their abode. A clowder of cats emerged from all directions in the park when the whistle-signal was given for mealtime.

Back into the Trabant and 2 minutes later out again, to the Muzeum Antonína Dvořáka (Antonin Dvorák Museum) which used to be a baroque town house or villa if you prefer. Now, before the next set of pictures on the museum, must say that I had quite a good time travelling in the Trabant, including the bumpy rides over the cobbled roads, and even getting in and out of the car was well, interesting. And the urban legend about it being made of cardboard is well utter rubbish. This is a darn solid car, certainly a lot more so than the Proton ... haha .... shhhhh.

Antonin Dvorák Museum aka Vila Amerika

The baroque house, now the Dvorák museum, was designed in the early 18th century by famous architect Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer (same designer of the building at Vodičkova 35, my second accommodation on this tour). Although the museum is about the Czech music composer, he never stayed or performed here.

Main gate and compound

Ceiling fresco in the concert hall on the first floor

These smiling baroque statues in the backyard of the villa are a bit creepy

Yikes!!

............

After the museum, dropped by again at what to me are very unique red-bricked structures of the Nnemocnice U Apolináře (Maternity Clinic of St Apollinaire), which I had visited on a gloomy Sunday 9 days earlier. This neo-Gothic maternity clinic/hospital was built in 1870 and designed by Josef Hlávka (Czech architect, builder and philanthropist) who was inspired by architecture in Paris, Vienna and Brussels in coming up with the design. The hospital/clinic contained the full works - including, a 'foundling asylum' where poor mothers who couldn't care for their children could give away their babies here. It seems, the place also had a special area where "classified childbirths" by well-to-do ladies took place and/or, they could give away their babies in secret...! For the regular services, there were three levels of quality rendered, all depending on the price paid.

Municipal Maternity Clinic of St Apollinaire ... now the National Maternity Hospital 

Side gate 

What secrets these structures have been privy to

From the maternity hospital with 'secrets', we hopped into the Trabant and made our way across the Vltava to the Little Quarter and to one of the most visited churches in Praha - Kostel Panny Marie Vítězné (Church of Our Lady Victorious) where stands the Pražské Jezulátko or "Infant Jesus of Prague".

This church was built in 1613 for the German Lutheran community. After the battle of Bílá Hora (White Mountain) in Praha, the victorious Catholics took over this church and rebuilt it in the Baroque style - and it is considered the first baroque church in Praha. Every year, large numbers of people from abroad travel here to visit the church and the Infant Jesus, and some pray earnestly in order that their wishes come true.

I'm not a believer, but made a little contribution just in case it works

The Infant Jesus is from the 16th century and is made of wood that is wax-coated

Infant Jesus gets a change of clothes from time to time

Infant Jesus gets thanksgiving gifts of clothes from many different countries (about 80 in total). If I recall correctly, this one on display is from Spain. There were also an outfit each from S.Korea and Vietnam, with oriental designs.

I can't recall why, but we headed back to the Old Town and I watched the Astronomical Clock, for the third time ... and still didn't understand how to read it.


..... roamed several streets in Old Town.....

What's this?

 .... and then back in the Trabant with one final stop to make, Muzeum hlavního města Prahy (City of Prague Museum) to see the Langweil model of Praha. There was a function at the museum on that day and it was closed to the public. But not to fear, Trabant expert and tour guide, Martina, skillfully negotiated for me to have a peek at the model for just a few minutes - and the personnel at the admittance counter very kindly agreed! At least the drive here was not in vain.

The Langweil model is a 1:480 scale model of Praha made in the years 1826-1837 by one Antonín Langweil, a lithographer who also worked at the university library at the Klementinum. It is made of cardboard on a wood base, measures about 18.9 by 10.9 feet (total area 20 square metres) and the detail on each building and structure is remarkable indeed - you can see facades of buildings, parks and gardens, even minor details such as broken windows and piles of wood.

The model gives us a fascinating view of what Praha looked like 175 years ago with many buildings having since been demolished or rebuilt to a different structure (for e.g. attached to the Powder Tower was the Royal Courtyard where royalty resided, where the Municipal house is now).

Given the limited time allocated, I only looked out for the key landmarks but was satisfied enough. I wonder if putting so much effort and finances into the model ultimately led to Antonín Langweil's early demise from TB...

Photo from museum website: Model is kept in sealed glass display which keeps out dust. I assume the room is also humidity controlled.

Some pictures of the model can be viewed here. Langweil must have had an incredible attention to detail to be able to recreate such a precise model of the city. I would certainly like to have a proper long look at the model on a return visit, some day.

Farewell Trabbi, perhaps will meet again

With the brief viewing of the wonderful 19th century Langweil model of Praha completed, thus ended the excellent Trabant tour.

A big thanks to tour guide Martina.
















NEXT: Day 12, full day trip to outside Praha