day 24 - august 28th

today i waved a fond goodbye to my trusty bike. i had enough time before my bus to check out more of the castle, went on an inside tour, and went on a tour of the theater. the theater is one of the only (the only?) fully restored original theaters of shakespeare's era - it was preserved because the royalty who lived here at the time built it and then basically abandoned the castle. now, every single thing in it has been restored, even nails - taken out, cleaned, replaced. it was so amazing - something like 20 moving set parts, sound effects, tall wooden benches the riff-raff sat on, beautiful boxes for the royalty, with a private sky-walk entrance direct from the castle. it was cool and quiet. the stage was even built with perspective so it looked huge. but no pictures, though you can see it here.



in the castle gardens was a plein air stage, also really neat (and a bit more contemporary)



afterward, i walked down to the bus station for the 3 hour ride back to prague. i wanted to see the municipal house, so i went straight to sign up for a tour (amazing - pics in separate post) and was also convinced into a concert in the main, beautiful hall. the concert was fun, short (they played vivaldi's four seasons and something else - but really everyone was just there fro the hall). the violin soloist was young and rockstar-ish: tight black shiny pants and shirt. with his cell phone in his pocket. classy.

afterward, i headed back to marek's apartment, where i surprised his brother who'd forgotten i was coming, but then we had a long nice talk about the US class system and health care.