Photo Pest: Somebody's Hangry

Victor and I had a ball on our own in Prague after getting covid tests. We stopped for a vegan nosh at a nearby farmer's market.

This seed and nut cake photographed better than it tasted. No doubt a pair of Czech Trump supporters (!) who graciously yielded their lawn chairs in the sun would have agreed.

Victor picked up some prosciutto and cheese for our evening appetizers.

He also took a great candid picture of me if I do say so myself.

We passed a Dutch cheese importer on our stroll to the National Museum.

A sleekly modern home furnishings mall the size of an airplane hangar occupied a building constructed at least a century earlier.

Victor's wing chair buddy re-sold and reproduced American furniture from the 50s and 60s. Somehow, it looked even better in Prague.

The city's gorgeous architectural flourishes sometimes smack of fascism.

Here's where I caught the train to Terezin the day before.

Ongoing renovations had closed the National Museum during my previous two visits.

It sits at one end of Wenceslas Square which has seen more than its share of political demonstrations, that's for sure.

You enter between two classical statues of men, one young the other old.

Chris highly recommended the photo exhibit, which featured the work of Czech photographers taken around the world. This shot had much greater resonance for me than any of the multiple covid shots.

The old world certainly does museums better than America. I'm so annoyed we forgot to take the elevator up to the dome.

Here's Victor in the Hall of Statues.

Franz Josef, looks as if he's presiding. Some Czechs loved the Hapsburg monarch because he literally spoke their language and gave them a voice during his long (68 years!) reign over the Austro-Hungarian empire. Queen Elizabeth will out reign him next month!

But here's the guy who really caught my fancy. Edvard Benes served as the country's president immediately before and after World War II. He also plotted to kill the high-ranking German official who tried suppress Czech culture during the Nazi occupation. A politician of words AND action!

The grandness of the interior made me feel as if we were in an opera house, not a museum.

Avoid the lines at the American Museum of Natural History, and fly to Prague instead to see the superb mineral collection, beautifully displayed in antique cases.

A random dinosaur skeleton stands near the cafe and gift shop.

But for my money, the tunnel that connects the original building to one constructed during the Soviet occupation offers the museum's coolest, almost immersive experience. Nothing less than a history of man that begins with animation, it crescendos with a series of hypnotic film clips shot in Wenceslas Square during the upheavals of the 20th century. Current events even provided a reassuring coda: Czech voters democratically removed a right wing candidate for prime minister who had campaigned with Hungarian strong man Viktor Orban in elections the following day!

A state-of-the-art exhibit in the newer building illustrates 20th century Czech life with a variety of materials including a time-traveling elevator.

1960's home decor somehow managed to penetrate the Iron Curtain.

If Vaclav Havel, who was the Czech Republic's first democratically elected leader following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, hadn't been such a fan of Lou Reed, I might not have paid as much attention to him.

You can't go wrong with a former playwright and Velvet Underground fan who threw the peace sign and meant it. Vaclav would have loved the new Todd Haynes doc as much as I did.

The exhibit also emphasizes the country's passion for sports.

A separate exhibit chronicled the history of volleyball. These guys played for the national team in 1981. They would be around my age now.

Victor and I fumbled through the interactive portion while the security guard giggled.

Is that the ghost of Nico?

By this time, Victor was so hangry that he would have settled for McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken in Wenceslas Square, but I drew the line. We found a hidden cafe that served the freshest rye bread I've ever eaten and a cauliflower soup which I washed down with a cold beer. Heaven!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Old Town.

Tourism seemed to be in full swing.

Jan Hus preceded the Reformation in his opposition to Vatican control of Czech lands, a position that got him burned at the stake in the early 15th century. Czechs quietly expressed opposition to the Soviet occupation by sitting at the base of this memorial.