Prague Part I

3 Iowa Staters:  Me, Dan Murphy and Dan Foster in front of the Prague Castle

I've been to Prague twice already now.  Prague is about 2-2.5 hours away by bus.  Round-trip from Brno to Prague is about $15.  My first trip there was my first weekend in the Czech Republic.  Two of my friends from Iowa State, Dan Foster and Dan Murphy, were traveling through Europe before their program started in Spain.  They were in Prague for a few days, so I left on a Thursday afternoon to tour the city with them.  

We spent Friday just wandering around, not really with any particular destination in mind, and not really knowing where we were going.  We saw a lot of the city just by walking around in the old parts of the city and across bridges.  In one part, we found a park, or a "secret garden" as Murphy called it.  Inside was a Russian tank as well as an exhibit of photographs from the Communist days.  Murphy, who was taking Russian, translated many of the words on the photographs, which usually were telling the Russians to leave.  We discovered Czech is basically Russian with a Latin alphabet as Murphy was able to read and translate a lot of Czech things, too.  

We went up to the "Prague Castle," which is actually a cathedral and its surrounding buildings. Saint Vitus Cathedral was very beautiful inside.  Its construction started in the 9th century and continued until the 19th century.  It is also the burial place of St. Wenceslas, who is best known from the Christmas carol and as the patron saint of Bohemia and namesake of many Czech (and American) churches.  The Wenceslas chapel was under renovation, but I could still see his tomb.  

Saint Vitus Cathedral

One of the many stained glass windows in St. Vitus

Wenceslas Chapel above the tomb of St. Wenceslas

Outside of St. Vitus--note cleaned to the left, uncleaned to the right

1370 mosaic The Last Judgment

Guard and me impersonating one

The castle area afforded a great view of Prague, including the Charles Bridge, named after King Charles IV.  Charles Bridge, built in the the 14th century, is the most famous structure in Prague.  They are in the process of cleaning and renovating the bridge and plan to install "authentic" gas lamps soon.  The 1,673 ft. pedestrian bridge is full of many street vendors, selling paintings, photographs, and souvenirs, and doing caricatures.   The bridge is lined with 30 statues of various saints.  Friday night, we went to a concert.  There were people standing in the tourist areas all day advertising various concerts going on that night.  The concert we went to was classical music, including "The New World Symphony," written by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak while he was living in Iowa.  It was a good experience hearing a string octet playing a song that was first performed in the very building we were sitting in.  

View from Prague Castle area

Charles Bridge

The Prague Castle

We walked through Wenceslas Square, the main area of Prague.  There was another photography exhibit about the Soviets in the Czech Republic and the Communist times.  The front photo of the exhibit was of Soviet rolling into Prague in 1968.  I was able to take a picture of the picture, with the same building in the background.  Also, I like the stark contrast, behind a photograph of tanks representing Communism were symbols of today's capitalism, a McDonald's and an advertisement for the iPhone.  

The Astronomical Clock

Wenceslas Square in the background

St. Wenceslas Square, then and now (note McD's in the background)

The inside of a random church

In the "Old Town," we saw the astronomical clock, one of the main things to see in Prague, which can be summarized by the word "overrated." It didn't really do much except ring on the hour, but there were hundreds of people each hour to see it.

Old Town Hall by night (with the race in the foreground)

View from Old Town Hall on the "Old Town" area

Bohemian crystal store

We walked up the Petrin Tower, a 1/5 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower overlooking Prague.  The tower is 194 ft. tall and is at the top of a very steep hill.  Rather than wait in the line to take the tram up the hill, we decided to go off-road.  It was fine, until we were about halfway up where it was almost a 90º angle up (not quite, but close).  We continued to literally climb and then encountered a homeless man living in a cave.  After being creeped out by that, we found the sidewalk again and continued to the tower.  Two of the three of us were fine going up, but one was completely scared of heights and basically hyperventilated the entire time and refused to look over the edge.  It was the same story when we went up the Old Town Hall overlooking the "Old Town" area.  

Charles Bridge with Petrin Tower in background

Petrin Tower

View from Petrin Tower

The Prague Castle

View from the Petrin Tower

The "Fred and Ginger" Building--so named because it looks like a couple dancing

That night, Prague played host to the European International Grand Prix, a 10km footrace through the "Old Town."  We watched this and found some of the race commentary (which was in Czech and English) very interesting.  While we were watching the race, we encountered the new most-hated tourists in Europe--Englishmen on a "stag party," or a bachelor party.  Instead of going to a pub for the night before a wedding, British men now use the discount airlines and go to parts of Europe with cheap alcohol and cause general disturbance for several days.  I have seen several articles in magazines and newspapers here complaining about the new "British invasion" of drunk Brits. 

We traveled around Prague using the metro and tram systems.  While there are ticket kiosks, there are no turnstiles or anything to go through (hence, it was free?).  We rode and hoped we wouldn't be caught.  Our luck ran out the last night we were there.  We were getting off a subway and there were guards at the escalators checking tickets.  We didn't have any.  We also didn't have 700kc ($42) to pay the fine on the spot.  Many tour books stressed making sure the guards are legitimate and it's not a scam.  We spent a lot of time doing so.  We only had plastic on us to pay, and they would only take cash.  They also demanded our passports, which we did not have on us.  They said the police could come and take us to the station, where they would take credit/debit cards, but would probably charge us more.  Finally, we convinced them, by giving over our drivers' licenses, to escort us to an ATM to get money to pay them.  We did so and then felt bad (even though we were technically in the wrong).  So, we ate at a place that would make us feel better--McDonald's.  The menu included the weight of all the food and we figured out that a 3rd cheeseburger had more food for less cost than fries, so we all got 3 burgers and got weird looks from the cashier for being fat Americans, but we didn't care.  

Metro fares--note the cost of a 1 day pass (100kc) and a 3 day pass (330kc) What?

The Prague Castle with my bad night-shot