Prague Top Ten

Before I post any of our more idiosyncratic shots of Prague I figure I should hit the Highlights that everyone who goes to Prague Simply Must See!

(Below) St Vitus Cathederal from the Bridge across the Stag Moat.

It was funny because just about everyone on the group who was with us in Prague had the same Dorling Kindersley guidebook about the city. And in there was a Top Ten list of things to see. Some people were apparently quite obsessive about checking off the Top Ten and Andreas our guide would often kid people about whether some site was in the Top Ten or not.








Charles Bridge looking toward the Old Town









Charles Bridge Looking back toward Hradcany and the Little Quarter






Well as much as Rhonda and I were interested in some obscure byways of Prague we were not immune to wanting to see the touristy highspots. Besides it would be pretty difficult to navigate around Prague and not walk across the Charles Bridge, and you would literally have to never look up to avoid seeing Hradcany and St Vitus Cathederal.

St. Vitus and Prague Castle seen from Vysherad (an older Castle) upriver along the Vlatava

Prague Castle from the Old Town near the Charles Bridge.







Jan Hus Monument on the Old Town Square

Church of Our Lady before Tyn which overlooks the Old Town Square.

The Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall

The Old Jewish Cemetery

in the Jewish Quarter.

Interior of St Nicholas (above)






Detail from the the ceiling in St Nicholas





(Below) View of the Dome of St Nicholas from Petrin Hill
















(Below) the Narodni Divaldo (The National Theatre) .

















So There you have the Top Ten (according to the Eyewitness Travel Guide). If you counted you may notice that we are minus two sites (Wallenstein Palace and Garden & St Agnes Convent). Wallenstein was close for the season, though we did circle it while walking in the Mala Strana (Little Quarter) and St. Agnes we missed because oddly it is in the Jewish Quarter, and so we were mostly focused on hitting Synygogues, Kafka & Golem sites and the Jewish Cemetary. I guess I didn't realize till too late that St Agnes was in the Josefov.

For those scoring at home the "Top Ten" sites we did see were Old Town Square, the National Theatre, Church of St Nicholas, Charles Bridge, Old Town Hall, Old Jewish Cemetary, St Vitus Cathederal, and Prague Castle. While these are all wonderful and worthy attractions I can't say they would constitute my personal Prague Top Ten, however our more personal favorites will have to wait for another day. For now I think I have maxed out the number of Pics I can upload for free.

The Magical Mystery Tour of Prague

As anyone who has read the travel brochures knows Prague is a Magical city. A fairy tale metropolis blending ancient, medieval, baroque, and modern all preserved in a way possible only in a place that surrendered to the Nazis without a fight. (Just kidding. It's obviously a lot more complicated, but this is a blog not a dissertation. If brevity is the soul of wit, then perhaps glibness is the essence of blogging)




My wife and I traveled to Prague at the beginning of November, and it was everything they say and much more that you have to find out on your own. I was a little worried that a 9 day stay in one city might get redundant, but the longer we were there the more we realized how much we hadn't seen and wanted to see.

I took lots of pictures, and unlike my other trips some of these came out pretty good. This blog is supposed to concentrate on the literary so I will in the future point out some of Prague's more literary and writerly past and present, but in a city with a multiplicity of picturesque castles, palaces, churches, cathedrals, etc. I think my best pictures turned out to be of a wall covered in graffiti.

The John Lennon wall in the Mala Strana (The Little Quarter) started out as a tribute and a protest. Shortly after Lennon was shot, and the Communists still ruled Czechoslovakia, people began writing Beatle lyrics and painting pictures of John Lennon onto a wall behind the French Embassy, and the government kept painting over it, but the people persisted and eventually the French Ambassador asked the Czech Government to leave the graffiti alone because he liked looking at it.

















So for over 25 years, and long after the overthrow of communism, people from all over the world continue to leave tributes to John Lennon who to the Czechs was an icon of the freedom that western democracy represented. (Nevermind that the FBI was spying on him and tried to deport him. We're talking symbolism here not reality).


The wall is about a block long and it's impossible to photograph the whole thing. These pictures are just a sampling, and from what I have seen of earlier pictures the wall is constantly changing, so if and when we go back I'm sure it will be very different. Next time I intend to bring a Sharpie.
There are places I remember, indeed.