I began my day's tour in Wencheslas Square, more of a double-sided boulevard like Les Champs-Élyses in Paris. Here you see the backside of the horse on which the brave knight, St. Wencheslas, is riding. You see, in Prague, if the locals want to meet each other, they often suggest meeting at the tail - and that's exactly where my TripAdvisor self-guided tour on my iPhone began.
It started to rain pretty hard after I took that picture of the horse's arse, but I carried on like a trooper, just for you - my loyal readers.
I followed the tour to the Opera House, and its brilliant embellishments. From there I came upon the Jewish Quarter, and the new old synagogue, from about 1200 AD.
Appropriately there is a King Solomon Truck out front. I also saw a little bit of the Knights Templar, in the form of a picture of Grand Master Jacques DeMolay adorning a restaurant sign.
From there I made my way to the center of town, the square, and beheld the oldest astronomical clock still functioning:
Don't ask me what it says, though I think we've just left Virgo and we're into Libra. Cuba Libras anyone?
From there I ascended the clock tower for a bird's eye view of the city of Prague for a nominal fee:
From the old town square I meandered through the historical area following the self-guided tour.
Here I found myself outside the Kafka Museum. Take a close look at these dueling figures (click on the photo if you're viewing the blog on my website to get an enlarged picture.) The statues are composed of horizontal slices, like the men went through a bread slicer. It's a moving statue, literally - the hips of each man swivel and the, err, "water spouts" move up and down to adjust the spray.
I didn't tour the Kakfa museum - I was plagued by ennui.
Moving along, I was making my way closer to the Charles Bridge, a centuries-old span connecting what are now the Old Town and the New Town. My tour had started in the New Town and I crossed a different bridge to get over to the Old Town - now time to head back, but this time over this enormous pedestrian bridge with hawkers, beggars, vendors, musicians, tourists and beautiful statuary:
LEFT: one end of the Charles Bridge. RIGHT: midway along the bridge
LEFT: Statues of long-dead important people. RIGHT: the other end of the bridge.
My self-guided tour was pretty neat and it gave me a good overview of the city, at my own pace and without having to follow along with a tour group, which can sometimes be tedious. The app and the content are both free from TripAdvisor. I plan on using a similar tour in Vienna as an introduction to the city.
A view along the river with the Charles Bridge on the right and the Prague Castle complex above on the left. I plan on spending the entire day tomorrow at the castle - and yes, Andrew, this one has a dungeon!
A bad picture of me with a decent distant view of the Prague Castle.
Legerova 62, 120 00 Praha 2, Prague, Czech Republic.
Absolutely love these pictures! About to head out to the cafe, yup, on a Sunday, and needed a pick me up so to your blog I went. The clock is amazing! Not only that it still works, but the cute skeleton in the corner made me smile. Good you passed on Kafka. It's so colorful there with the paint color choices on what I'm assuming would be our NE version of triple deckers to the art. Whoa! Knights Templar? Very cool Masonic point of interest. Thank you. On you go to exciting things and on I got to ..... eh. Take lots of castle pictures! Darlene
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ReplyDeleteThanks, Darlene! The "triple-deckers" as you call them are all basically the same 6-storey buildings in the new part of town, and only color distinguishes them. In the old part of town the height, shape and embellishments of the buildings vary, making it much prettier. I really don't care for the new part of Prague. You'll really enjoy the castle stuff, though - coming soon to a blog near you!