"Traveling through Prague, Czech Republic I stayed at an artists flat that had a library of books from the 1950s with images of the# old #world #buildings and maps back to the 1550s. This is the first of several parts of #castles and #palaces with remnants of #Tartaria and evidence of a #mudflood around #1606."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=d2KyjeTs-n8

Michael

September 29, 2022 6:19am

Prince Eugene and his Palaces - Pt 2/2 - "Upper Belvedere"

By the mid 1720's, the legendary prince had moved into the newly completed "Upper Belvedere", palace,, higher up on the hill looking down at the first Palace he'd built a decade earlier, the "Lower Belvedere" (so called once there was an upper). While the reflecting pond regretfully refused to reflect for me - be it time of day/angle of sun, clouds, or water level (given European drought) elsewhere) - whatever. The reflection gods seem to have remained back at Freud's house.

So Prince Eugene got to enjoy some 13 years here with his garden view, before passing on, and - heirless - passing on his palaces back to his beloved Austria, where he devoted himself after initially being raised as nobility in France's court of King Louis XiV.

Not by design, but I paired a post yesterday (Lower Belvedere) with "Lucky Man", a little bit relevant (nobleman off fighting for country) but without a sudden tragic ending. In real life the Prince was fragile in his final years, but died at home in his sleep. And this palace is stunningly beautiful - and I should add that the two palaces now comprise museums with some of the world's finest art, including the biggest/best collection of Klimt. Nothing broke-down about this palace, though it lost its creator, reborn as an art treasure.

Brokedown Palace

Here's a song totally un-related (at least obviously) to this gorgeous palace, which has been but is not now broke down. Well... life,
simply a twist of #fate, or i-Ching.... thinking of "Palace" songs this sprang to mind. A powerful song about passings, actually, a beautiful song with which the Grateful Dead sometimes ended sets , and which many have chosen as a funeral tribute since.
(Check out the tear-jerker comments on YT if you go there; it is truly a great song, and for some very powerful, hopefully better now.

There are many castle songs which are great ("Castles Made of Sand" comes to mind, guess JH had a thins: "Spanish Castle Magic")
Anyway, I really spent years without hearing/thinking (Grateful) Dead, and now they're popping up. Fate. #Castles

Lower Belvedere