Kutna Hora

On Saturday it was off to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour by train to the east of Prague. It is a super-old city--we're talking 10th century here--and it was once a rival of Prague in terms of wealth and importance. Kutna Hora's power came from its silver mines and its prime position for trading in Europe. But the Hussite wars devastated the city. Unlike Tabor, this was not a Hussite town and it was unfortunately continually attacked by the Hussites, specifically the Taborites (these wars are much more fascinating than I thought!). Jan Zizka, the one-eyed leader who led the Taborites and the Hussites, conquered Kutna Hora briefly in 1420 and brokered an uneasy peace. But fighting broke out again, and the Holy Roman Emperor, who had made Kutna Hora his base for the war, had the town burned so that the Hussites couldn't take it. Sort of like if Lee had burned Atlanta before Sherman could get to it...oh the things we do to each other. (there is a point to this historical wandering, I promise.) The town recovered after the wars but in 1546 the best silver mine flooded, the plague loved to sweep in and kill everyone, and the Thirty Years War in the 17th century knocked off the people that the plague missed. Oh, and a huge fire destroyed the city in 1770. And then the mines stopped producing. Not a happy history.

Kutna Hora saw an awful lot of death and destruction. Where did they bury everybody? There were so many bodies to dispose of that the graveyard was soon totally full. So they started digging up the older corpses (skeletons at this point) to make room for the new dead people. They stacked the bones around the church, which came to be called the Sedlec ossuary, and then inside the church, until 1870 when a Czech wood carver had an idea. He would take the bones and use them as decorations inside the church. I think he must have been a little strange. The results of his efforts certainly are, ahem, unique. Let's get to it. Here is the chandelier, made of human bones, that hangs in the center of the Bone Church.

To give you an idea of the scale:The chandelier is surrounded by four obelisk things with skulls and leg? bones. At the top of each obelisk is an angel clutching a skull. I am really not sure what to say about this.

Bones hang like fringe from the ceiling...

and decorate the walls...

It was a little like being on the set of a pirate movie, or maybe a horror movie. But it is a church and they are real bones, real people. In each corner of the church are huge piles of bones in the shape of bells. I couldn't tell that they were supposed to be bells. I was distracted by the thousands of skulls.

Should I smile? It doesn't feel right to smile...

This nifty shield is made of, yes, human bones. It is in front of one of the bells. They estimate that the bones of about 40,000 people are in this ossuary. Told you the plague and wars and fire hit the town hard.

Naturally, the wood carver who designed all this signed his name and the date in bones.

I was disturbed by this church. I think a lot of it is my American avoidance of mortality being suddenly confronted by nameless bones arranged in a macabre, almost mocking design. I am used to having death hidden, and when it does pop up it is clean and neat and sanitized. I suppose one can consider the ossuary as being a respectful way of dealing with all the bones. I tried to think of it like that. But all the tourists with their cameras (including myself, obviously) gave the church sort of a dark Disney World feeling. It is such a curiosity that it is hard to feel terribly respectful or contemplative. It is definitely an interesting place and I am glad that I saw it, but there are so many bones and no one has any idea who they were. It is a fine line between respect for these human beings and gross awe at the human bone bells....

We walked into the main part of the town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, by the way. Here is the Church of Saint Barbara and the walkway which is purposefully similar to the Charles Bridge in Prague.

A shot from the other direction, which is not straight into the sun. So you can actually see more than dark shapes. It is a cute little town.

This is a lion on one of the groups of statues on the walkway. I liked it because it looks as though the lion went to Burger King and got a paper crown. Do they give those out anymore?

Me and Ondine on the walkway.

We saw three weddings happening around the church.

And here is the church. They began building it in 1388. It was completed in 1905. So not the quickest construction. The church was supposed to be twice as large, but with the wars and the silver mines flooding and the plague they had to curtail the construction. I took loads of pictures for my buddy Norris. He likes cathedrals.

There are double arched flying buttresses and eight radial chapels. I liked the gargoyles particularly.

You approach the church from the side, but here is the front. Not as imposing as the rest of it. The front is still undergoing restoration. The entire church was being restored from 2002-2008, and it was closed for a lot of that time. But, fortunately for us, now it is fixed and open.

I like the curvy staircase.

Here is the inside. It was not as big as I was expecting. The flying buttresses can be deceiving.

The church has a cream vaulted ceiling with shields and coats of arms painted on it. It is interesting to me how one's eyes are drawn upwards in Gothic churches like this, to the glory of God and heaven and all of that, yet signs of earthly power are placed at the very top. Paradox.

The stained glass windows date from the early 20th century. As I mentioned, the church wasn't completed until 1905. The windows have a pleasing art nouveau style and lovely colors. It is a little strange to find such "modern" windows in such an old, old church. But I like it. Most of the windows had names of businesses like banks on the bottom, which must have sponsored the particular window. Love the sunflowers in this one.

Beautiful angels and morning glories. Unlike the more traditional stained glass windows, the designs did not fit neatly into the stone tracery. They seemed to flow regardless of the sculpture.

Nice light effects on an actual 16th century wall painting in one of the side chapels. There were some cool old paintings on the walls. I like this one of the false door and windowsI have never seen confessionals like this.

Or candlesticks, for that matter.

Ondine and I pointing at the map. Thanks again, Julie, for the pictures of us! And aren't you proud and perhaps shocked--I actually found the church on the map and knew that I was inside of it! I am getting better with my sense of direction.

We needed some ice cream after our day of churches. And one place had a big cone out front. So you can guess what happened...

It's contagious!We headed back to the train station where a very long train carrying wrapped up Audis rolled in and stopped.

At the train station I met a couple from Charlottesville, VA who were staying in Prague and had ventured out of the city for a day trip to Kutna Hora. It is always nice to see and talk to other Americans, and their suth-un accents were delightful to my ears. Julie and Ondine thought the accents were pretty funny. I told them they should hear some of my family...

My parents sent me some pictures from a Harvey Girls exhibition at the Grand Canyon. See the Movie of the Week X. The movie does a good job of reproducing their actual uniforms! Thanks to my mother and father and Virginia for their Harvey Girls information.

Bertramka, Mozart, Swans, and the Louvre

On Thursday I went to Bertramka with Julie and Ondine. What is Bertramka, you may be wondering? It is the name of the villa in Prague where Mozart stayed when he visited. And he visited a lot. Prague apparently adored Mozart; his music was always very well received here. No wonder he kept coming back!

Bertramka was owned by some friends of Mozart, the Duseks. When Mozart was alive, the house would have been outside the city but now it is right by a very busy shopping center near Andel. Here is the villa.

Now it is a Mozart-in-Prague museum, but unfortunately the museum is closing in October. From what the man at the desk said, the house has been sold and the new owner is going to do something different with it.

But it is not closed yet! We wandered around the small rooms, decorated as they were in Mozart's time. I do not know much about Wolfgang, but it was neat to be in the room where he composed, and to see various letters and programs. The museum focuses on the music and operas that Mozart created in Prague and for Prague, and on his stay in the city. So there are letters about him and the music, and pages of sheet music, and images of Prague as it looked when he was here. Pretty cool. I did miss my little musical sister, as she could have helped me make sense of it all.

It is a small museum but the house and the gardens are very well-kept and peaceful.

Mr. Mozart in the garden:

They still have concerts and other events at Bertramka. The concert hall was through those French doors. Ondine is French, so naturally I made a stupid comment about how the doors are French, and "so is Ondine!" Oh, terribly clever.

Enough cultural improvement for the day. We had a delicious lunch at Jama, a burger place with Rolling Stone magazines and Bob Marley posters all over the walls.

On Friday we rode a swan

boat.

Julie and I took a paddle boat out on the river about 6 weeks ago, but this time we took a swan boat. Ondine and Julie paddled and I sat on the back, clutching my backpack. I had spent the morning at Starbucks using their wireless internet, so I had my laptop with me for the rest of the day. Pretty stupid for me to take it on the boat, but I didn't have any other options. We did not capsize.

Here is Julie and the swan head.

It is so fun to paddle about on the river. I highly recommend it. I had my handy Prague map and was able to situate myself on the river because I had several bridges, the National Theater, Prague Castle, and some islands as landmarks. Even I could do that.

I love this next picture. Julie took it. Self-portraits never turn out well when I take them, but this one sure came out great!

After our watery adventure we walked to Cafe Louvre, a fancy cafe with killer hot chocolate and cakes. The cafe was started in 1910 and has a lovely inside with dark pink and cream walls and mirrors and elegant furnishings. It did feel a bit Parisian. I had the hot chocolate--so thick you had to use a spoon--and a fresh waffle with ice cream. Yum.

I had to scurry to catch the last bus home--a 7:00 one. As a girl who is used to driving herself on those good 'ol American highways, having to depend on infrequent (and early!) buses to get home is rather frustrating. But I am trying to adapt.

In the next installment--I take you to the church of human bones...get ready.

Movie of the Week X

The Harvey Girls (1946)

And now for a musical western starring Judy Garland. Intrigued? It is a great, fun musical about a mail-order bride (sort of) who goes out west and becomes a Harvey Girl. The Harvey Girls were waitresses who worked at restaurants, Harvey Houses, opened by Mr. Harvey in the late 19th century along the western Atchison-Topeka-Sante Fe rail lines. (Harvey Houses were the first chain restaurants.) Mr. Harvey wanted to have family friendly establishments serving good food everywhere the trains stopped. The Harvey Houses and his Harvey Girls became "agents of civilization" conquering the lawless, un-family-friendly towns of the Wild West. To keep the Harvey Houses from becoming a different sort of "house," a senior Harvey Girl served as a sort of house mother, the women had strict curfews, a strict and unflattering uniform, a strict regulation hairstyle, and a strict prohibition against makeup. The Harvey Houses sound like a great premise for a movie, right? You have the wild west, trains, cowboys, "good" young single women and "bad" young single women...plus Judy Garland and some excellent songs from Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren.

Susan Bradley (Judy Garland) is a lovely young woman who was yearning for adventure and so answered a sort of lonely hearts ad. She received beautiful letters from a man in SandRock and eventually accepted his proposal of marriage, bought a wedding dress, packed her bags, and boarded the Atchison, Topeka, and the Sante Fe. She happens to be seated in the same railroad car as a bunch of soon-to-be Harvey Girls. They ask her to join them in their lunch, and she tells her story...they all swoon. Susan herself is rather dreamy and excited about her new life, despite the fact that she has never met her fiance. Here she is singing on the back of the train. The song is lovely, but I am perhaps more delighted by the passing scenery. The same cactus and mountains and bushes pass by two or three times. It is clearly a painted backdrop on a loop. Love it.

The Harvey Girls are all very excited about their new lives, too. They arrive in SandRock and perform an exuberant and wonderful number about where they are from: "We were schoolmarms in Grand Rapids, Mich; but reading-writing-'rithmetic were not our dish...", "I finished high school in Providence, Rhode Island, and Providence, Rhode Island, is where I learned to dance!" and that sort of thing. Then Judy steps from the train and sings her homage to the railroad line and the fresh starts and adventure it provides. The song "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Sante-Fe" won Best Song that year. It is a fairly complicated production number with loads of singing and dancing cowboys and Harvey Girls and even some 'Injuns. (It is not politically correct; it is 1946 for goodness sake--so don't expect a positive depiction of Native Americans.) Anyway, everyone dances around and climbs on the train and stuff. The reason I mention this is because apparently Judy Garland watched her stand-in perform the complex choreography once, just once, and then she hopped right in and they filmed it. Just once. And it is perfect. She sure was talented.Unfortunately for Susan, her fiance turns out not to be the handsome, romantic man she was expecting from the letters. He is a rather decrepit cowboy and he didn't even write the letters--he asked the saloon owner, Ned Trent, to write them. Susan is, naturally, distraught and quite angry. What is she to do? Marry this gross old man? Go back home? Or join the Harvey Girls? Guess.

And now for the main mystery/western part of the movie. Not everyone is happy about the civilizing presence of the Harvey Girls and the Harvey House. A suave, Clark Gable-esque man who is also a judge (Preston Foster) is determined to close the restaurant and get rid of the women. He likes SandRock the way it is with an empty church, a bustling saloon and brothel, and lawless streets. First he just steals the restaurant's meat, which sends Susan into the saloon with borrowed six-shooters in an attempt to get the meat back.

Guess who is on the right of Garland in that picture? Yes, it is Angela Lansbury. She plays the head saloon entertainer/prostitute? who is in love with Ned Trent. She plays a bad girl very well. Especially in this dress, which is all gold sequins and feathers.

The judge's attempts to close the Harvey House quickly become more serious. Will he succeed in scaring off the Harvey Girls? I shan't say.

I shall say that before he does or does not close the restaurant the Harvey Girls throw a civilized party in which they teach the backwards men how to waltz. Susan wears her wedding gown. It is lovely, with sparkling white satin for the main part with puffy sleeves and pleated white chiffon on the bottom. Love their 1940's hair styles in the 19th century movie.

(The woman to the left of Susan is, I think, Alice from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I always love to catch the extras.) Speaking of other cast members, Susan becomes fast friends with two other Harvey Girls, played by Virginia O'Brien (left) and Cyd Charisse (right). They each have their own little sub-plots.

Virginia O'Brien plays Alma who is a hopeless romantic who unfortunately can't seem to find anyone who wants to be romantic with her. O'Brien was known as Miss Deadpan due to a gimmick she apparently stumbled on during an early singing gig. She became suddenly frozen due to stage fright, and sang her song with no facial expression and no movement. The audience must have loved it because she often repeated this in later performances. It is quite funny to watch her. She is a talented singer and comedienne and actress. In this film she has a great scene with Ray Bolger in a blacksmith shop. He is trying to be a blacksmith but he is scared of horses and can't stand the fire and the whole process of shoe-ing a horse. So Alma has to help him, all the while singing about how things aren't really so wild in the wild, wild west, and bemoaning the fact that she is tougher than the tough men she had been warned about.

That is Ray Bolger cowering in the middle of the picture. The same Ray Bolger who played the scarecrow seven years earlier in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Back to Cyd Charisse, the other Harvey Girl of importance. She is one of my favorites. An amazing dancer whom Fred Astaire called "beautiful dynamite." She is perhaps best known for being the girl in the green dress in Singin' in the Rain (1952).

But she was in loads of movies and danced with all the great male dancers. The Harvey Girls is her first movie with a speaking role. She is rather demure and innocent in this movie. In later films she is feisty and she usually dances a sort of femme fatale role.

But her thing in this film is that she loves to dance and brought her dancing slippers with her from back east. (She is the one who sings about hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, and learning how to dance there in the train's arrival at SandRock number.) Too cute and sweet, but what can you do. She has a tender love affair with the saloon's piano player, and dances a lovely solo in a basic long sleeved dress that has a shocking pink petticoat. So every time she twirls there is a swirl of hot pink. Fantastic costume.

The Harvey Girls is interesting because it combines some of the western genre with the musical. It is fun because it has a great cast, great songs, and it is a visually appealing film. Besides, it is pretty awesome to see Judy Garland in full skirts skipping down a western street, or storming into a saloon, or fighting with prostitutes. Yes, there is a Harvey Girls vs. saloon girls tussle. So if you are looking for an enjoyable musical with a bit more story than is typical, try The Harvey Girls.