Prague...
7:16 PM
It's been a very slow week for me and my family. I guess the positive thing is that I'll be seeing them soon. So that's that. Life goes on. Talked to my grandfather this morning even though I had no idea what to say to him. He seems at peace with life, and I promised to come home soon. So maybe it's time for the wanderlust to start wearing off.... I don't know.
But anyhow, gloomy thoughts aside, I have yet to show pictures of prague, where I was lucky enough to spend 4 days there. Despite the stormy weather, I had a nice time there as it also allowed me to meet up with my friend Keitha, whom I met in NZ 6 years back and whom I have not seen for 4 years. It's great knowing someone in a city you're visiting, coz you can always rely on them to give you the best tips, eat the best food and get the best bargain especially if you're budget travellers like me. The thing about Prague that really caught my eye was the HUGE number of tourists (mostly americans) as compared to other cities. The place was packed with english speaking people! Which of course makes it easier to get around coz it has almost become a necessity for tourism industry professionals to learn a few words of english. The other thing that caught my eye was Prague's architecture. Prague is a very walkable city, so it is very easy to walk from one end to the other (of course there are always trams if you get tired), but Prague was lucky to not suffer the damages caused by WWII (e.g. warsaw) and many of its old buildings still remain intact till today. My first day in Prague, I took a walk around old town square and fell in love with it instantly... despite the gloomy weather, you can see that it is still very pretty.
One of the defining features of Prague's old town: The Tyn gothic church. The interior is very nice too, though no pictures allowed. It was a bit tricky for me finding the entrance at first, as I walked around the entire exterior of the building (notice it's surrounding by smaller ones) but I couldn't find the entrance. Then I realized later on that the entrance was in the middle, but blocked by all those cafe/restaurants and therefore easily missed.
St Nicholas Church. The churches offer free concerts almost every day in the afternoon, so it can be quite a nice treat to go in, sit down and take a rest after a long day of walking.
The famous astronomical clock. Went for a free walking tour (Sandermans has extended to Prague) and our guide amusingly called the most overrrated tourist attraction in Prague. And Keitha agrees with me! It is a very nice clock I admit that, but there is so much expectation/hype from pioneer clock watches that something grand is going to happen that it becomes so amusing when the it actually happens, and many turn away disappointed... It is really a very big tourist attraction. Every hour, a huge crowd of tourists gather at the base of this thing to wait for it to do its thing.
I mentioned previously that I went for a free tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable in art history, so he was able to tell us all about the different architecture styles to be seen in prague. The main ones are of course gothic, baroque, neo classicalism, rococo, cubism etc etc. In the picture below you can see the powder gate which used to be the outer wall surrounding prague. It was called the powder gate because this where the town's gunpowder supplies used to be stored.
During the tour, we came across this group of students dressed up in costumes, ringing a bell and carrying buckets. Our guide explained that it is some kind of tradition here in prague that graduating students go out in costume, ring a bell, cheer loudly and ask for money from the public.
Our walk also took us to the Jewish district which used to be one of the worst districts in Prague. There was quite a great deal of anti semitism going on in prague before, and one can see this reflected on their sculptures/statues. For example, on the astronomical clock, there are 4 figurines (2 on each side of the clock) and they represent the 4 great fears that people in the medieval times had. One of them is a moneylender in the form of a Jew. The two pictures you see below are pictures of the spanish synagogue built with moorish influence.
The clock on the lower level is the hebrew clock. And in comparison to the roman numeral clock above, it's numbers are not only in hebrew, the clock turns anti clockwise as Hebrew is read the opposite way. so if you look closely, the two clocks are telling the same time, but in different directions.
Another Jewish stereotype, the star of david and gold coins below.
Jewish cemetery which is 12 levels of graves deep.
View of Prague castle and parliament building from across the river
Crazy sculpture by Cerny (who incidentally is the artist who created that sculpture of the 27 European Unions and managed to offend everyone of them). Two men peeing into a pond which traces the outline of the Czech republic.
Love fence: lovers write their name on locks and lock it on to the fence. Check out the big bicycle lock at the corner :P
John Lenin wall: youngsters in the 70s/80s were very influenced by the beetles songs because they spoke of peace and freedom for all, and many people used to gather at this wall to hang out and just scribble their ideas/beliefs etc etc, so it became known as the John Lenin wall. Incidentally, this wall actually belongs to the monastary behind it, so of course they weren't so pleased with the vandalism happening on their grounds... but after seeing how famous it was... they just... let... it .... go....
So part 1 of prague pictures is done... more to come soon...
But anyhow, gloomy thoughts aside, I have yet to show pictures of prague, where I was lucky enough to spend 4 days there. Despite the stormy weather, I had a nice time there as it also allowed me to meet up with my friend Keitha, whom I met in NZ 6 years back and whom I have not seen for 4 years. It's great knowing someone in a city you're visiting, coz you can always rely on them to give you the best tips, eat the best food and get the best bargain especially if you're budget travellers like me. The thing about Prague that really caught my eye was the HUGE number of tourists (mostly americans) as compared to other cities. The place was packed with english speaking people! Which of course makes it easier to get around coz it has almost become a necessity for tourism industry professionals to learn a few words of english. The other thing that caught my eye was Prague's architecture. Prague is a very walkable city, so it is very easy to walk from one end to the other (of course there are always trams if you get tired), but Prague was lucky to not suffer the damages caused by WWII (e.g. warsaw) and many of its old buildings still remain intact till today. My first day in Prague, I took a walk around old town square and fell in love with it instantly... despite the gloomy weather, you can see that it is still very pretty.
One of the defining features of Prague's old town: The Tyn gothic church. The interior is very nice too, though no pictures allowed. It was a bit tricky for me finding the entrance at first, as I walked around the entire exterior of the building (notice it's surrounding by smaller ones) but I couldn't find the entrance. Then I realized later on that the entrance was in the middle, but blocked by all those cafe/restaurants and therefore easily missed.
St Nicholas Church. The churches offer free concerts almost every day in the afternoon, so it can be quite a nice treat to go in, sit down and take a rest after a long day of walking.
The famous astronomical clock. Went for a free walking tour (Sandermans has extended to Prague) and our guide amusingly called the most overrrated tourist attraction in Prague. And Keitha agrees with me! It is a very nice clock I admit that, but there is so much expectation/hype from pioneer clock watches that something grand is going to happen that it becomes so amusing when the it actually happens, and many turn away disappointed... It is really a very big tourist attraction. Every hour, a huge crowd of tourists gather at the base of this thing to wait for it to do its thing.
I mentioned previously that I went for a free tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable in art history, so he was able to tell us all about the different architecture styles to be seen in prague. The main ones are of course gothic, baroque, neo classicalism, rococo, cubism etc etc. In the picture below you can see the powder gate which used to be the outer wall surrounding prague. It was called the powder gate because this where the town's gunpowder supplies used to be stored.
During the tour, we came across this group of students dressed up in costumes, ringing a bell and carrying buckets. Our guide explained that it is some kind of tradition here in prague that graduating students go out in costume, ring a bell, cheer loudly and ask for money from the public.
Our walk also took us to the Jewish district which used to be one of the worst districts in Prague. There was quite a great deal of anti semitism going on in prague before, and one can see this reflected on their sculptures/statues. For example, on the astronomical clock, there are 4 figurines (2 on each side of the clock) and they represent the 4 great fears that people in the medieval times had. One of them is a moneylender in the form of a Jew. The two pictures you see below are pictures of the spanish synagogue built with moorish influence.
The clock on the lower level is the hebrew clock. And in comparison to the roman numeral clock above, it's numbers are not only in hebrew, the clock turns anti clockwise as Hebrew is read the opposite way. so if you look closely, the two clocks are telling the same time, but in different directions.
Another Jewish stereotype, the star of david and gold coins below.
Jewish cemetery which is 12 levels of graves deep.
View of Prague castle and parliament building from across the river
Crazy sculpture by Cerny (who incidentally is the artist who created that sculpture of the 27 European Unions and managed to offend everyone of them). Two men peeing into a pond which traces the outline of the Czech republic.
Love fence: lovers write their name on locks and lock it on to the fence. Check out the big bicycle lock at the corner :P
John Lenin wall: youngsters in the 70s/80s were very influenced by the beetles songs because they spoke of peace and freedom for all, and many people used to gather at this wall to hang out and just scribble their ideas/beliefs etc etc, so it became known as the John Lenin wall. Incidentally, this wall actually belongs to the monastary behind it, so of course they weren't so pleased with the vandalism happening on their grounds... but after seeing how famous it was... they just... let... it .... go....
So part 1 of prague pictures is done... more to come soon...