PRAGUE

After the somewhat "harshness" (for want of a better word) of Poland, arriving in the Czech Republic was quite a refreshing change. Comparing the two it's hard to believe that both countries were part of the USSR until the late 20th Century; Prague almost felt like being back in Western Europe - it had a more prosperous feel to it than either Warsaw or Krakow. But then again poor old Poland has had a very difficult history, having been effectively occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria more or less continuously from the late 18th century until the end of World War 1. They then had only a brief period of independence between World War 1 & WWII before being occupied once again by the Nazis only to be "liberated" by Russia and from then being annexed as part of the USSR for another 50 or so years.

Anyway I digress, this post is supposed to be about the Czech Republic, or more accurately, Prague. Without getting into a great history lesson, mostly because I don't really know it all and Wikipedia would be a much better source if you're interested, the Czech Republic is today one part of what used to be Czechoslovakia. The country dates back as far as the 9th century when it was known as Bohemia, then it together with Slovakia, became Czechoslovakia after World War 1 up until 1993 when, following the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia (you can look that up on Wiki too) and the end of communism the two countries peacefully spit into what are today the two independent states of Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Today Prague is a bustling little metropolis with quite a lot of charm. It is now one of the major tourist destinations in Europe. Even when we were there in late October the streets were still swamped with tourists - we would hate to see what it would be like in summer or during the Christmas markets!

We decided to start our stay with a walking tour.

On the way to the tour we were fortunate enough to see some Czech occupational health & safety in action - if you look closely you will see that there is a rather large blow torch just burning away into the street / footpath!

The old town square and Tyn Cathedral - the meeting point for our tour

A statue to commemorate the premiere performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni in this theatre in 1787. This Mozart fellow keeps popping up a lot in our travels - he must have been famous...

The Powder Tower. The only remaining gate of the original city walls. It gained its name after being used as a gunpowder store during the 17th Century.

This church has an real mummified human arm hanging over one of the chapels. There is a myth surrounding the arm about some guy trying to steal a charm that was hanging on the statue of Mary inside the church. When he went to grab the charm the statue came to life and took hold of his arm. The priest and police in their wisdom decided that the only way to free the guy from the statue's grasp was to cut off his arm with a sword. Immediately after having his arm chopped off the statue released the arm and it now hangs over the statue as a reminder to all not to steal (or some such). As for the rest of the guy...well we assume he was hauled off to jail.

You can't really see it but that's a giant metronome on the hill. It has some sort of artistic significance about marking time or something - it was installed in 1991 as a memorial to the Velvet Revolution. It stands in the place where the largest statue of Stalin ever built used to stand.

The astronomical clock, a 15th Century engineering marvel, the world's oldest astronomical clock still working and probably one of Prague's most popular tourist attractions. It is incredibly complex and tells the phases of the moon, location of the sun, the date and even the time...somehow. On the hour the clock comes to life and characters swing in and out of the little doors, etc, hence the tourist attraction - hundreds of people crowd around in front of the clock to watch the hourly show. We are told that it is possibly the second most disappointing tourist attraction in the world, second only to the Mona Lisa; in terms of the reality not living up to the legend.

The easy way to tell the time.

Wenceslas Square - the main focal point of the Velvet Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered here in 1989 to protest against communism

Our guide Martin explaining why this statue has a shiny willie.

The main entrance gate to Prague Castle

St Vitus Cathedral inside Prague Castle

A 14th Century mosaic of the Last Judgement. This entry portal is known as the Golden Gate in reference to the golden tiles used in the mosaic. Apparently to stop degradation of the mosaic the tiles are protected by the same coating used to protect the space shuttles - thanks to NASA. The crown jewels are kept behind the doors and are only displayed to the public every eight years. An ancient Czech legend says that any usurper who places the crown on his head is doomed to die within a year. In the eyes of some this was confirmed during World War II when Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of the puppet Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia, secretly wore them believing himself to be a great king, and was assassinated less than a year later by the Czech underground.

Prague Castle courtyard

Cathy at the back door to the castle

Cathy jumping in front of my photo

One of many decorative buildings in the castle area decorated in Italian graffito (or more correctly Sgraffito)

Me thinks someone is getting bored with this tour...

Prague even has its very own Eiffel Tower, well an (almost) exact copy of it on top of the hill.

Lucky for us we were there on Free ASS Day!

Some rather disturbing modern art

See that tower in the background? The same disturbing baby sculptures are crawling up the sides of it. Don't believe me? Look it up on Wiki here

So that was our walking tour, well two in fact - we did one of the old town & Jewish quarter in the morning followed immediately by another of the Castle in the evening.

Day two we just strolled around the town on our own, mostly on the castle side which has a little more charm than the old town side.

A boat on the Vltava River

More boats on the same river

Penguins...on the same river

This guy was clearing out a drain or something with his sword. Oh well I guess if you have to stand around all day in a silly costume you may as well do something productive...