14 July 2012 - Prague

Today we spent mooching around the Old Town.  Prague has been a real surprise to me - English spoken everywhere, real character in the buildings, interesting little alleyways everywhere and a real sense of life.  Crowds of tourists flow through the area over cobbled streets, shops selling crystal glassware alongside tatty fridge magnets, street markets with fresh fruit beside pashminas.  Crowds gather every hour in front of the Astrological Clock in the Town Square to watch as a skeleton (Death) rings his bell as the twelve apostles appear in windows above the clock and a trumpeter sounds a fanfare before the clock sounds the hour.  Many of the buildings in the area have elaborate plasterwork or murals in a distinctive monochrome style.

I went to get some cash in the local currency - the ATM gave me the cash in 2 notes, a 2000k and a 1000k.  It looks ridiculous to hand over a note with 3 zeroes on it to buy an icecream!  (1000k is around $NZD60)

We started across the Old Town Square past stalls selling pancakes straight off the griddle, ham sliced of legs rotating over charcoal braziers and all sorts of sausages.  There was stall grilling bread wrapped around wooden forms over a bed of charcoal, then dipped in sugar and cinnamon.

 Stall grilling bread rolls

We headed for the church with spires overlooking the square which appeared to be in the next street behind a row of houses.  We walked down a likely road only to arrive at the back of the church - the west and north faces have houses butting up to the church walls and even the entrance to the church is through a passage under houses into a very small square in front of the main door.

The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn from the Town Square

The "Before Tyn" part of the church name refers to the yard the church was built on - it replaced a church which was "After Tyn".

Then we tried to find the Jewish quarter which turns out to have largely been rebuilt 1890-1913, but there are still 6 synagogues, of which we found 4 and the old cemetery.  Many of the buildings in this area are modelled on Paris and there is even a small version of the Eiffel Tower (the Petrin Observation Tower - 60m) in parkland on the other side of the river.

 Synagogue at the Jewish cemetery

The Vltava River is slow, quite brown and crowded with boats, large and small, jockeying to get into the right position to view the Charles Bridge.  The bridge itself appears unexceptional except for the statues of saints lining both sides and the historical links - the bridge was the only dry crossing of the river for a long time and gave Prague economic importance and a pitched battle was fought on the bridge to protect the city from the invading Swedes in 1648.

Gate house for the Charles Bridge - the statue on the right is of Charles IV

There's a curious myth about the bridge - a statue of St John of Nepomuk who was martyred by being thrown off the bridge at the behest of King Wencelaus.  He is always shown as having 5 stars around his head as apparently these appeared when he was martyred.  Anyway there is a tradition that if you touch the five stars inset into the bridge close to the statue with five fingers of one hand then you will return to Prague.  However tourists seem to think that this involved touching the brass relief under the statue and this has a well polished area from the constant touching.  The other polished brass in town is the penis of a statue of a boy in the castle which shines out in relation to the rest of the statue which is almost black - the tourist come into the courtyard, smirk, then have their photos taken caressing that part of the statue.  In fact the statue was erected to epitomise the innocence of youth!