As I mentioned, Prague was the first stop on our tour of Central Europe. After flying into Prague, we spent two days walking around and taking tons of pictures before we left for Vienna, Austria.
Here is a view of Prague Castle (or Hrad in Czech) from across the River Vltava. At the top of the hill, inside Prague Castle, is the famous Gothic St Vitus Cathedral.
Prague Castle was actually quite close to our hotel except for the stairs. To get up to the Castle you have to pass through many little streets full of vendors and climb numerous stairs. Actually quite relaxing I must say.
Here is the front entrance to Prague Castle. Just like Buckingham Palace in England, the guards put on a show for the tourists, which we didn't get to see. In the background you can see the spires of St Vitus Cathedral that we climbed to the top of. The guard's blue uniforms were designed by the same costume designer for the movie Amadeus.
This is the inside of St Vitus Cathedral before we climbed to the top. The church is over 600 years old. Apparently you Catholics out there may not have heard of St. Vitus, but apprently he was a 4th-century martyr invoked against convulsions and is now the patron saint of dancers and actors. He's apparently quite popular with pagans and the church was dedicated to him way back when to encourage local heathens to convert to the "new" Christian cult. I love guidebooks.
I took a couple panoramic photos from the top of St Vitus Cathedral. Climbing cathedral spires has become a vacation hallmark for Erynn and myself. The hundreds of stairs on this trip did not disappoint. Seeing the two photos next to each other one can get a sense of the beauty of the city.
Here is Golden Lane, which is located within the grounds of Prague Castle. They're just a bunch of really old merchant house where you can now buy postcards and other tourist articles. House number 22 is special because this is where Franz Kafka lived and wrote a few works. You can see Erynn looking very Kafka-esque in front of number 22.
Just below Prague Castle and nearer our hotel is Mala Strana Square, which is dominated by the St. Nicholas Church. The picture on the right shows a portion of the square behind the church and Prague Castle in the background on top of the hill.
From Mala Strana Square we headed down to the Charles Bridge, which is probably one of the most famous landmarks of the city. The bridge has been pedestrian only for a very long time and is lined with statues of famous people and various worthy saints. The picture on the left shows the view of the bridge gate as you walk from Mala Strana Square (you can see the chisel-shaped roof of the gate). And on the right is a picture of the same gate once we were standing on the bridge.
And here are a couple photos I took on the bridge.
This is a shot of Old Town Square, with Erynn in the foreground, which was the city's old marketplace. At the time we were there, preparations for the Easter celebrations were under way. In the background you can see the Tyn Church where Tycho Brahe, the astronomer with a golden nose, is buried
A couple of important landmarks in Old Town Square are the Town Hall Astronomical Clock and another St. Nicholas Church.
Off of Old Town Square is the Old Jewish Quarter with some famous synagogues and an old cemetary. On the left is the Maisel Synagogue, which is now a museum. On the right is the Old-New Synagogue, which is actually the city's oldest (1275). Apparently when it was built, the town already had an old synagogue so this one was named the "new" synagogue. But in the 16th century another was built that wanted to be called the "new" synagogue. Since this one was in the middle, they deemed it the "old-new" one. Wacky I tell ya.
Unfortunately, the Jews have not been the most popular people throughout history. In Prague, they were never granted more land to continue burying their dead, so they just started stacking them on top of each other. Above is a picture of the Old Jewish Cemetary. Every so often they would lay down another layer of dirt to bury more people in and just bring the grave stone to the surface. The layout looks chaotic, but there are just three or four stones for each grave site.
Prague sure didn't have any Vespas, but we did see some funny stuff. Really look closely, and you might find these as funny as we did. The limo wheel clamp was outright funny, but the suped up firebird in the middle of Prague was much more on the subtle side of funny. We thought we'd been dropped in the middle of Alabama there for a second.
After we passed back through Old Town Square and spotted the great cars, we headed to Wenceslas Square. St. Vaclav (Wenceslas) is the patron saint of the Czech Repuplic, and this square is the focal point for New Town. The boulevard is huge and almost a mile long. The picture on the left is the view south along the square and the right picture is the view north.
After leaving Wenceslas Square we headed back down to the river. The houses lining the River Vltava are stunning, as most riverfront properties are. Here are a couple photos of the Vltava Embankment.
And further down the Vltava Embankment is a cool building designed by Frank Gehry. The locals call the building "Fred and Ginger" because Mr. Gehry used Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together as his inspiration. Officially it is called the Rasin Building. Erynn and I really love Frank Gehry's buildings. He's responsible for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain, and closer to our heart, the Peter Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University.
© 2003 Doug Rathburn