Prague, Czech Republic; Views, Prague Castle, Charles Bridge

I’m going to apologize in advance for this long post.  I prefer to post a full day over breaking days up, so this post will cover a little of our first night, as well as all of the next day.  If you experience reading fatigue, go for a walk and yell sweet nothings at the sky…that always works for me!  If you stop reading right here, I don’t blame you, but come on man, it’s mostly photos!

Our driver pulled into Prague, pointing out a few sights along the way.  I’ve gotta say, our first impression is “wow, this place is impressive”.  Our impression has only gotten better since then!  It’s hard to believe it used to be run by the Soviets?!

We spent 5 days in Prague, so I’m going to try to hit the highlights over several posts.  Just like Budapest, we again stayed at the Aria Hotel, although the two hotels are not affiliated, at least not anymore.  Both hotels are run by childhood friends of our friend Paul Fridrich.  The Aria in Prague isn’t nearly as impressive as the one in Budapest, but it is still pretty nice, and has some excellent UNESCO World Heritage gardens included on the property.

The owner even has some impressive artwork in the bar area.  This one is by Salvador Dali!

For our first night we had dinner at a restaurant with an incredible view, Terasa U Zlate Studne.  This is a “must book” restaurant, as the food is excellent, and the views are even better!

The entire skyline of Prague is quite beautiful…

…particularly as it gets dark.  These views were from our table, so make sure you book this place!

Unfortunately at the end of the night we had to say goodbye to Casey and Terri, as they had an early morning tour before heading home the next day.  Great traveling with you guys!  Let’s do it again soon!

We had our own private city tour, again with “Tours By Locals”.  Our guide was Dagmar, who was a wealth of information for everything Prague!

She arranged for tram tickets and got us on the right tram to take us to the #1 tourist attraction, Prague Castle.  Built in the 9th century, this is the largest ancient castle complex in the world!

The gardens are trying to be Keukenhof….nice try buddy!

The main entrance is guarded by these two human statues.  There is no way I could stand still for any length of time like these guys.  I was half tempted to ask one of them “doesn’t your neck itch?”, just to plant the seed.  Yes, I’m a tad evil.

There was a soldier with a machine gun standing near this guard, both in the above and below photos…and I thought it detracted from the photos, so I used Google’s “Magic Eraser”.  It doesn’t always work well, but when it does it’s great!

Here is Saint Vitus Cathedral, the central point of Prague Castle.  This is the third cathedral to be built on this site.  Construction on the current cathedral started in 1344, with the right side in the below photo being the oldest.  The Cathedral took hundreds of years to build, with only the right side and the central tower being completed before war stopped construction in the early 15th century.

The left hand side of the cathedral finally started construction in 1870 and was finally completed in 1929, so it only took 600 years to complete the thing…but who’s counting!

On our way out of the castle our guide pointed out this gate.  This is where dignitaries were led inside to meet the King.  The castle is now used by the President of the Czech Republic, so the gate serves the same purpose today.

This is the entrance of the castle used for dignitaries.  Are these statues meant to threaten people who are about to enter?  I tried “Magic Eraser” on the people in the foreground…no dice.

We then made our way down the hill and walked across the Charles Bridge, the #2 tourist attraction in Prague.  A photo of the entire bridge, from the bridge, would not have done it justice, as it was like rush hour in Grand Central Station, and this is supposed to be the shoulder season!

There are 30 statues on the bridge, and this was the first one, Saint John of Nepomuk, installed in 1683, .  He was a 14th century Saint of Bohemia, who was drowned after being thrown from the bridge into the Vltava River on the order of King Wenceslaus IV.  According to legend his wife, Queen Sophia, made confessions to Saint John which he would not reveal to the King.

If you look below the statue, there is a dog on the bronze plaque that is very clean.  It is said if you rub this spot it will bring good fortune as well as a prompt return to Prague.  I didn’t bother, as I know we aren’t coming back to Prague anytime soon, and I didn’t want to tempt fate!

Our guide then got us onto a boat tour to see the area from the water.  It looked like the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  Did Walt visit this spot??

Here is a better shot of the Charles Bridge, with all of the statues.

You can see Saint John Nepomuk on top of the bridge.  The angled logs below the bridge pier were originally put there to break up ice floes before they reached the bridge supports.  An upstream dam now prevents the ice floes, but the logs remain for historical purposes.

Below, on the right, is the Old Town Bridge Tower, one of the original gates to the “Old Town” of Prague.  It was built in 1357, during the rule of Emperor Charles, hence the name of the bridge!

This is a shot of the bank of the Vltana, with a statue of the famous Czech composer Smetana.  Click on the photo if you need a better view.

Our boat ride took us around Kampa Island, where we saw this working water wheel.

After getting off the boat there was a small museum that showed that the Charles Bridge was not the original bridge across the Vltava.  The below diagram shows the original bridge in white, called the Judith Bridge.  This bridge collapsed in 1342 during a massive flood.

The museum has some stairs that led underground so you can see some supports of the original Judith Bridge.

Our next stop was the Prague Astronomical Clock.  We were there just before 2:00 PM, and you’d be amazed how many people gather around to watch this less than stellar spectacle.  The clock is cool though.  It took about 10 minutes for our guide to teach us how it works.  I won’t bore you with the details…you have to come and experience it for yourself.  It is pretty incredible that it was built in 1410, and is the oldest operational clock in the world!

Here is a video…the clock at “It’s a Small World” is more impressive, but that’s just me.

Adjacent to the clock is the “Church of Our Lady before Tyn”.  Why do they give these churches such strange names??  In any case, it looks like Walt Disney spent time in Prague, as there are definitely parts of this church in the main castle at Disneyland!

Across from the church are these white crosses on the ground, 27 in total.  These crosses represent 27 Protestant men who were beheaded on this spot in 1621 for working against the Catholic Habsburgs.  Outside of having a guide to explain this to us, I doubt that anybody walking by has any idea what these represent.

We then ventured into the Jewish Quarter (aka Ghetto), and everything was closed since it was a Jewish holiday.  Our guide told us that this ladder on the back of the Old-New Synagogue (not sure about that name, but it’s the oldest in Prague) led up to the attic, where a mythological nasty creature called Golem lives (not to be confused with Lord of the Rings “Gollum”).  A renovation in 1883, and an exploration of the attic in 2014 revealed no signs of the Golem….but do you dare to enter??

Just across the street is another Synagogue, with an old cemetery in front of it.  The bodies are supposedly buried up to 6 or 7 deep here, hence the elevated position from the street.

Our last stop of the tour was this look down Wenceslas Square, the main city square of Prague.  This square has the busiest pedestrian traffic in the entire country!  Looks just like Charles Bridge, just wider.

If you made it to here, congrats….you win a box of Cracker Jacks!  Just send me your address and I’ll ship it your way!  Up next, we visit more of Prague Castle and Saint Vitus Cathedral, and take a funicular up to Petrin Tower, for an awesome view over the city!