Praha/Prague/Prag

Great weather her today in Prague. We decided to spend today in the Little Quarter and the Castle. The apartment is a bit down river from the Charles Bridge and we had a nice walk along the river to get to the bridge.

The tower is undergoing reconstruction/preservation or something. Hordes of tourists on the bridge. This is more tourists than we have seen anywhere else. Including a group of what sounds like American high school or college kids. Snapping pics while wandering along.

There are a lot of vendors on the bridge selling everything from jewelry to artwork. And a jazz band. We manage to get across the bridge and head into the Little Quarter. I think it is actually meant to be the "lesser quarter". Or the quarter lower than the Castle? We see one group setting off on Segways - looks like fun.











We walk up to the St Nicolas church. The first entrance we try is just for the tower. 218 steps. Sure to be great views, but maybe not. The inside of this church is amazing. The definition of Baroque architecture - marble and gold everywhere. Except most of it is fake - imitation marble. Very good imitation, however.

We stop for lunch at a cafe on the street leading up to the Prague Castle area, then start the hike uphill. Nice view from the top. When we get to the top we see a really long line and hope that is not the ticket line. Lots of people. Michael decides there has to be away to avoid this long line and walks through the gate. We find a place that sells tickets and the audio sets. The ticket seller convinces us we have to have the audio as there is very little English. This turns out to be true in some cases, but not everywhere. We are advised to do the New Palace and the Basilica first and leave the cathedral for after 4 as there are too many people right now. (It's only 1:00) We are supposed to get the audio sets back by 3 - but no problem if we don't.

We spend about an hour going through the palace and the basilica. The line at the Cathedral is still long. According to Rick Steves, if you have the audio device, your can get in the exit. So Michael decided to try it. The guard says - that was last year - then decided that since there are only 2 of us, we can go in. Nice man.

Did I mention there is no room to get a shot of the front of this Cathedral?




There are 25 audio stops in the Cathedral. I don't listen to all of all of them, just enough to know what I'm looking at. There are probably 20 chapels around the outside of the nave. Although we took pictures of all of them, I'll just post a few. This is really the national cathedral. The oldest part is Gothic, but it has been added on to. Some very old tombs of early kings and Archbishops. Each side chapel has its own style of stained glass - most post WWII as the original glass did not survive. As I have found in the past, stained glass is very hard to photograph well. Michael takes over taking the photos, but I'm not sure it's going to help. As you can see, some of the altars are very ornate.

At about 3 we are able to turn in the audio set and head back down to town. Having taken the long way up, we take stairs down and cross the river on another bridge, closer to the apartment.

Walking back we pass by 3 possible restaurants for dinner. Mr iPad checks them out and we decide on Cartouche - grilled meat on skewers in a basement "cave". The entrance is a bit dark and not enticing, but the food is wonderful. The had an appetizer of goat cheese with warm apples. Dessert was a chocolate lava cake with a side of berries and lemon sorbet in a chocolate cup. Should have taken the camera.

Tomorrow there is an 80% chance of rain so we "ll see how it goes.