Phrases uttered: - Dobrý den: Good day - Děkuji: Thank you - Prosím: You're welcome - Mluvíte anglicky?: Do you speak English?
Prague (Praha) is another city that I fell in love with. Colleagues asked me which was the best place of all? Try as I might, I couldn't give a definitive answer. All of them! :) Even the Cinque Terre region that I came back to for a second visit after 11 years has left a big and lasting impression on me -- that'd come 2 entries from now ;)
We arrived at Prague's train station (Hlavni Nadrazi) after a 2.5-hour train ride from Dresden. Another 10 minutes in a private car got us to our hotel. We had decided on Hotel UNIC after just looking at 2 hotels :D. We didn't know until we arrived that it was very near to the Palladium shopping mall and Municipal House. Even the Old Town Square was a short walk away.
In a 2nd class berth
Powder Tower
The Powder Tower at night
The Municipal House is next to the Powder Tower
The Municipal House at night
We bought the one day passes at 110 CZK each to take advantage of public transportation. The Prague Castle (Pražský hrad) sits on a hill so it's best accessed by tram 22. You could then walk downhill once you're done with the castle and Cathedral visit.
The tram line
This was taken near the Malostranska tram stop
A gift from the British community
Taken as we were walking from the Pohorelec tram stop to the Prague Castle
We are here!
That's one massive crowd
Changing of the guards
The other side of Prague
Petrin Hill and Observation Tower -- didn't get the chance to go there
Entering the Prague Castle complex
St Vitus Cathedral inside the Prague Castle complex
Say Aahhhh
You could actually skip the long ticket lines by purchasing ticket(s) online via TicketPortal. But you have to go to their outlets and redeem the ticket(s) first; there's one near Namesti Republiky. We learnt the hard way so we had to go back the next day. Thus these pictures were taken on 2 separate visits. Uh'oh, please don't rat me out to the so-called aqidah police for going in and out of churches :P :'D
The long queue for the ticket counters
Inside the St Vitus Cathedral
Pretty cool stained glass
Can't really fit the entire building in one shot
Nope, I'm not doing that :D
Can you spot the Charles Bridge and Church of Our Lady before Tyn?
The other side of the Prague Castle complex
[Pictures from the next day...]
The view you'd see if you stop at the 'Prazsky hrad' tram stop
Another side of the St Vitus Cathedral
Google says that this is the statue of St George
Inside the Old Royal Palace
View from the the balcony of the Old Royal Palace
Awesome view!
St George's Basilica
Inside St George's Basilica
That's very creepy
The armory floor in one of the buildings in the Golden Lane
I've never seen such armor before. So pretty
The ones with protruding bellies :D
Choose your weapon
If you're royalty, not single organ is left out. lol!
Charles Bridge (Karlův most) is another landmark not to be missed. Day AND night. You should go down the Vltava River and take pictures of the iconic Charles Bridge, the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.
Charles Bridge
I find it cool that water is flowing underneath the building
The crucifix on the Charles Bridge
Lots of people and street vendors. I saw at least one caricature selling at 200 Euros! Huh..
Coming back for a night visit
It's even more majestic at night
Old Town Square is where the Astronomical Clock and Church of Our Lady before Týn are. Since it was the Easter weekend, they set up an Easter market in the square. We were intrigued by the Trdelník/Trdlo, "rolled dough that is wrapped around a stick, then grilled and topped with sugar and walnut mix" and bought it without any hesitation. Very tasty!
Approaching the Old Town square. You could actually pay to go to the top of the clock tower but the line is pretty long
Prague astronomical clock - So how do you read it again? :)
Church of our Lady before Tyn
The Easter market
Can I buy another vowel Alex?
Do you want some?
The county of Koprivnica-Krizevci and its Tourist Board and with the support of Croatian National Tourist Board presented this "Easter Egg from the Heart" gift
This has the looks of the castle in which an evil character lives in from some animation movie
Taken in the evening
On the way back to our hotel for prayers and freshening up, we saw this one art piece by David Černý. One guy before us actually went up in the so-called uterus and flipped over so that he could come down head first. I was actually thinking about doing the same but seeing how small the opening was, I decided not to :D. It was an accident waiting to happen.
Breech birth
Insert your own caption here :D
There are other David Černý's art pieces placed all of the city but we weren't really searching for them. You could see the Babies crawling up the Zizkov Television Tower from far.
Those are not ants, but babies
A couple of of tram stops away from the Charles Bridge lies the Dancing House. I thought I saw it made a brief appearance in the early scenes of the Jupiter Ascending movie.
Dancing House
Dancing House and the rest of the block
Taken from across the Dancing House
Can't get enough of the St Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle and Charles Bridge ;)
The National Theatre undergoing renovation works
Side story: As we were taking the metro, a couple of ladies approached us for directions. At first we told them we are tourists just like them so we couldn't be of much help. But we still asked them what were their questions. They are from Ireland (if I recalled correctly) and wanted to go to the Prague Castle. We told them what we knew, which was to take the metro to Malostranska and then take tram 22 to either Prazsky hrad or Pohorelec stop. When we found out that their metro passes had not been validated, we told them to do so at the entrance. That was the last time we saw them. I hope they found their way around the city.
Very artsy
The sign at a shop in the metro station..... Fresh crocodile sandwiches?
On Easter Day, we went to the old Jewish quarter only to find out they were closed for the day. I also found a much nicer synagogue away from the old Jewish quarter, which is the Jubilee Synagogue (Jubilejní synagoga). It takes on the Mooriesh style.
The Old-New Synagogue
Check out the Jewish clock
Jewish Museum
A glimpse of the Jewish cemetery
The high-end shops on the Pařížská street... but they were closed for the holidays
Jubilee Synagogue, which is near the central train station
Pretty nice and colourful
We didn't get to discover much of Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí) due to time constraint. We were thereonly to transfer to another tram line.
The Wenceslas Monument is in front of the National Museum building (at the background)
The other side of Wenceslas Square
Then it's time to go back. Boooo....
After we had dropped off our luggage at the airport's check-in counter, it started to snow lightly. It just melted once it touched the ground. Even so, we had already gotten our cameras out, taking pictures and videos. Our excuse - us being Asians :D. Then it got heavier and heavier. So much so that our plane (which is the ATR-72, propeller type) had to be delayed for an hour for the de-icing procedure. And it wasn't just us Asians who were intrigued by the unsuspectingly heavy snow ;).
When it was just starting to snow. It was cold I'm telling you
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