+ The day turned out to be very pleasant. The sun came out around 11am and the temperature was comfortable, not too hot like it had been. Prague is notable for Art Nouveau. We saw a lot of it in 2 places: The Mucha Museum and the Municipal House. Both were fascinating, informative and inspiring. The Mucha Museum had a wonderful display of the posters of the remarkable Alphons Mucha. And there was a wonderful documentary film to watch about his life. He developed a unique style of illustarting posters. Many were due to a long time contract with the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt which he did while living ion Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth.. But he went back to Prague and devoted much of his creativity and activism to his Slavic heritage. At the Municipal House there was more Mucha and other Art Nouveau creations in small rooms and large rooms. Several photos give you a taste of this building which also includes several notable restaurants and the balcony from which the Czechoslovakia state was proclaimed in 1918 ending 300 years of Habsburg rule to the delight of the citizens of what is now Czechia & Slovakia. Mary is standing in a photo with the 500-year old Powder Tower in the background. It was once the main gate into the city when there was a wall.

Later we went back to the Old Town Square as evening began. We got a better look at the Jan Hus Monument. He was a reformer who was burned at the stake a hundred years before Luther. The next to last photo of 27 crosses commemorates the 27 who were beheaded in 1621 after the defeat at White Mountain which ended Czech independence for 300 years. The last photo shows the Astronomical Clock. The original goes back to the 15th century. Damaged in WW2 it was reconstructed but not with the same mechanical features of the original.