It’s been an inside day today. J has worked hard the entire day and I’ve been learning French and doing crosswords/reading. It has been wet and cold (an unbelievable miserable 12 degrees) most of the day, so it wasn’t a great day to be out sight-seeing anyway. We popped out for a breath of fresh air to a local café for a coffee around midday. The skies cleared a little by evening, allowing us to go out for a Chinese meal and short wander around the neighbourhood.
We spent quite some time admiring the architecture here. It is unlike anything we have seen anywhere else on our travels. All the inner city buildings are 4-5 stories and, virtually without exception, care has been taken to design them and decorate them, with a keen eye for detail. There are a number of art nouveau and art deco buildings, some renaissance, mostly baroque, some odd triangulated ones known as cubist, and a few modernist. They are all extremely interesting and, with the very generous widths of both streets and footpaths, the streetscape is immensely attractive. In addition, there is a lot of public sculpture in evidence. The same went for Pilsen. Clearly the Czechs relish their art. They also take cafes and meeting seriously. There are dozens of little cafes, all full of people talking. It has a very intellectual feel.
