September 15, 2005

• Prague, Czech
   With
  only two days to visit and a plan to go back before we ever left we hit
  the high spots only.  The places you shouldn’t miss when you go to
  Prague, though I’m sure there are those out there who would argue with
  our choices.  (but then someone is always willing to argue.)  First
  off for those who don’t know, Prague is on the Vltava River, and at one
  time was 5 separate little towns.  Of course those 5 little towns
  merged and became one huge Prague that you literally can’t see the end
  of even from the top of the castle.   It’s the original old
  towns that are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and that’s where we
  spent all our time, in one of those original 5.  Because of the
  sheer volume of pictures I took I’m going to post one section of town
  at a time.  We didn’t go to all 5, focusing instead on Hradcany,
  Old Town and The Jewish Quarter.  Next trip we’ll see Lesser Town
  and New Town as well as go back to our favorites from the first three.

  
  This is St. Vitus Cathedral.
  Well it’s a tiny part of a huge cathedral.  I mean you know how
  big these things are.  By the time you get far enough back to get
  a picture of the whole thing it looks tiny and you’ve lost all the
  detail. 
       This is in the Hradcany district.  It is
  where the king built his castle way back when and said this is Prague
  and it’s going to be my capitol and the capitol of the country. 
  Now mind you this was like a thousand years before Columbus got a gleam
  in his eye and a hankering to travel.   The castle he built
  has a hall in it that is so big they held jousting tournaments in
  it.    It has a special entrance and stairs built to
  accommodate horses.  All of my pictures inside came out so dark you
  can’t see anything.  And if I had lived back then I would have
  killed myself for lack of light.    But in later years
  other kings had palaces built and this is from one of
  those.   The
  funny thing is we never would have seen this if I hadn’t wanted to buy
  some postcards.  It’s not on any tour.  It’s the room leading
  to the gift shop from the ticket area.  You go into this cramped
  room to buy your ticket and there was a dingy sign pointing down an
  equally dingy corridor.

   We went through the door and wow!  The ceilings were at
  least 20
  feet high, everything that could be gilded was  and of course it
  was filled with religious art.  A favorite theme of kings and
  conquerors.  This room was immense, can you see how small the
  woman looks in comparison to the furniture.  We never did find
  out what it was used for, both of us meant to ask but with everything
  there is to see it completely slipped from my mind.   I guess
  that is going to be one of the things for the next trip.  If you wanted to you could spend a whole day just in the Hradcany
  district.  I mean it was its own self-contained little town, so
  there is plenty to see.  And  I know we missed tons of
  stuff. 

  I’ve never seen stained glass like this before.  It had so much
  blue and purple and red that the whole cathedral had a purplish red
  glow.  It was worth it just to see that.  Most of the
  cathedrals I’ve seen didn’t have all the blue and purple because it was
  so expensive to make back then.  But this cathedral was built
  expressly for the king and his family so no expense was spared. 
  All the kings for the last 1000 years were crowned here.  When
  they died they buried them here too.  Even before it was completed
  they were burying kings inside, because like most cathedrals it took
  about 500 years to get it finished.  Give or take a couple of
  years, lol.  When
  we left Golden Lane, which inexplicably I didn’t take one picture of,
  we were in a small courtyard with this bronze statue.  I could not
  figure out why everyone coming from the back of the statue was
  grinning, snikering or just outright laughing.  I mean everyone,
  from little kids to old ladies.  I don’t know if you can clearly
  see the looks on their faces but all of the people in this picture are
  smiling.  Kind of like I’ve got a secret. 

  What I should have done was cup those suckers because that would have
  been the biggest handful of my life.  What’s really funny is see
  how shiny his butt and balls are?  Well I don’t think some guy
  comes out and polishes them at night, that’s from the volume of people that can’t
  keep their hands off.    That’s what I like
  interactive art.

  One more and that’s it from the Hradcany district.   I just
  can’t show them all.  This is to give you an idea of how big
  Prague really is.  I took this from the castle wall.
  
  Czech has a population of over 10 million.  Prague itself has a
  population of over 1.1 million.  Tourism is the number one
  industry of Prague.  What that means nowadays for a traveler is
  everyone you meet speaks English and all the hotels have normal size
  towels. yay!  I have no idea which one of the districts I’ll do
  next, i guess it will be a surprise for all of us. 

  The one thing I know for sure is that unless the xanga team gets on the
  stick and fixes my picture uploads you are probably going to wait
  another two weeks.  Half the time my word wrap doesn’t work and
  the other half everything is underlined and I can’t get the edit to
  work to fix it.  I lost everything in this post twice and finally
  resorted to a crude cut and paste method.  I’m so glad I pay for
  this stellar service.  Is everyone having these problems or is it
  just lucky me?
  

  • 6:19 am
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