President Warren’s Leadership Trip Prague, Czech Republic June 15-19, 2019 Updated 8 May 2019 AGENDA AT A GLANCE Saturday, June 15 (Day One) Free Morning 12:45 p.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. TOUR - Prague Castle- Power, Glory and Destruction 6:30 p.m. Welcome Reception and Dinner Mandarin Oriental, Monastery Garden and Wine Cellar Sunday, June 16 (Day Two) 9:15 a.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby 9:30 a.m. TOUR - Introduction to Prague 1 p.m. Lunch at Hergetova Cihelna http://www.kampagroup.com/en/restaurants/hergetova- cihelna/ 2:30 p.m. Free Afternoon 6:30 p.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby, Walk to Dinner 7 p.m. Dinner - U Fleku (Czech Meal) www.ufleku.cz Monday, June 17 (Day Three) 9:45 a.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby 10 a.m. Visit to the Anglo-American University Meet with administrators, faculty and students 12 p.m. Tram to Lunch 12:30 p.m. Lunch Municipal House Restaurant Francouzska – beginning of Art Nouveau Tour https://www.francouzskarestaurace.cz/ 2 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. TOUR - Art Nouveau and Cubist Architecture – Prague after 1900 Tour Free Evening Tuesday, June 18 (Day Four) 9 a.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby 9:30 a.m. TOUR – Beer and Baroque – A High Brow Brew and Bites Tour 2:30 p.m. Return to Hotel/Free Afternoon 6:30 p.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby, Walk to Dinner 7 p.m. Reception and Dinner Golden Well Restaurant www.goldenwell.cz Thursday, June 19 (Day Five) - Departure or optional trip to Kutná Hora 8:45 a.m. Meet in Hotel Lobby 9 a.m. Bus leaves for TOUR- Kutná Hora 12:30 p.m. Lunch 4:30 p.m. Arrive Back to Hotel Free Evening 2 Prague Castle Tour: Power, Glory and Destruction Tour is 3 hours, 10 minute tram ride to tour sight from hotel. Over the 1100 years that it has presided over Prague, Prague Castle has been the seat of Bohemian Kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and the Hapsburgs’ Regents (including those famously tossed from its windows by enraged Hussites). The largest castle complex in the world, it has imparted prestige not only to the presidents of the first Czechoslovak Republic but, more ominously, to the Nazi Reichsprotektors and to the Communist Party chairmen of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. During the Velvet Revolution of 1989, demonstrators filled Prague’s streets with the chant “Havel na Hrad!” (“Vaclav Havel to the Castle!”), a call to reclaim the traditional home of Czech leadership for a new era of democratic governance. Constructed and reconstructed in every architectural style, incorporating Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Renaissance and Neoclassical monuments, the Castle buildings have also been bombarded by artillery, plundered by marauding armies, and left to deteriorate by indifferent Austrian Emperors. At the height of its prominence in the 16th-century, the castle was transformed into cultural center by the eccentric Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who amassed the largest collection of fine art in Europe and attracted the leading scientists of the day, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler to his court (along with assorted frauds and alchemists). Highlights include the aforementioned sites as well as a stroll through the Moat (now dry) and Gardens. We pass by the Renaissance Ball Game Hall where tennis was played by sporty aristocrats and the vast Vladislav Hall, which was built to host indoor jousting tournaments. Since 1995, the hall has been brilliantly illuminated by lighting paid for by The Rolling Stones as a gift to their friend, President Vaclav Havel. Outside the Castle grounds, we walk through Hradčany (Royal Town). We may stop at the Domeček (“Little House”) and discuss the fate of political opponents imprisoned there by the Gestapo and Communist StB (Secret Police). Around the corner lies the pilgrimage site of the Loreto Church which contains the “Santa Casa,” a “reproduction” of the Virgin Mary’s Nazareth home. Farther up the hill is the Strahov Monastery with its ancient library containing two hundred thousand volumes. At the monastic brewery, you can conclude by savoring the rare St. Norbert’s microbrew while taking in a panoramic view of the 100-spired city below. 3 Introduction to Prague Tour is 3 hours, 10-minute tram ride to Old Town Square. The Prague walking tour introduces key monuments and familiarizes you with the Prague’s 1000 years at the center of European history. You’ll start in Old Town Square, the ancient marketplace that established Prague as an important center for medieval trade. The soaring late Gothic towers of Tyn Church and Old Town Hall triumphantly exhibit the economic and cultural power which Prague achieved during its centuries of Bohemian self-rule. At the Square’s center, the monument to religious reformer, Jan Hus, stands as the symbol of Czech national identity and resistance to foreign domination. Walking through the winding streets of Old Town, you’ll see monuments and buildings that reveal the social and political complexities of Prague’s multicultural past. At Charles University’s oldest remaining structure, a lovely Gothic oriel window from 1370, you’ll discover the impact that Czech intellectuals have had on their nation’s political fortunes, beginning with Charles IV, the French-educated Holy Roman Emperor who founded the university in 1348 to make his capital city a center of learning. Wenceslaus Square will frame our discussion of Prague’s twentieth-century ordeals. The Nazis held mass rallies in this square, which was also the point of convergence for the Warsaw Pact tanks that crushed the Prague Spring of 1968. Finally, you’ll walk through the Jewish Quarter. You’ll see the oldest functioning temple in Europe, the Old New Synagogue; the ancient Jewish cemetery and the rococo Jewish Town Hall, leading to a discussion of the cultural and economic interactions of Prague’s venerable Jewish community with its German and Czech neighbors. Ending our Prague walking tour at the Vltava River, beneath a grand view of Prague Castle, we’ll conclude with a summary of the Czech political system as it is still emerging, 20+ years into the country’s post-Soviet revival as a modern democracy. 4 Art Nouveau and Cubist Architecture – Prague After 1900 Tour is 3 hours, 20 minute walk to Tram. In France, it was called Art Nouveau and Style Moderne, and once this modern manner dominated the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris, it came to be known as Style 1900; it was also referred to as Style Métro (after Paris metro designer Hector Guimard) as well as Style Mucha (after the great Czech graphic artist whose posters are considered Art Nouveau par excellence). In Munich and Berlin it was called Jugendstil, and in Austria-Hungary it was known as the Sezession. The Belgians proudly called it Mouvement or Ligne Belge (Belgian Line). Art Nouveau was a truly universal turn-of-the-century phenomenon and it was eagerly, even ecstatically adopted in Prague. In fact, Art Nouveau architecture influenced the city-scape of Prague as significantly as did the Gothic and the Baroque before it. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries Prague was experiencing a whirlwind of national revival activity and ultimately this movement was embodied in the form of Art Nouveau. From the Main Train Station to the monumental Municipal House, to the entire district of Josefov (the former Jewish Ghetto), Art Nouveau constructions represent some of the most significant sights of this city. On this tour, we emphasize that these commonly recognized features of Art Nouveau aesthetics cannot be fully understood without taking into account the new culture of cosmopolitan entertainment, enthusiastic consumption, new opportunities for travel and leisure, and an array of modern technological conveniences that arose at the turn-of- century. While every major Czech artist of the period contributed to the flamboyant Art Nouveau designs of Prague’s Municipal House; equally important, the building was also one of the first in the city to be equipped with central heating and ventilation, a drinking and utility water-supply system, electrical as well as hydraulic elevators, a steam-powered laundry and an intercom network. 5 Put simply, Art Nouveau isn’t only a radical new design aesthetic. It represents a pre-war social elite with new standards for modern comforts and luxury, a clubby upper-class who drank absinthe and the first mixed-cocktails, booked voyages on ocean liners, sent telegrams, and read fashion magazines. It isn’t an accident that most Art Nouveau buildings are hotels, elegant bars and restaurants, and train stations. These were the watering holes of the first globe-trotters, those enjoying the fruits of nineteenth-century industrialization in the short-lived first decade of the 20th century just before global war swallowed up their world. During this walk, you’ll learn to recognize the features of Art Nouveau, from the gingko biloba leaves on facades which reveal the style’s oriental influences to the elaborate light fixtures that mark Art Nouveau interiors to the curvy, campy typography on building signs that echo contemporary magazine and poster graphics. You’ll visit the beautiful Lucerna bar (once owned by Vaclav Havel’s family) and the elegant Grand Hotel Europa—examples of a moment of Czech optimism at the turn-of-century, signaling the region’s transcendence of older ethnic grievances and its readiness to join Europe by participating in European-wide avant-gardes. As an important parallel, throughout the walk, we visit examples of Prague’s Cubist and Rondocubist architecture, including The House of the Black Madonna (created by Josef Gočár in 1910 as an urbane department store) and the Legion’s Bank.