This was the last day of Debi’s workshop. I had the day free and decided I’d try to visit two things in Old Town I’d missed: the Idiom art installation in the Municipal Library and the Clementinum library and observatory. Also, this was the first day when the weather was actually summer-like. It was sunny and in the upper 60s. I thought it would be nice to find a quiet place on the river to just sit and read for a bit.
I headed out around 10:45 and went to the Clementinum. It’s a bit of a maze inside and finding where to buy tickets took a bit of time. When I finally figured it out, there was a line. I was being nosey and listened to the people ahead of me as they asked questions and tried to figure out what they were supposed to do. I finally heard that there was a guided tour at 1:30 in English. When it was my turn, I asked for a ticket for that tour, which is what the couple in front of me had bought, and they were sold out. I missed the tickets. The next tour wasn’t going to happen until 4:00 that evening, which didn’t work for me. So, no Clementinum for me that day.
Instead, I walked toward the river and ended up finding a nice bench overlooking the Vltava River and Prague Castle and read for about an hour and a half. When the Municipal Library was about to open (at 1:00 pm), I headed that way and slipped inside to see the Idiom installation. It was intriguing, but it’s not as tall as photos make it seem. It’s worth the two minutes to poke your head into the doorway, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.
From there, I headed back to our AirBnB and did some more reading and work while waiting for Debi’s workshop to wrap up. A couple of days before we had worked out plans for the evening – a ballet at the Prague State Opera building: La Sylphide. We are both former ballet dancers and love a good ballet. When we realized that was an option, we bought tickets and were excited.
We walked up to the Prague State Opera building (close to Wenceslas Square) and were amazed at the ornate decoration inside. It was really impressive. I managed to take a photosphere before the theater was completely filled up:
The ballet itself was really short. We had never seen La Sylphide before and didn’t know that, with the 25-minute intermission, it was only about 1 1/12 hours (two 30-minute acts). The dancers were good, but not amazing. The sets were impressive and there was a live orchestra, which was fun.
After the ballet, we stopped for gelato on the way home, wrapping up a lovely evening in Prague.
