Hello again everyone,
Woke yesterday to glorious summer weather - hot, sunny, blue-and-gold. The kind of day where it felt good to be alive, especially with a whole new city to explore.
My feet were a little banged up from the previous day's marathon effort, but fortunately Prague has an excellent public transport system, and for 110 Czech crowns I bought a 24-hour public transport pass. This meant that whenever I got tired I could hop on whichever form of public transport was nearest and ride in state to my next destination. Sometimes I got on a tram just for the fun of rattling through the city streets, admiring the view, feeling like the Queen of Sheba.
Wandering the streets of Prague.
Oh, so this is where all the tourists are.
The first destination I had planned for the day was Prague Castle. And what a castle! It seems to go on for days.
I was greeted at the main gate by this sight:
The Czech Republic's answer to Britain's beefeaters. And yes DG, I was tempted to do a Mr Bean!
I then walked through to this courtyard:
A courtyard big enough to hold a church. Literally. That white thing is the church.
The castle holds the oldest cathedral in the world, St Vitus' Cathedral. At the time I entered it, it was flooded with a soft golden light:
Made you feel prayerful just looking at it.
One of the highlights of the cathedral was St Wenceslas' Chapel, the walls of which are decorated with precious stones and rich frescoes. (Pic of this one to come).
The view of the cathedral from outside wasn't half bad either:
Flying buttresses galore. Construction on this baby began in 1344 under King Charles IV.
I then went for a wander through St George's Basilica, Golden Lane (where a row of tiny houses were built in the gaps in the castle walls and were in use until they were bought by the government in the 1950s), the medieval dungeon (I didn't much like being there even of my own volition - there was a pretty grisly display of torture instruments down there) and the old palace (this is still within the castle). I found this magnificent hall at the heart of the old palace:
Vladislav Hall - built in the first half of the 14th century. Nowadays the hall is exited by the Riders' Staircase, which was originally built to enable knights to enter the hall on horseback in order to take part in the jousting matches held in it.
And admired the view over Prague from the balcony:
Then it was time to ride the rails to my next destination, Prague's Old Town and Jewish Quarter, via the Charles Bridge and the Astronomical Clock, which I arrived just in time to see striking the hour. The highlight for me was the Spanish Synagogue, which was designed and decorated in the Moorish style, and was so detailed that I had to sit and just look at it for a while in order to absorb its magnificence:
While it looks ancient, the Spanish Synagogue is actually the newest synagogue in Prague's Jewish Quarter, being built in 1868. During WWII the confiscated property of Czech Jewish communities was stored in the synagogue.
Now that's what I call ceiling decoration.
Much later that night, I crawled into my little tent and the last thing I saw before I pulled down the flap and crawled into my sleeping bag was the full moon, shining brightly over the city. I don't think there was a happier person in the whole of Prague than I was at that moment. :)