Prague - Day 2

Sunday was an absolute pearler of a day, it was warm and sunny and such a nice change from overcast grey London. Again, we tucked into the buffet breakfast, and went exploring. This time to czech out the Castle itself. We passed some random statues (as pictured) and spent some time soaking up the sun.

The Castle is not so much a castle in the Lego fortress sense of the word but more in the large collection of buildings sense. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Prague Castle is the largest castle complex in the world with an area of almost 70000 m², being 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide. The views from the top were outstanding as where the gates that featured humans bashing other humans (as pictured).

We bought the Short Tour option of the tours and wandered around to start our tour at the Old Royal Palace, which housed the Vladislav Hall, a massive hall with original medieval architecture. The Hall even hosted indoor jousting events (we are guessing because they liked to joust in the middle of winter). It was also in this palace that the two Catholic governors’ and a secretary were thrown out of the castle window by protesters, they landed on the dung heap that filled the moat surrounding the Castle and survived. They said Angels saved them but it was the crap that softened the blow - this then sparked the Thirty Years War. 

 

Then we saw the Basilica of St George that was the oldest building in the Castle, built in 920, (yes that’s right that was 1090 years ago). It was quite creepy inside with lots of skeletal statues and weird shrines.

We had a break sitting out in the sun with a hot chocolate to recharge the batteries and then we hit up the massive church smack bang in the middle of the castle - St Vitus Cathedral. This was quite amazing both inside and out. The outside had loads of little statues and an incredible gold mosaic and the inside had stunning stained glass windows. It also had the best shrine we have seen so far, not content with stone or marble, this guy, John of Nepomuk got silver, silver everything.

Wenceslaus the First founded the church in 925, the patron saint of Vitus was chosen because Wenceslaus had acquired a holy relic — the arm of St. Vitus — from Emperor Henry I. Nice one.

We left the Castle and wandered off down the hill to get to the Metronome, we found more great photo opportunity spots along the way and even experimented with the timer on the camera. The metronome itself was ok, nothing spectaluar. 

Then we felt we needed to eat again, we eventually found a massive restaurant that served about 80 different dishes - more pork products were sampled. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the little streets, most of the buildings were extremely intricately decorated, and we saw quite a few Cubist inspired buildings. 

Back in the Old Town Square we decided to eat again and sampled Apple Strudel. YUM. The cafes still have outdoor parts but they have heaps of gas heaters and each chair has a thick blanket folded across each one, so you can snuggle in. Perfect for people watching. We headed back to the airport via the hotel to pick up our bags, content that we had czechked Prague out.

We got the same feeling about the city as we did about Berlin - a city with a lot of young people really keen to do well and change the conceptions that people have about Eastern Europe, as well as the keenness to make up for lost time and really make their mark on the international stage (according to Lou).

Interesting fact #1: It took 100 kgs of dynamite to blow up the statute of Joseph Stalin that was in the place where the metronome now stands.
Interesting fact #2: EasyJet are bad. Really bad.