Prague

This blog covers Wednesday August 22, 2012 and Thursday August 23, 2012

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22 

My day was planned to start off with a nice easy run, however, the torrential downpour had me change my plans and I ended up doing catch up work on the blogs, so you can all thank the rains for the double dose of bogging that came your way on Wednesday morning.  

PRAGUE CASTLE

After being through my fair share of castles and cathedrals thus far in Europe, I was looking for something different in the Prague castle that I had not yet seen other places.  As I got up there, the things that really stuck out to me was how obvious in some places how much work has been done to transform the castle from one king/era to the next, the sheer scale of the castle complex (the largest, I've seen), and the great overlooking views of the entire city, as it's built on the hill, west of the river, above the rest of the city.  I debated buying a complete package tour for 350 czech k's that would allow me to go into multiple pieces and parts of the castle and cathedrals on the grounds, but I found that mostly I could get in enough to get an idea of what is going on, so I played it cheap and didn't pony up the cash :).  The one piece that I could have paid for separately but didn't find the entrance during my wonderings, was the entrance to the tower, which would have allowed me of climb up 25 stories and get a different perspective of Prague.

like powder gate, this gate to the Charles Bridge which leads to prague castle, is formerly part of the old city wall that used to surround the entire city.

like all good castles, Prague Castle is up a nice long steady hill.

front entrance to Prague Castle, you can see the towards of the cathedral just beyond

the main cathedral in the Castle

Obligatory inside shot

side view of Cathedral 

Along the inside of the castle walls you can make your way through some nice wooded paths

We've heard of the bridge to nowhere, well this castle has stairs to no where

Thought this was a cool building in the background and cooler they the two guys in front were trying to get this dog to cooperate with some picture taking and it just wasn't happening.  A side note to this is that in Prague, dogs are completely like family.  They go EVERYWHERE.  There was a dog on the tour yesterday, dogs in stores, dogs everywhere.

back view of the Cathedral

This shows a glimpse of the different work that's been done on the castle over the years, from the original foundation to later architectural choices

When in Prague, one clearly expects to see a Winston Churchill statue.  It happened to be right near the British Embassy, so I guess it makes sense. 

What can one say?

Czech Senate

fountain at the senate

main walkway up to the senate

freaky wall

close-up of wall, and yes that's a face in the center

Metronome - why not?

and the theme continues, if it's worth seeing, it's worth climbing to see

The metronome

it's become a repository for shoes

and right behind it has become a skateboarder's paradise

Jewish Cemetery

Back many years ago in Prague, the Jewish population was relegated to a very limited area of the city, not only in life, but in death as well.  When their cemetery ran out of space they asked the king for more land, and were denied.  As a result they began burying in layers, up to 14 bodies stacked high.  In the photo below you can see what appears to be a hill behind a wall.  According to the guide from the walking tour the other day, it's not actually a hill, it just bodies stacked so high and covered with dirt.

misc pics 

From this picture you can see the only building impacted by WWII.  The right hand side was shelled towards the end.  Fortunately the whole building was destroyed as the left hand side contains the astronomical clock - details later

Cathedral in old town square, directly across from building with astronomical clock.  

cool monument in the center of old town square

Better picture of church with the human arm from Monday's post

Random maze that you could walk through, or paint a "brick" and add to it. 

View from Wenceslas square, which is where communism fell in the Czech republic in the late 80's.

Evening Run

The evening was wonderful, as the temperatures, which have been quite warm and humid, began to moderate a bit.  I went out for a wonderful 9 mile run along the river.  I'm sure most tourists don't make it as far south into the city as I did, and I would say they are missing out.  I didn't bring a camera with me on my run, but there are pictures below from my walking tour of some of that path on Thursday night.  

Astronomical clock

Back in the 1300's an incredibly bright man figured out how to build a precision clock and then make it come to life at the top of the hour.  It was so amazing that people from all over Europe would come to visit it.   And what does legend say happened to such a bright man, well, the burned out his eyes and cut off his tongue so that he could never help anyone else have such a creation.  To stick it back at them, he obtained the help of someone to get him to the clock, broke it and then plunged to his death.  (there's never a good European without death). After a hundred years, someone was finally smart enough to get the clock to work again, and it does so until this very day.  

Here's the video, sideways until I figure out how to rotate it.

That same night, after videoing the clock I took this pic of the plaza with the cathedral in the background.  When it's lit up like this is really reminds me of the old walt disney castle from the credits that tinkerbell used to fly by.... know what I mean?

cathedral at night in the same plaza as the astronomical clock

THURSDAY AUGUST 23

AM I IN A COLLEGE DORM?

I woke up early and decided to grab breakfast and chill in the common room.  As I was preparing my breakfast in the kitchen, a German fellow came in and said, have you seen this?  Blank stare and all, I followed him into the common room and this is what I saw.  Yes, yes, the dude lost bodily functions and somehow managed to pull his pants down so everyone could see.  Awesome!!!!  I ate my breakfast on the stairs. 

Walk to the train station for day trip

I met up with a group in the old town square for a day tour out of Prague and as we walked along a random street to the train station we passed by this, a jewish synagogue.  It was the only one we saw that wasn't in the old Jewish quarter and had a pretty cool facade worthy of remembering.

Day tour out of Prague to Kutna Hora

People in Europe seem to like their bones, or at least doing weird things with them.  When I was in Paris it was the catacombs, now it's a church.  What gives?  You can find a brief history of the church, here http://www.outsideprague.com/kutna_hora/bone_church.html

Otherwise on with some pictures...

The Bone Chapel - the weather veins on the top of the towers are actually skull and cross bones

The Entry way

A crest of bones; on the lower right you can see a bird - made of human bones - plucking out the eye socket of the skull

bones stacked high

Chandelier made of bones

Bone chapel is huge with Goth who love to come and make out under the chandelier 

This is the guy who organized all of the bones as such

And if that wasn't enough for you, here's a video walk through of the church.

SANTA BARBARA CATHEDRAL

another day, another incredibly austenatacious church.

saint barbara cathedral

Ceiling is painted with many of the important coat of arms of the area

this area of prague was a huge mining town, and thus symbols of minors are spread throughout, including this one on the church pillar

Through numerous renovations of the church these are the only original furniture from the early gothic days of the church

far view of the cathedral on our way out of town

Lunch

Though our tour guide, Diana, grew up in Australia, her family, was originally from the Czech republic.  They escaped communism in the early 80's, and she recounted how her family's first night of freedom from communism was actually spent in jail in Austria, because the Austrians didn't know what to do with them.  Anyway, the point to all of this is that we got the best of both worlds with the guide.  She clearly understood the western world but also could take us to local places for a bite to eat.  The place she took us to, of course, also has a haunted past.  The story goes that there was a pretty wealthy man, who had a sole daughter.  He was so thrifty with his money that he didn't want his daughter to marry, as he'd have to pay a large dowry.  Thus he locked her in the basement until she ultimately started to death.  She, in some way, left a curse upon the building and foretold of its destruction and death.  Apparently, she continued to haunt the place until about 100 years later when the building collapsed and killed 15 people.  It's been reconstructed and safe to say, and we were able to enjoy a traditional Czech food.  I had some form of chicken wrapped around spinach with some other stuff in side.  It was good, along with the French fries :).

The train home

Alright, the train ride home wasn't really much to write home about, except for the fact that the below pictures show the train station that we used.  Yes, the track pretty much look abandoned, but they work and I guess that's what matters most.  

Evening 

We didn't get back to the train station 'til 6:00, by then it was time to chill a bit at the hostel, meander along the river, snap some photos, grab a bite to eat, and book accommodations for my next destination, Barcelona!!

headed south along the river

Fred and Ginger dance hall

what looks like the remains of a fort top left, with the river dead center and the moon rising top right

looking north at the "fort" after going through the tunnel

not sure what this was, but it was kind of cool

prague castle and one of the bridges lit up at night

Another shot of the old town square cathedral lit up

the astronomical clock building lit up at night

powder tower lit up at night