Our residence in Prague, the Charles Bridge Residence. Just a few houses/shops/restaurants up from the bridge. That is a group of your Thai women mistakenly thinking this is the Charles Bridge Hostel that is around the corner. - we were delighted to have a chance to speak a little Thai here in Europe! There are a lot of things named Charles Bridge here.
Came down the stairs from our back room on the third floor and this is what we saw Sunday morning. The 27th Annual Volkswagen Prague Marathon which had been underway for about 25 minutes. We had missed the fast guys but saw the hobbyist runners and "I too am ready to run" marathon people streaming past.
It took a while but we moved around town, got some of our amended plans accomplished and low and behold came upon another road block, the last straight -a-way before the finish, and the fast guys were coming in. We think we saw number two and below two more of the top finishers, (note all four feet off the pavement— no photo like that exists of me).
And the number one finisher woman. Note the length of her stride and that both of her feet are off the surface of the pavement too. Moral of the story of fast runners - "You don't get to be fast by having your feet on the ground." We googled her - and she is Valerie Aiyabei, an Ethiopian, and she set a new course record of 2:21:57 - now that's fast!
It was Sunday and we went into the Hussite Czechoslovakian Church. Service was about to start and we stayed for the first hymn and it was beautiful. We found out that the Czech or perhaps Slovakian we had previously learned (or not) was insufficient, so once the liturgical portion of the service started we slipped out.
We did see the oldest and remarkably still standing Jewish synagogue in Prague. The cemetery shown below has graves that date back to 1358 with the most recent being in the 1700s. In the deepest, or highest, part of the cemetery, the graves are 10 layers deep.
The synagogue did a good job with an exhibit on the holocaust and the relationship of the Jewish community to Prague.
St. Vitus Cathedral is my new favorite for being a showtime cathedral. Unfortunately it is part of the Prague Palace complex and surrounded by other buildings so sight lines are limited. This is the best you can do for the front. It is huge. Construction started in 1344. Of course, it was remodeled a few times since.
A very popular destination for tourists — I think it is 30 meters high 130 meters long, and a bunch of them wide. It was built and rebuilt many times. Prague had the good fortune of being fought over and through and in but never destroyed like many European cities. Consequently, it has many buildings like this one that are old, fancy, and awe inspiring.
Ole Good King Wenceslas is in the crypt in here according to the little talking box I had and the walls are covered in precious jewels and marble as suitable for a good king.
View of the cathedral from a side.
Gotta love flying buttresses. St Vitus has 'em too.
View of the city from the palace walls. The palace (now residence of the President of the Czech Republic) is one large and impressive facility. He would not be impressed with the White House.
We like to think we got good at riding the trams. Our hop-on-hop off tickets got all public transport passes too so we were on these things in a flash. Sometimes back off too like when we realized we were going uphill when we were thinking the tram should be heading down towards the river. We once crossed Wenceslas Square two times while trying to cross the Vltava River. We gave up and waited for the yellow hop-on bus.
Sometimes the tram is full.
It is surprising where you can find a Chinese bride having her wedding photos made (or perhaps not)(we saw several) *might have been a charter flight)
That is Patt in front of The Basilica of St Peter and St Paul. Also large, aren't they all? but on a bluff away from the center of the old part of town and surrounded by beautiful gardens, a cemetery, long views of the Vltava River that flows through the middle of town and of course full of art and finery.
Prague has been a fun adventure and great visit. A come back to place for sure. We have made a wonderful new Czech friend Josef, yes that Josef, of the red car Josef. We had dinner together one evening. Great conversation re: history, Czech politics, of course US politics, French elections, ways to improve national educational outcomes, families and much much more. We look forward to seeing Josef in North Carolina someday and maybe again here in Europe.
Josef likes a strong after dinner medicinal drink too. Here we are having Bechherovka. It is not available in your local ABC store or even on Amazon. But Patt and I will be looking for a way to get some.
Beautiful pictures! Glad you are having fun!
ReplyDelete-Matt K