Prague

After our included hostel breakfast, we headed out to explore Prague!

We enjoyed the self guided tour we did in Bratislava so much that we decided to do a similar style one to explore Prague from the same online blog (Nomad Epicureans). This one had 47 stops and a great way to see this beautiful city with is filled with over 600 years of architecture and history!

We started at Charles Bridge, which connects the city over the Vltava River, one of Prague’s most iconic landmarks. The bridge is rightfully quite iconic at 520m long and filled with statues on either side. The walking guide told us that the bridge was built in 1357 and was made of sandstone bricks and rumoured to be mixed with mortar and eggs. The bridge was quite busy with tourists, buskers and stores selling souvenirs and crafts.

After crossing the bridge, we arrived in the ‘Lesser Quarter’, as the smaller side of Prague is known. We saw some ‘interesting’ sculptures (including the Piss Sculpture depicting two naked men urinating) and explored the beautiful Kampa Island area with beautiful parks and little channels and streams with old mills (sometimes referred to as "Prague's Venice" - for good reason!) We checked out the artificial channel which separates Kampa Island and Lesser Quarter, Devil's stream which is quite pretty.

We then walked to what is called the "Lennon Wall". This is a large wall filled with various graffiti which was set up a shrine to John Lennon after his death in 1980 and was also used for protest messages. Although the image of Lennon is now removed, it is an incredible site!

We then walked to the Wallenstein Palace and gardens which is an old grand palace with lovely gardens and a grotesquery which are walls covered in rock formations which have been made to look like animals and snakes. Very strange indeed! There was also an enclosure there with some owls hanging around. We saw a wedding photoshoot and a few other photoshoots in this impressive area.

We then headed into our first church of the day, the St Nicholas church. It was a beautiful pink-marble Roman Catholic Church with the highest indoor floor space in Prague, a whopping 57m! It's construction took almost 200 years. We even went to the gallery area and enjoyed the view looking over the church and its elaborate frescoes and paintings.

We continued to explore, heading up the hill along Nerudova Street which contains wonderful mix of houses and shops. The houses contained different emblems as these used to indicate the houses before they introduced street numbers! The various emblems include the red eagle, red lamb, golden horseshoe and green lobster. At the top of the hill, we arrived at the Hradčany Square which is a majestic square which includes the Schwarzenberg Palace (with its distinctive sgraffito patterns) and Archbishop's Palace (with its amazing golden gates). This square is the gateway to the majestic Prague Castle. It is the largest castle of the ancient world with an area of 70,000 sqm! The castle includes various churches and palaces. Since the fall of the Habsburg empire, since 1918, the Czech president has lived in the palace.

We walked through the castle district, going inside the St Vitus church with its impressive glass windows! We made our way down towards the beautiful Letna Park, where we paused for a quick lunch break and some fantastic views over Prague. There is a lake there and many people were swimming and enjoying the last of the warm weather! We crossed the river again and saw the Rudolfinum, which contains many concert halls.

We next made our way through the Jewish Quarter. Unfortunately it was Saturday so we couldn’t go into any synagogues but it was incredible exploring the quarter and seeing just how important and expansive the Jewish community was particuarly in the pre WWII era. The synagogues were beautiful to observe from the outside!

We then entered the huge Old Town Square, which is easily the biggest square we had seen in our travels, possibly with the exception of St Peter’s Square in Rome. The square contains many architectural styles including Art Nouveau, Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Romanesque, and Renaissance. There were a lot of people and tourists around and even a few protests.

Many of the next stops on self guided tour were in or near the square, the most impressive of which is a 600 year old astronomical clock. This clocks chimes every hour with a mechanical show, but also tells the signs of the zodiac and each name day of the year! We waited to see the clock and enjoyed the short show! We also admired the main church in the square, Church of Our Lady before Tyn which was said to be Walt Disney's inspiration for the sleeping beauty castle.

We exited the main square and walked a bit more before visiting our sixth or seventh church of the day (we had lost count by then!) called the Basilica of St James. What makes this church interesting is that it has a mummified hand hanging from the ceiling above the exit to the church. The story goes that a thief tried to steal jewels which were being held in the church. However, the Virgin Mary who was guarding the jewels held the thief’s arm so firmly that the monks had to chop it off and hung it in the church as a warning!

After a few final stops in the New Town including Wenceslas Square, we finished our 30,000+ step day with a "chimney cake" cone with ice cream before heading back to the hostel for some dinner, a movie and bed.Read more