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| Art Nouveau |
Our last proper day’s travel for this trip. It’s been a great trip, quite apart from the thrill of buying the Céret apartment. We’ve survived, in fact really enjoyed, each other’s company 24 hours a day for four months, we’ve seen all kinds of awesome things, avoided any accidents despite 5000km of driving, kept up with work, stayed healthy, enjoyed Alastair’s company and bought an apartment!
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| 30cm and $6400 of art nouveau |
Today was a fitting end to our travelling. After a dubious start, Prague finally turned on a bit of sun for us. We spent another eight hours walking the streets, mainly enjoying the wonderful architecture. We don’t think we’ve been anywhere else with anything like the variety and quality of buildings. Everywhere you turn there is something new to look at and enjoy. There’s even a style, Cubism, that doesn’t really exist anywhere else. The bulk is baroque with a good helping of rococo, but it's been the art nouveau, cubism and modernism that we’ve enjoyed the most.
We must have been in a dozen little antiquities shops looking to see if there is a nice piece of art nouveau we can afford, but it has become too sought after. The best piece we have ever seen was a cool 89,000CZK or NZ$6400. Mind you it was stunning. The glassware here is pretty special – from beautiful fine clear crystal, to blocky art deco in clear and black, to handblown more like Murano glass. There’s so much we like.
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| Cubism, Elisky Krasnohorske Apartments |
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| Municipal Building |
We didn’t actually go in any museums, just a zillion general shops, antiquities shops, and galleries. We probably should have gone to a concert or performance of some sort, we hadn’t realised until today that there must be a dozen on every night, but it’s just too late in the trip for organising something like that. Karen has failed to find a mother-of-the-bride dress again. As with everywhere else, the dresses are just too casual, or too short or whatever. Just not right.
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| Old Town Square |
Mid-afternoon we sat for a well-deserved Pilsner Urquell in the main square for a break from walking and to just enjoy being there.
This evening, I’ve sorted the last of the photos (just 3,636 after a little pruning) and last of this blog, suspecting that if they are not done now they never will be, while Karen has been sorting our bags.
