Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Náprstek's interests gradually shifted towards anthropology, however, and it is his
ethno-
graphiccollections
thatarenowdisplayedinthemuseum;theoriginaltechnologicalexhibits
are housed in Prague's
Národní technické muzeum
. Despite the fact that the museum could
clearly do with an injection of cash, it still manages to put on some truly excellent temporary
ethnographic exhibitions on the ground floor. The permanent collection begins on the first
floor, where you'll find the skeleton of a fin-whale more than 20m long suspended from the
ceiling. Underneath it there's a range of exhibits from the Americas, with everything from
Inuit furs and Apache smoking pipes decorated with porcupine quills and beads, to toy skel-
etons on bicycles from Mexico and Amazonian shrunken heads. Upstairs, the much smaller
display of items from Australia and Oceania includes some remarkable sculptures.
Sv Jiljí
Husova 8 • 224 220 235 • Metro Národní třída
One building that might catch your eye between Betlémské náměstí and Karlova is the
churchofsvJiljí
(StGiles).TheoutwardappearanceofthebuildingsuggestsanotherGothic
masterpiece, but the interior is decked out in the familiar black excess of the eighteenth cen-
tury, with huge gilded acanthus-leaf capitals and barley-sugar columns galore. The
frescoes
by Václav Vavřinec Reiner (who is buried in the church) are full of praise for his patrons,
the Dominicans, who took over the church after the Protestant defeat of 1620. They were ex-
pelled,inturn,aftertheCommuniststookpower,onlytoreturnfollowingtheeventsof1989.
Reiner's paintings also depict the unhappy story of
St Giles
himself, a ninth-century hermit
who is thought to have lived somewhere in Provence. Out one day with his pet deer, Giles
and his companion were chased by the hounds of King Wanda of the Visigoths. The hounds
were rooted to the spot by an invisible power, while the arrow from the hunters struck Giles
in the foot as he defended his pet - the hermit was later looked upon as the patron saint of
cripples.
Knihovna Václava Havla (Havel Library)
Řetězová 7 • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • Free •
vaclavhavel-library.org
• Metro Můstek
Perchedabovethe
Montmartre
café,the
KnihovnaVáclavaHavla
isanexcellentexhibition
tracing the life of
Václav Havel
, possibly the most famous of Czechs (outside the country's
bordersatanyrate).Thesingleroomfollowsthepresident-playwright fromplumpbourgeois
toddler to well-groomed president via many a black-and-white image of his long-haired dis-
sident days. The walls are panelled with good English translations of speech excerpts, some
criticizing his fellow countrymen for their narrow-mindedness (small wonder he became so
