The boys and I decided to go to the Slav Epic around 11:30 because we all had to meet at 2:30 for out walking tour of the Jewish Quarter and synagogues with John. The Slav Epic, which is a set of 20 canvases painted by Alfons Mucha depicting the history of Czech and other Slav peoples. Mucha, as I think I mentioned before, is the best known Art Nouveau painter, in both Europe (particularly Paris) and in America. I absolutely love this art form, so it was interesting to see it in such a unique way. It is kind of of like a mixture between traditional historical paintings, like of battles and such things, and belle epoch styles, which resulted in beautiful landscapes fraught with symbolism. Here are a few of my favorite canvases/figures.

And don't be fooled, these canvases are huge. Here is a little perspective.

I was very glad that after we had already walked through the museum and watched a video about where the epic was being stored before the guy with the brochures that explain the paintings came back from his lunch break. I grabbed one and went through as much as I could before it was pretty clear the guys were ready to go. We grabbed a quick bite and ran to catch the tram to head over to the Rudolfinium, our meeting point for the walking tour. And look who I found there!

Me and Dvorak are best friends :)

Of course I loved the walking tour with John and was my usual creepy self because I wanted to hear all of his stories! If you are in the back, or even a few steps away from him, you miss the cool tidbits that he tells you about something that you might have otherwise overlooked. Someday when I am rich, I will just hire a blue book tour guide for myself when I travel to all of these wonderful places. Anyway, we went into the Jewish museum here and saw some of the children's art from Terezin as well as the memorial that had the names of all of the Jews who died from Czechoslovakia stenciled on the wall. I don't have a picture of some parts of this tour because I really was trying to be respectful of the solemnity of the memorials and religious spaces. I don't want to be one of those travelers that takes a selfie in front of something with great moral implications or spiritual meaning for others. My memory can hold on to those sights for me. We walked through the graveyard in what used to be the Jewish Ghetto. The bodies are stacked 7 layers or so high because they only had a limited amount of space to bury their dead. That means that they would spread a layer of mud on top of the bodies currently there and bury the next bodies. The tombstones are all at macabre angles and stacked together because of this unusual burial need. Here are some photos.

We stopped by the Old New Synagogue, which is right down the street from the Jewish Cemetery, and is the "home" of the golem. The golem supposedly protected the Jewish people from the persecution of the Catholics when they tried to invoke blood libel, or basically tried to say that a child died because a Jew killed it for some kind of magic ritual. A rabbi had a vision of the name of God, built this golem out of river clay, and wrote the name of God on its forehead, which brought it to life. Supposedly his beautiful daughter Rebecca began to fall in love with the golem so the rabbi made it to where she would wife the letters off without knowing, "killing" the golem. According to some, the golem is still alive in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. What a great story! I considered getting a small golem figure, but I don't know what my Catholic boyfriend would think about that...

        John, our amazing guide!

We then went in the Spanish Synagogue, where there were some memorials (I did sneak a picture of one thing...) and had a beautiful interior. John told us that apparently there is still some animosity between Christians and Jews in Prague, particularly on holy days. When they reopened the synagogue after the fall of Communism, John attended a service with Terezin survivors and when they left, people were throwing things at them. Can you imagine? After what those people endured? I was dumbfounded. The problem with John being your guide is you want the whole world to be silent and listen to what he has to say. He has so many interesting stories and insights, that I think people would be better for listening to him. I would have liked to be friends with him, but I was either too busy listening or stunned into silence to really talk to him.

Isn't it gorgeous? The museum also had lots of artifacts that compared to ceremonial jewels and artwork used in the Catholic church. I don't know why I assumed the Jewish faith didn't have things of that nature, but some of the torah crowns were absolutely breathtaking.