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| Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church |
A slightly rainy Sunday but warm for this time of year which was nice. Sunday's are quiet in the town and on a winter Sunday you can imagine it's really quiet. The spa doesn't do treatments and pretty much people just stroll and relax which is nice.
I went to 9:00am mass at Exaltation of the Holy Cross Roman Catholic church. I really do miss being able to understand the homily and especially when the priest is so animated like the one today. It's a beautiful in a simple way with much less adornment. Emperor Franz II gave permission to build this church in
1812 and work began in 1815 and was completed in 1820. This church is one of
the few purely sacral buildings in the Empire style in the Czech Republic. The
bells in the steeple are actually older than the church (16th century) and are
from chapel that was torn down and the organ is from the end of the 19th
century. The paintings were created by
Wilhelm Kandler in 1854 who’s work can be seen at the Prague castle as well.
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| Young boy of about 6 years playing a solo Accordion piece |
Also a Sunday event in town is going to the theatre which is just across the road from my hotel so I went to the children's recital at 10:00am which was adorable with all the local music and dance students performing various works on piano, flute, accordion and cello.
I headed to the Harvey hotel spa to spend some time in the sauna/steam room and finish my library book which must be returned tomorrow. It turned out to be an interesting book written from the perspective of a 15 year old boy who has Asperger's Syndrome titled "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon. It's a quick read as a suffer of this syndrome would normally only formulate simple sentences but still it kept my interest the whole time and was fascinating to understand the way they process everyday information and their aversion to touch, loud sounds and being around people in general.
It was a busy day in the spa with lots of families with kids but very nice to see them all enjoy the pool and spending quality family time together.
Dinner was a cold meat platter and yogurt for dinner. Strange but fine for me and then off to the theater again for the evening performance of operetta from Germany, Czech and America. Most of them performed in German but the last ones from "My Fair Lady" and "West Side Story" were in English and very well done. The three singers were so talented and apparently came down from Prague for the performance. They have a new performance every few days from various theatre, music and dance companies from around the country and all for around 10.00 dollars, amazing. And the theater, quite small by most standards, even smaller than the smallest Broadway house with may about 400 seats but the acoustics were great and the seats are by far the most comfortable I've ever enjoyed in any theater anywhere.
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| Freezing Cold Water Plunge Pool - I've only gotten in up to my knees so far, it's just too darn cold even after being in the sauna. Although today there was a women just relaxing and floating in it, I can't imagine how she could stand it for so long |
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| Sauna, yes it looks like any other sauna, nothing unique except for the spa men who spend their afternoons there. |
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| Resting area |
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| Pool |
The first theater in the spa town was created in a modified
farm building, which stood in the area of today's “Social House” or “Casino.”
As early as 1808 improvised performances and the first troupe of seasonal nomadic
actors performed there.
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| Slunecni Spring |
The Divadlo (theatre) Božena Němcová which is the town’s
main theater now was built in the 1920’s when the old building (a refurbished
version of the 1808 one) ceased to conform to modern requirements for a
theatre. The new theater construction was helmed by professor of German
engineering in Prague, Artur Payro and
construction began in the fall of 1927 and the new theater opened in the
following year. Technically a modern building with neoclassical expression and
interior with decorative elements of the Art Deco style still plays offers
productions from the repertoire of local and visiting theater companies
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| Theatre Ceiling |
The theatre is named after Božena Němcová , a Czech writer
of the final phase of the Czech National Revival movement. Her image features
on the 500 CZK denomination of the banknotes of the Czech koruna which I think
is pretty impressive since she was an artist not a politician or royalty. She is the author of the famed children’s
book I mentioned in my blog a few days ago titled “Babička (The Grandmother)”
written in 1855.
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| Interior Theatre |
After the performance I walked back with one of the nice German women who are staying at my hotel and met up with Marie the Czech women I've mentioned several times who also attended the performance. I was pretty impressed with the turn out the theatre was about 60 percent full and with such a small space it felt like a sold out performance. I actually think I saw one of the female leads a the male lead in Prague when I went to the musical reviews in the old monasteries.
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| Duck Pond still in the melting phase |
Also a Sunday event in town is going to the theatre which is just across the road from my hotel so I went to the children's recital at 10:00am which was adorable with all the local music and dance students performing various works on piano, flute, accordion and cello.
