At the Prague Astronomical Clock on the former Town Hall. It’s a cool apparatus, I still don’t completely understand all the dials. But what I could figure out was accurate.
This was our last full day in Prague. We started out visiting the stunning Baroque-era St. Nicholas Church, which was just a few hundred meters from where we’re staying. Unlike St. Vitus, this cathedral’s decor and architecture were pretty consistent…simply gorgeous throughout.
After we bid farewell to Andy and Suzy, who left for Berlin after lunch, we wandered across the river to see the astronomical clock/astrolabe; it puts on a show at the top of each hour. We arrived to incredible crowds and thought maybe it was comparable to the Munich Rathaus-Glockenspiel, but it wasn’t. At all. Somewhat underwhelming, to be honest. The clock itself is worth checking out, just the same…I studied Wikipedia quite a bit to try to understand all the dials, and there are still parts of it that’s confusing to me.
We enjoyed the Old Town Square (despite the crowds), and did some last minute souvenir shopping. We poked our heads into one more church: the Church of Our Lady Before Týn: we could look through the glass at it, but didn’t get to go inside, it didn’t open till 3pm.
We took the tram to and from Old Town. The city has an outstanding public transportation system: buses, trams, trolleys, and a subway system. Prague uses ALL their trams and trolleys, restoring antiques to useable conditions, outfitted with GPS and digital signage and payment systems. We got to ride our first “old tram” this afternoon.
We had a VERY early day for the flight home, so we had an early dinner and returned to the AirBnB to pack.
This is the view that greets you when you walk into St. Nicholas Church. Wow!
You could climb up to the 2nd floor gallery and admire the ceiling frescoes closer up.
Enjoying beer and some fries and Camembert cheese in the shadow of St. Nicholas Church.
Someone at Oktoberfest said we should try cherry beer in Prague. It tasted wonderful but then it left a VERY bitter aftertaste. This kind, called Rohozec, was from a town northeast of Prague called Turnov.
The Old Town square. So crowded…
All that happens at the top of the hour is the two rectangles at the top, with the blue, opens and you see what looks like the 12 Apostles rotating through the openings. It was about 90 seconds. Visit the clock, for sure, but if you aren’t there at the top of the hour, don’t lose sleep about it. If you want to orient yourself and try to figure this out, this photo was taken at 3pm Central Europe Time Thursday, September 24th.
Dave loved seeing these antique trams and trolleys around the city. It’s cool that they’re all standardized to run on the same routes, so you don’t know if you’re going to get a modern one or one of the historical ones. They are featured in many of the souvenirs…I looked and looked for a Christmas ornament but never did find one. I got a different pretty souvenir ornament.
