Prague Continued

We decided that Prague is the most beautiful city we have seen from far away, which is shown in my pictures I took from the tower at Klementinum. In other words, up close some of the buildings look unexpectedly more trashy than what you would expect when seeing an above view of the city with the many red roofs and extravagant architecture. Old Town is one of the places that contains the prettiest "up close" architecture.

Here are some more pictures from our first night in Prague when we explored Old Town Prague.

The famous astronomical clock

The next morning (Thurs. June 5th), we had a scheduled tour of the Prague Castle and its cathedral. The castle is the largest ancient castle in the world and the cathedral is the largest cathedral in the Czech Republic. We had a nice walk up to the castle, but there were so many steps. We had a little time before the tour, so we got some drinks at the Starbucks by the castle. The view of all of Prague from the Starbucks was breath-taking.

A few things about the Castle- it was built in the late 800's. Not 1800's, but 800's! Obviously, it was not all original since so much has happened since then but we did get to walk down brick stairs that were original and we saw the original seating in the room where the king held meetings. I will post more details through photos, so you can see everything I'm talking about. Also, we got to see the Vladislav Hall, which had beautiful, original wood flooring. This is a room that used to house jousting fights and king's banquets. Now it is used for state dinners and ceremonies. We saw a few other rooms in the palace itself, but my favorite part was the St. Vitus Cathedral. If you search the Prague Castle on Google, the cathedral will most likely be the image that is shown; the castle is well-known for this amazing structure. We received a detailed, guided tour of the inside of the cathedral, which is the largest cathedral in the Czech Republic. The present day cathedral was constructed in 1344, and it is a very accurate representation of gothic architecture. 

View from the castle

Starbucks overlooking Prague

St. Vitus Cathedral

Vladislav Hall

More gothic architecture

The crown that was only used for the king's coronation.

Original brick staircase

Looking at the view

The gardens behind the castle were beautiful

More of the St. Vitus Cathedral

Entrance

The confession boxes

 After touring the castle, we walked to a little district in Prague called Loreta, which is a popular pilgrimage destination. We traveled here to see the monastery. When we walked inside, we heard Christian monks singing songs that reminded us of the music we are learning about in our music literature class. It was similar to Gregorian Chant, which is a genre of music that was created during the middle ages, usually all men singing melody; it sounds sort of eerie in my opinion. The monastery was gorgeous, just as we had read beforehand, so the long, uphill trek to this district was well worth it.

The outside of the Lareto Monastery

The inside was incredible

After that, we stopped for a snack at this amazing crepe place.

Next we walked to the John Lennon Wall, which is a really cool graffiti wall that has been around since the 80's. It started as a place where people would graffiti their complaints against the Communist regime on the wall. The wall is inspired by John Lennon and mostly consists of lyrics from songs or ideas about peace and love.

About a five minute walk after that we walked across the famous Charles Bridge. This bridge connects Old Town Prague to the castle side. King Charles IV was the person to place the first stone when the bridge construction began in 1357. 

Next, we walked back towards Old Town and stopped to look at the Jewish Quarter. Sadly, everything there closed at 6pm and we arrived at 6:15, so we did not get to walk around inside. We peeked through a window into the Old Jewish cemetery which contains grave stones that date back to the 1400's. The graveyard was used up until the 1700's, and the graves go 12 layers deep because when the people could not afford to buy more land, they just buried on top of other bodies. Also, Jews follow halakhah which states that one cannot destroy a Jewish grave or remove the gravestone. There are estimated to be 100,000 bodies in this small cemetery. Also in the Jewish Quarter, there remains only six synagogues, including the oldest Jewish synagogue in Europe and the Town Hall. Apparently lots of Jewish artifacts were shipped into this area during WWII because Hitler planned to make a "museum of the extinct race" when the war was over. Very creepy. But because he didn't destroy all of it, many extra artifacts and history are in the Jewish Quarter- which is a plus!

That night we dressed up and ate at a delicious restaurant called Cafe Louvre. Einstein had visited this restaurant and enjoyed it, so we thought it would be good to try. Most of us had this salmon with gnocchi covered in a cream sauce and pesto. It was one of the best things I have ever put into my mouth.

Sorry if you were hoping for posts every day! Either I don't have wifi or we are constantly busy and I don't have time to update. Tomorrow I will try to have a post about Salzburg, Austria up.