Bone Church and Mozart in Prague

We tried to wake up early today to head to the Bone Church, about an hour and a half out of town. We talked about trying to get there as soon past the opening time of 8 AM as possible. I told Sheila to set the alarm and “take the lead” on the morning plans since she was very keen on visiting the church. She finally decided to set the alarm for 7 AM and we decided we would go there, come back and then shower and clean up for the day. Well, the alarm went off at 7 AM, but Sheila showed no sign of getting out of bed. I prodded her a couple of times verbally, but she just grunted and rolled over. I decided to leave her to it and stayed in bed. She finally got up after 8 AM and we left for Kutna Hora a little after 9 AM. Driving in town and the surrounding highways was awful. Terrible traffic left us crawling most of the way, but we got there around 11 AM. The church was fascinating, but the famous bone chandelier, which includes at least one of every bone in the human body, was dismantled for cleaning and refurbishment.

We then wandered through the town of Kutna Hora which, as an entire town, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a beautiful little city that seems frozen in time. We wandered the cobbled stone streets for a while and I bought a couple of records. I realized too late that I really should have bargained a lot more before just shelling out $20 for these two records. But, it’s too late for that, so I’ll mention it here and move on.

We then headed back to the hotel. The drive back was slow and painful, but we finally made it back about 1:15 PM. We then headed out for a walk around the Old Town. We did some shopping and got back to the hotel a little before 4 PM so I could shower and dress up for a 4:30 PM meeting with the Hotel sales manager to get a tour of the meeting space in the hotel. Since I was in Prague, I thought I may as well do a tiny bit of ACR work. I realize that I made a huge mistake when I did my flying trip through Frankfurt, Dublin, and Prague in four days some years ago. When I’m evaluating a city for the ACR conference, it’s not just about the hotel, but also about getting a sense of whether the ACR membership will like the location. I was reminded on this trip that Prague is a spectacular city and would be a fantastic location for an ACR conference. I really do need to try and find the time to visit a city and spend a few days getting to know it rather than flying in, touring the meeting space and flying out. It’s not fair to the city or to the ACR membership. I think another longer trip to Prague may be necessary in 2019 or so.

I met Konstantin, the hotel sales manager and we discussed the organization’s needs, the meeting capabilities of both Hiltons in Prague, and did a tour of the hotel. Of course, the other Hilton is the big one and I was happy to learn that it is only about 10-15 minute walk from this hotel because I LOVE the location of this hotel.

I got back to the room and soon after, Sheila and I left for our show of the evening. We had scheduled a “Mozart Dinner” at The Grand Hotel Bohemia. It was just a few minutes walk from our hotel and we found ourselves as the first people at the beautiful Boccacio Hall. We took some photographs and were seated at a private table right up front. We had paid for a couple of seats at a table of eight, thinking it would be fun to engage in conversation with others. When we arrived, however, we were told that even though we had paid for a table of eight, we had been upgraded to a private table for two up front. Oh well, there went our plans to be sociable with strangers. Still, these were lovely seats right in front and we enjoyed the show. The evening included a three course dinner and many performances of Mozart’s pieces. There was a 5-piece orchestra, a baritone and a soprano. The evening started with a selection of arias from Don Giovanni interspersed with movements from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Then, we were served pea soup before the second music interlude started. The second concert before the main course consisted of arias primarily from The Marriage of Figaro. The main course was then served – beef cheeks with mashed potatoes. Finally, the artists sang arias from The Magic Flute, after which we were served apple strudel for dessert. Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable evening.

On our way back, we wandered into a few toy shops and even a mall, just to explore. We then came back to the room and watched the nomination of Donald J. Trump as the party’s nominee for President. Sheila packed while I worked on this blog post.