Praha Day 2, Part 1: Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge

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St. Vitus Cathedral Selfie!

 

Apparently these are the two most popular destinations in all of Czechia. Both attractions were crazy crowded but we were able to see almost everything we wanted.

We elected not to see the Hapsburg Crown Jewels on temporary display at the Old Palace because that involved hours of waiting, even with a ticket. Which meant I didn’t get to see the “1618 Defenestration of Prague” window. But we did get to the St. Vitus Cathedral and St. George Basilica. The architecture and artwork are simply breathtaking, albeit a bit visually cacophonous in some places. The photos don’t do it justice.

We enjoyed an outdoor lunch at the base of the western tower of the Charles bridge, then walked back and forth across the bridge admiring all the statues.

I have to admit I’m kinda scrambling to keep up with all the Czech history I’m seeing. As a child of the Cold War you can imagine we didn’t learn much about this part of the world.

The weather was very pleasant and autumnal, with temperatures around 60F give or take, depending on whether the sun was behind a cloud or not.

Gorgeous stained glass…

 

I like the reflections of the stained glass seen in the center of this shot.

 

There were these massive organ pipes…and more pipes to my right. Not sure if it was all the same organ.
The description of this wood relief is in the next photo.

 

A Google Translation of the caption to the wooden relief in the previous photo. You hold the phone camera up to the words and it automatically translated to English for me. Calvinism and Lutheranism were the two main Protestant faiths allowed in Bohemia — when it was allowed. It was deemed illegal off and on during the country’s history….and things like this would happen as the various faiths gained and lost power.
This appeared to be a more modern window…so I checked out the words at the bottom with my Google Translate app.

 

Welp, that’s was not what I thought the words would be….the panel just to the right of the words shows “1827-1927”, so we could see that the windows were 20th century.

This is inside the St. George Basilica. A much different (and more simplistic) style.

 

A tomb/sarcophagus. Learn more about it here.

 

Beautiful ceiling frescoes.

 

I took this for my friend Tanja, who loves to see decorative manhole covers. It was on the way between Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge area.
This area near the Prague Castle is called the “Golden Lane“, and most of the structures here were built in the 16th century. It’s mostly a row of souvenir shops now…it was insanely crowded and tough to navigate.

 

I mainly took this picture so I could remember the name of the beer we had. “Staropramen“. Now owned by Molson Coors…

 

Selfie from the Charles Bridge…you can see St. Vitus Cathedral out towards the horizon behind us.

 

There are numerous statues and installations such as this all along the bridge. The bronze relief at center of this piece depicts St. John Nepomuk getting thrown off the bridge. People rub the relief for good luck. There is another larger statue of Nepomuk nearby but the lines to rub that one (mainly to pet the dog depicted) were really long so I don’t have a photo of that one.

 

You get a sense of how crowded the bridge was on this day. It was a Wednesday. There were so many tour groups, speaking a huge variety of languages.
This was heading west from the western end of bridge. So many people. Our AirBnB is not far past the other side of the church with the copper spires.

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