Prague (spelled by the Czechs Praha) May 25, 2001
Interesting facts you might not know (or even care about). The Czech republic split from the Slovak government recently( about 5 years ago). The Slovak's mentality (the Czechs say) is closer to Hungarians than the Czechs, who are closer to German/Austrian.
In history, the Austrian monarchy used Prague as the capital in the 700s and 800s, then moved to Vienna. It later returned for a while, and there was an attempt to bring Maria Theresa back, but she declined.
| The highlight of Prague is the Imperial Palace and the Cathedral of St. Vitus. From our hotel it is visible, and from most of the city it is a fixture that is used for navigation. The river is the Moldau (same one Smetna wrote about). |  |
Note that the palace looks kind of 1700's. That's because it was all refaced to attract Maria Theresa. |
The pictures show the gates to the palace (front is to the left and back is to the right). |
 Outside the castle are the buildings originally used by the servants and later by the noble persons who wanted their own homes. The nobles moved into the area after a major fire destroyed the area.
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The cathedral was expanded inside the castle, so the front courtyard is "a might" small. by walking to the far corner, you almost get this picture (and it's effect is distinctly reduced by the scaffolding in place). Unfortunately, the cathedral was closed for "technical" reasons (your guess is as good as ours about what they were), so this is as close to inside as we got. |
| Here' s a picture of the cathedral from "the main" door (the royal door is actually a totally enclosed walkway off to the right of this picture and up one floor). |  |
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The picture over the main door was intended to "last forever". Apparently, the fact that it's on the south side didn't appear to be a factor to the artist as it had faded significantly. It has just been redone, and as you can see, is magnificent. |
| Behind the cathedral is St. George's Basilica. It is significantly older, dating back to the late 800's. We were allowed inside it (see below). |  |
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I wasn't supposed to take this picture, and I think if they'd known that
I finished, they probably would have been more upset. With no flash,
they had no idea how far I had gotten before they yelled at me and our
tour guide.
This is the inside of the Basilica, with the tomb down below. |
| We then walked from the Cathedral down to the village square (they were nice enough to take us up in a bus). This picture is taken at the old city gate, you can just barely see the tunnel through the wall. It was about a 20 minute walk down, but a pretty view, so ... |  |
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At the bottom of the hill is the Charles bridge, named for King Charles IV. It's the oldest bridge over the Moldau, we're guessing we remember the 1300s. This canal here is not the Moldau, it's a branch the monks added to get water to their mill. |
| Once across the Charles bridge, you walk the original city streets to the central square. As you can see from this picture, they are narrow and the architecture is eclectic. Prague is called the Golden city - arguably because so many of the houses are painted the yellow you see on the house at the end. |  |
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The central square is a neat, but very crowded place (this picture was taken of a fairly sparse corner). The ages of the buildings vary significantly, but I really liked this bank of buildings. |
| You can see that this building is much older than the group above.
You can walk up to the top of the tower (we didn't). The left face
of the tower has an astronomical clock, not only does it tell the time of
the day, but the season of the moon and the day of the year. It's a
bit old, so not quite right (like 311 days I believe was what it thought
there were). The clock also has the animated figures that move when
striking the hour.
This picture was taken from the Bistro where we (and many other people) had lunch. Very nice lunch, and not expensive (the beer, the original Pils from Pilsen, was only $.50). |
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The Moldau is a pretty river as you can see. This is the other end of the Charles bridge with a tour boat going underneath. |
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