Well, I made it a whole weekend in Prague without getting pickpocketed, and that is saying something.
Don't get me wrong, Prague is a Beautiful city. Wonderful. It's known for NOT being bombed during WWII, so it has the same thing going on as Vienna, where there are way too many beautiful old buildings. But unlike Vienna, it is very shady. And there are signs everywhere and pamplets warning about pickpockets. Also, it kinda smells. Like, I've been complaining because Vienna doesn't smell that great either, even though it's a very very clean city, but Prague is not so clean. My first impressions of Prague were, "So, this city hasn't had any money since the 80's at least..." The metro stations were old and outdated, and nothing looked clean and nice.
Prague kinda thrives off tourism. More than any other city I've been to they want the hordes of tourists. There are streets and streets dedicated to tourists, and trying to sell them foods, goods, whatever. The section of the city we stayed in was in the "old" city. It was beautiful and the streets were windy and medieval looking. Also cobblestone. Even the sidewalks were cobblestone. Very pretty to look at, because the tiny sidewalk sized cobblestones were made into geometric patterns, but not very fun to walk on. And the streets were crazy to cross. First off, they would randomly go to pedestrian to cars and back, so quite frequently you would be walking and a car would suddenly be coming at you. And stop signs don't exist in Prague. So dealing with traffic was always fun.
Despite the tourist magnet, and the overall shadiness of Prague, I really liked the atmosphere. It was pretty relaxed and just do whatever. Plus, things stayed open late, and people wandered around after dark, lots of people in fact, which was really exciting. None of this "Do everything before 7!!!" rush that's in Vienna.
So Vienna used to be the 5th largest city in the world, and in recent years the population in Austria and Vienna has declined a whole lot, so it's not that big population wise. But I keep forgetting how big it is in size, because it's huge. And I kept thinking of Prague as "Tiny", which it's not, but I guess what really makes it seem small is how tightly packed together everything is. Also, there's only 3 metro lines. I kept thinking they had only given us a partial map.
This is the Brewery-Brewery-Shop-Museum-Carbert where we ate dinner, even though restaurant is not in the title. I actually don't know what it's called, but I found that sign amusing.
We didn't go to the museum, but the posters were pretty interesting.
The beds in our hostel. Our hostel was great, clean, nice rooms, actually within walking distance of a whole bunch of stuff, free breakfast (and lunch if you're good at sneaking out bread), and no curfew or lockout.
Hallway in the hostel. It had a lot of this big murals just to brighten the place up, but it also had a lot of smaller, really beautiful paintings in all the rooms and on the walls.
Door to a room. Inside it really is a brighter, happier prison cell, bunk beds and all. Since we had so many people ours was not a true cell. It had a regular door.
Hallway to our room.
Random building.
Old Town Square.
The famous clock
There were tiny doors everywhere! It was exciting. There were also a lot of big, elaborate doors on buildings that didn't need them. If I ever go back to Praha I'm starting a picture collection of doors, but I didn't think of it in time this trip.
Detail of clock.
We thought it was funny that even the manholes tried to be pretty, yet touristy.
Marionette!! They were everywhere, and looked like anyone. There were more traditional looking ones, Charlie Chaplin ones, even Harry Potter ones. It was crazy.
Metal worker in Old Town Square
More Marionettes
Old town square
I love this Church. Church of Our Lady before Tyn. 
They love their blacklight theatre. My wall is covered in pamplets advertising everything from blacklight cats, to Alice in wonderland, to The Little Prince. It was really crazy how many theatres they have dedicated to blacklight.
Almost as popular as blacklight theatre was Marionette theatre.
Tyn Church!! It has stars on it that catch the light. I love it!
Their money is so pretty. And crazy. They're having some slight problems with a deficit right now, so they're pushing back the introduction of the Euro to 2013 or so... Normally this would hurt them more, but so many other Eastern European cities are doing it as well that it's ok. Also, side note, the value of the Euro is rumored to be going down any day now...I really hope that rumor is true but I'm not holding out on it. Anyway, their money- they don't have cents in their currency system. They just have KC (crowns) and it starts at 1 and goes up. So roughly 30KC is 1 Euro, and one Euro is $1.25...so trying to convert anything is a huge headache. Mostly I just added 4 Euros to 100KC and went from there.
Me on the Charles Bridge.
View of the castle from the bridge. I know the focus is on the wrong thing, but I kinda like this picture.
Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge
Again, the Castle.
Statue o the Bridge
Prague at twillight
Prague at night
The Bridge and buildings behind it, and the moon.
Hey, it's the Disco Duck Techno House Jungle Rap! We didn't go in, but I thought the sign was funny.
Ummm...I don't know what this is, but it was in the middle of the courtyard.
St. Vitus' Cathedral, inside Prague Castle yards
A Statue of St. George
Details of St. Vitus'
Inside the Old Royal Castle (that is what it's actually called).
View from the castle.
View in another direction
I really love the view. And these are just the pictures I decided to post. I took a whole lot more.
View
Ok, back inside, this is a room. I don't know what room, but it was really cool because as you can see it had all the healdry stuff of the families in the castle painted on the ceiling and walls.
Me, standing in front of the view.
More healdry.
The "Golden Lane" aka Tourist Attack. Lots of TINY shops that were cute, 50 million big tourists trying to fit in them at the same time.
St. George's Bascillica
A light!! I posted this on facebook, and 3 other lighting designers have commented on it, but no one can figure out what kind of light it is.
Me inside one of the tiny shops. They're really tiny. I fit quite nice.
Part of the castle...a courtyard I guess...
Inside a tower. We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the rooms, which is why I don't have a lot of pictures.
The view through one of those archer hole things.
Me, looking out at the view.
Zena in front of the door to St. Vitus'
A gargoyle!
Inside St. Vitus'
Before the flood of tourists....
And after.
St. Vitus'
Estates Theatre, where Don Giovani premiered. I wandered into the lobby really fast later that night, when they were at intermission, but I had to leave real quick before I got kicked out. They really don't like people without tickets coming in.
The dancing house!! I LOVE this building. It's also called the Fred and Ginger building. I'm trying to imitate the building, but you can't really tell.
Dancing house again.
The old and new National Theatre, right next to each other and literally down the street from our hostel.
The River
A Statue on the Charles Bridge, there are two stories that go with this. The first is a legend that if you wish on this statue your wish will come true, the second is the plaque nearby it that says that this staue was to humiliate the jews, which I still don't quite understand how, but I don't read hebrew either.
The Lennon Wall! I love this. The story behind it is that the wall was used as a form of protest again the former communist government, where students would come and write grievences and Lennon lyrics. It's always changing with new additions growing over the old ones, even today. And even when the government tried to paint over it was back up again within two days. If you get up really close to it it has sharpied on all sorts of poems, and hopes for peace, and memories of those who've died.
My dinner the second night. Bohemian Kuba, for which there is no translation (pronounced like Cuba en espanol). It was barley with mushrooms and garlic, and it was soo good. I also tried some of the other people's food, which was mainly cheese and potatoes in different forms. The fried cheese was very good too.
More of the Lennon Wall.
A Modern art exhibit in Wenceslas Square.
Random building by our hostel.
I don't know what this is or why it's there!! If anyone knows, please tell me!
Building in Wenceslas Square
Wenceslas Square
I think this is a great example of how Prague is dirty and shady and pretty at the same time. There is these huge gross tanks of whatever, right in front of a building that's painted quite gorgeously. It's crazy.
Those old streetcars there are actually restaurants.
Wenceslas Square
Modern art in the square
These bike-rickshaw things are everywhere!
Do you see the heatlamps? They love to eat outside, almost every restaurant I saw had a big ourdoors portion, hence the heatlamps, it was cold at night!
The Charles Bridge at morning. Much better. I got up at 6am to go wander the city, and it was wonderful not having the bridge packed with people and vendors.
Another statue with a legend. Supposedly if you rub the relief on the the right side it would bring good luck. The dog on the left side is also supposed to bring good luck if you rub it, but that's a newer legend.
Detail of the relief
Prague at sunrise.
St. Nickolaus Church at sunrise
These are the steps I ran up when I thought I was going to miss the best part of sunrise and I wanted a view of the city.
Prague at sunrise.
Charles Bridge
The river
I thought this was funny. There was a grand prix going on in Old Town Square, so they were leading a huge crowd in jazzercise, and on of the guys on stage has a mullet. It was just too funny.
A model store!! But it was closed, so I didn't go in.
Memorial at the Church of St Cyril and St Methodius. There were two Czechs who were wanted for assisinating Natzi generals, so they were tracked down to here, where they had a last stand defending the church. Those holes are bullet holes.
A door handle. All the doorhandles on this building had a different water animal, but I liked the frog.
Us at the Grand Prix. Yes, we all had our luggage (we had checked out of the hostel), free visors, and balloons. And we walked around all day like that.
The race. It was fun, we watched the begining and end, going to the old jewish quarter in between. There was a drumline at the end, and I took video of them, but I don't know how to upload video to here. They had a neat cadence though.
The Old Jewish Cemetary. The last person buried here was in the 1740s.
That tree has grown around the gravestone.
This was like a miny wailing wall. People stuck tiny scrolls in the wall.
The ceiling and chandelier in the Spanish Synagoge.
Franz Kafka statue. As in "I was cockroach" guy.
Spanish Synagoge.
The metronome! It's kinda tiny in this picture, but it's this giant metronome up on a hill.
Spanish Synagoge.
On the train home, which took longer than it was supposed to.
At the metro waiting to leave. We were all a little tired.
Spanish Synagoge.
1 comment:
The Hebrew on the Jesus statue says, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts," and it was added to mock a Jewish man who was convicted of debasing the cross.
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