August 14....Visit to Liberec

That morning, Rod, Pam and Miles went to play tennis, Bill hung out at the cabin and Priscilla and I went for a long walk .  As we walked through the lush and serene countryside surrounding the cabin, it was fun to imagine who lived in the picturesque wooden homes that were tucked away in the hillsides. At the end of the road, there was a denser, but walkable, forest where we spotted unusual looking mushrooms and a few more houses, hidden amidst the trees.

We all reconvened back at the cabin and headed out for another excursion to town, about an hour away. Liberec, surrounded by the Jizera Mountains, is the fifth largest city in the Czech Republic. It was settled by the German and Flemish migrants from the 14th century and was once home to a thriving textile industry. The city developed rapidly at the end of the 19th century and, as a result, has a spectacular collection of late 19th century buildings, in particular, the town hall, the opera house and the North Bohemian Museum, which we planned to visit.

As we entered the town square, quite similar to the one in Cesky Kromlov, we were impressed by the 65 meter tall, Neo-Renaissance, Town Hall that looms over the square . The front of the building has a richly decorated façade and very rare stained glass windows and, similar to the town hall in Vienna, soaring spires. Today, the Liberec Town Hall is the seat of the Municiple Authority.

Off to the side of the Town Hall was a very strange egg shaped sculpture that reminded me of the sculptures of the Mexican artist, Sergio Bustamante. It was, obviously, a natural photo op for visitors to Liberec and, we were no exception.

After spending some time in the town square and checking out some of the shops on the little side streets, we headed over to the North Bohemian Museum that ranks among the oldest and most significant museums of nature sciences, and European and Czech arts and crafts, in the Czech Republic. It was founded in1873, originally for exhibitions of industrial arts but, during the first 25 years of its existence, the museum acquired so many objects of European and Oriental applied arts that it needed to have a larger home . The current building, in and of itself a piece of art, was built in the years 1897-1898 and, after WW II, the original program of the museum expanded to include local nature, archeology and history.

We were amazed by the huge variety of exhibits, including textiles, costumes, antique furniture, an impressive collection of musical instruments, mainly pianos....some of which could actually be played, exhibits of local animal and plant life, geology, ancient silver pieces, stunning art nouveau and contemporary glass, and much more. The museum was relatively small so, in spite of the wide array of exhibits, we never hit sensory overload which has happed in a number of the other museums that we had visited.

We were hoping to visit the zoo, the first to the first to be opened in Czechoslovakia in 1919, as well as the Botanical Garden, considered the oldest one in the Czech Republic but, by the time we finished with the Museum, they were both closed....maybe another time. So, we headed for home to cook up a yummy dinner of Kielbasa and hamburgers after another full day.