Weekend in Prague

Here are too many photos of Prague. It was just too hard to choose a few. This is not all of them of course. But I am getting worried that google will soon tell me that I have used up all of my space and can put no more photos on. In which case I guess I will have to get a second blog site and link it to the first. And eventually I will have a string of them, linking to each other, because I just don't want to have to pay money for more storage space.

Anyway here is Prague. I was only there two days. I saw all the important sites and really after two hours of looking you are so cold that you are happy to go home and be warm. It was only as cold as it is here, but the piles of snow where much bigger. And in a way it looked like Vienna because of course it is all very close together, but it still looked different. A lot of it is older, that is why everyone wants to go to Prague, because it wasn't destroyed in WWII. There are churches, bridges, castles, synagogues. A lot of decoration on everything, and a lot of gold in the decorations as well. The views were nice, despite the cold there was blue sky. It seemed bigger than Vienna, perhaps because up on a hill you can see more. I have not really seen Vienna like this yet.


This cathedral is part of the largest castle-complex in Europe, or the world, or something like that. The cathedral was huge. Perhaps not as large as the one here, but really does it matter? It seemed huge to me. Had to line up to see inside. The gargoyles are all very impressive.



Then you walk around to the back and even the back is so impressive. I think I like it better than the front, the arches are very impressive. Perhaps the proper name for them is not arches though.



Now I am on the Charles Bridge, looking back up at the castle and cathedral. You see some really nice pictures of this bridge, and it looked alright in the snow. And being cold, there are less tourists around to get in the way. But still, it would be nice to see it all in summer.





The bridge is lined with statues. This one you touch and make a wish and apparently it comes true. And apparently unlike all the other stories you hear, in this case it is actually true.


Now I am mostly taking photos of every building and statue that catches my eye. There are many of them.


Now this is called the Astronomical Clock. It was ordered to be built by one of the emperors who I was told was so pleased with it that he did not want anybody else to have one, so he blinded the clock-maker.





This one has a name, it is called the Powder Tower, because that is where they stored the gunpowder.


And this is the Municipal building, the town hall I guess. I love how everything is so colourful. There is mosaic and painting and gold-leaf everywhere.



This one below is a synagogue. The synagogues are also a big attraction in Prague because they are the only ones left in the world from before WWII, all the rest were destroyed. This one was very nice and colourful.


Lastly we went to Vysehrad, the oldest part of Prague, where the city first came into being. It is located on top of a hill, the old walls encircling the entire top of the hill are still there. It is a castle, but the actual castle part is not really there anymore. It has a very nice cathedral though, the inside was all painted, all the walls and ceilings and full of little chapels.