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Sorry about the brief hiatus I took from continuing on my experiences in Prague. I had gotten just a wee bit carried away on blogging about places I would love to visit.
So now back to Prague! 🙂
Finally had some time to tour around the real touristy sites. First on the list: Prague Castle.
Along the way, I was intrigued by the facade of buildings in Prague, the relatively flat non-protruding facade.
And then I got a bit lost trying to get to the castle and ended up on the Charles Bridge. This was supposed to be the second stop after the castle, so that it would lead me to the old town. So I quickly walked on this bridge to get to the castle. And it was at Charles Bridge that I finally felt like a tourist, like so many others there. 😛 It had seemed like 90% of the tourist populaion have descended on the Castle+Bridge+Old Town, especially in the old town.
Finally, after a lot of huffing and puffing, I finally made it to the Prague Castle.
And what an entrance! Just a tinge of violence, no? 😯
So when one continues walking, the imposing structure of the Cathedral of St Vitus comes into sight.
So I walked into the cathedral and one could only take a brief look if one didn’t purchase a ticket for more ‘sightseeing’. So I went to buy a ticket that covers most sights within the castle at the tourist office. 😎
Its so interesting that its the soot in the city that’s causing the darkening of the facade of these churches in Prague, giving it the distinctive blackened experience. But, personally, the air in Prague didn’t seem as polluted as that in HongKong, or worse, Shanghai.
The interior of the cathedral, with a tall nave.
Lots of lovely stained glasses!
Then out of St Vitus I went. Just some info….there’s a toilet just nearby the cathedral, which requires an entry fee. But that’s fine as the toilet was kept clean. 😉
One last view of St Vitus from the ground.
I continued walking until I saw a building with this poster displayed outside of it.
Well, just gotta go up to take a good look! There’s an additional charge to go up the tower for the spectacular views, of course!
So after more huffing and puffing, it was nice to catch some breaths while taking in the views.
Now, for the bird’s eye view:
This is a map of the 360 degrees bird’s eye view possible.
Off to other buildings!
I think this is the Basilica of St George.
I quite like this basilica. Nothing too showy and it exudes peace.
This is found at the exit of the basilica. Very pretty. And I was snapping away and while doing so, caught the attention of the guard. Who then mentioned something about photo sticker?? Did he mean I gotta pay to take photos????? 👿 Hmmm, not going to pay! Just as well I was more or less done photo-taking anyway! 😉
The most showy piece in the basilica:
And these were obtained from another building (Probably at St George’s Convent)
Continued walking and then suddenly there seemed to a lot of people walking about in that area. Turned out I had ended up in the Golden Lane. Golden Lane is an ancient street (dating back to 16th century!) where there are 11 small houses. I found the colourful houses very cute! 😀
So these houses now contain some armoury and are mainly souvernir shops.
The interior is separated from us by glass windows.
And the narrowest bed ever!
All the walking requires some good Czech beer. 😛
And it was good indeed. 😎
Back to more walking. Saw this rotunda on the way out.
Another view of the entrance. I’m still wondering the meaning of such gory displays.
View from outside of the castle.
Saw a cute tram along the way to Charles Bridge.
The crowd started to thin out outside of Prague castle but hey, I just needed to backtrack the route I took to the castle!
And finally at Charles Bridge. If I remembered correctly what I read in the guidebook, legend has it that along the bridge lies buried the real golden sword. So keep staying hopeful you will come upon some gold while at the bridge. 😉
Lots of statues of saints (I suppose!) along the bridge. Each of them a different one and I think the number lies in the range of 30s.
Legend has it that if one touches the feet of this statue (or is it the statue of the above pic?), one would return to Prague. Needless to say, there was a queue in line just for that activity. Yours truly joined the line of course!
Took me a while but I finally got to the other end of the bridge and whoa, seems like the entire tourist population had been hanging out there! My next destination in mind was the Old Town Square. But I had well and truly lost my orientation. My map was staring at me instead of me staring at it. So what does a savvy traveller do? Follow the crowd of course! 😎 Ain’t I smart? 😎 😛
Seriously, the crowd carried me to the Old Town square! And I was first greeted by the sight of the Astronomical Clock.
The Old Town Square with lots of space around. No claustrophobic feelings one sometimes get in Asian countries.
And I got lucky to chance upon some sort of a food fair at the square!
Very nice food smell wafting through the air.
And I was feeling a bit hungry and got this potato dish.
The potatoes were a bit chewy, nothing like the potatoes I ever had before. It wasn’t bad but one could only take so much potatoes before realising they are not fries. 😯
There is of course the Jan Hus Statue in the middle of the square but it was not a very pretty sight with pigeons homing onto the statue.
And then I saw this lovely church tower and realised it is the Church of Our Lady before Tyn. So I had went about finding the entrance, which took me quite a while because the entrance was through some sort of a building. Following the crowd helped me out another time, although the crowd was getting out from that portal instead of heading in. I soon realised why. Because it was closing time! 😡
I could only peek into the church from the metals bars covered with plastic. 😦 A real pity because the church seems quite stunning, with lots of gold embellishments.
Things seem to be winding down thereafter and I decided it was time to head back to the hotel lest darkness falls upon me.
And down this long escalator I took to head back to the hotel to pack up, as I have a morning flight back to CDG for my flight back to Singapore! I was missing home and was happy to start packing up. And nope, I didn’t buy much except for some postcards and that Lego torchlight, so no luggage woes on the way home! 🙂