Day 1: We start our walk to the Charles Bridge
We arrived after 16 hours of traveling through my favorite transfer hub, Heathrow. Our first real day in Prague started on Sunday with beautiful weather and a Rough Guide full of Post-It bookmarks.
We were staying just off the centrally-located Wenceslas Square and began our daywith a walk towards the Charles Bridge.
Join us as we start to learn about the city.
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We continued our stroll back through the Staré Město (old town) and headed toward the Staromestske nàměstí , one of the largest squares in the city. We would see Art Nouveau buildings next to Gothic ones, next to Cubist ones, next to modern ones.
We then headed back to Nové Město (new town) where the architecture continued to amaze. Also here were some of the more significan Communist addtions to the architectural landscape of Prague.
Day 2: To the Malá Strana to the castle
Monday finds us headed for a long walk back across the Charles Bridge to the Malá Strana. The bridge is lined with 30 scultptures of various saints, the Lord, and a few other notables. They are mostly black with soot except for the gold accessories that gleam in the sun.
The walk up to the Prague Castle is through narrow, winding, and sometimes steep sreets. They offer driving tours in these classic cars and trucks that look like fun. The Castle itself is probably the most prominent landmark in all of Prague, visible from almost everywhere. It's made up of five huge courtyards with St. Vitus in the center.
St. Vitus is a huge medieval cathedral built over a period of more than a hundred years. The nave towers 100 feet into the air and its steeples and tower almost another 80. We climbed the south steeple for the view. It was 287 steps up a small, winding, stone starrcase... not for the faint of heart! This would be the first of several towers we would climb in the next several days.
We leave the castle and head to Staromestske nàměstí to catch the tolling of the hour on the Astronomical Clock. The clock shows the local time, the old European time, the date, season, and a few other things we coudn't even figure out.
We also tried to find the entrance to the huge Tyn Church, and after two laps around it, realized it was through an arcade of a building built right on its front.
Day 3: We head for museums and towers
Today was our day to explore Prague's transit system of cream and red trams and communist era subway system. Our goal was the National Technical Museum in near Letna. We would need to take a subway to the tram to the other side of the river and find our way back to the museum. We discovered Prague's very modern and clean subway system with its very steep and very fast escalators. The museum, however, was closed for renovation when we arrived and the neighboring Agricultural museum just didn't excite us.
Day 4: We wander around Nové Město
New town is dvided from Old town by Národni, the main shopping street. On this street is the National Theater, and the Adria Palace, one of Prague's largest examples of pre-war Cubist design. Nearby is the Panna Maria Sněžná (Church of St. Mary of the Snows). From the outside, it is an odd looking church of a very short length, but a 100 foot tall nave. It was originally designed to be the same size at St. Vitus, but with the many changes in the country's leadership and preferred religions, it was abandoned before its was fully constructed. Tucked away in a courtyard behind the church is the only extant example of a cubist streetlamp.
On Wenceslas Square a several stands selling varieties of sausage and schnitzel. They are the best sausage sandwiches!
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© 2007 Joseph Hoffman