YCGL - April 4,2025 - Day 2 - A Full Day of Prague :)

 Wow!  It's been quite a day, so far.  And its not over yet.

I'm going to be quick here to start, because I have reservations tonight at The State Opera for performances of I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, or as they are better know, Pag and Cav.  They are almost always staged together as they are a little shorter (one act) and composed around the same time.  They aren't Czech, but they are main stays of the repertoire, and I could get tickets back in November.  And I plan to get an "authentic" Czech dinner about two blocks away.  Sadly, that precludes having Czech beer with dinner, as my lack of sleep and walking for about four hours this morning doesn't need to be augmented by sleep inducing spirits.  Maybe I'll come back to the hotel and have one at the Cloud 9 Bar on the top floor overlooking the city.  (And it will be my first beer in a month or two anyway.  Not a big deal, but when in Prague.....)  And my guide this morning taught us one Czech word...Pivo, which means Beer.  So I know.

And talking about my guide, Marketa (or Margaret), she was one of the best city guides I've ever had.  

Her English was excellent, she was precise in explaining whatever we were looking at while also keeping the 30 of us from walking in front of the trams and heading us into free Water Closets (W.C.'s, which are rare).  Humor aside, she was very, very good.  I hope our other Viking guides match her.  

Gotta run, more later tonight!

.....Ohhh, empty promises.  I finally got back to the room at 1:00 AM and after being awake for 18 hours and little sleep before, bed called.  

First, talk about Prague, or Praha in Czech.  The city is on the Vltava River (or the Muldau River if you know the composition Ma Vlast (My Country) by Smetena).  There are four zones:  Old Town (including the Jewish Quarter), New Town, Lesser Town and the Castle Quarter.  Most traveler's  settle on the Old Town and the Castle, me included.   My hotel, the Prague Hilton was located directly on the right edge of the map just under the river.  It was about a mile and a half walking from Old Town Square, which I didn't have time for, so I took a Bolt (like Uber and Lyft).  

By the way, the nice maps are from Rick Stevens excellent Pocket Prague tourist book. 

Our tour started at 8:30 and went directly to the Castle.  

We walked from the north (the green and red arrows at the top) and entered at the north gate (5).  We were there at 9:00 and saw the changing of the guard.

The three guards, two castle guards and one real guard!

Walking through the arch leads to the 2nd Courtyard (2).  It was hazy in the morning and the pictures didn't turn out well.  We then walked to the east exit (1) and overlooked the palace grounds.

These buildings are all "palaces" of the nobility that wanted to live close to the rulers.  

The Archbishop's Palace

Pretty nice digs for the "farmers" from the country....

Walking back through the 2nd courtyard leads to the Cathedral of St. Vitus.  It is so enclosed that it is tough to get good pictures from the ground.  But it is impressive and imposing that way.

From the north in the morning haze.                                                From the east in the church courtyard.

                 From the south (3)                                                     Portico over the main entrance

I wish the pictures could convey the enormous effect these buildings have.  It is the largest enclosed castle in size in the world.  One could easily spend three or four hours here.

Back to the bus and down to the river's edge, at the circled B.  

Walking through the park, we passed by two monuments, a winged lion, representing the Czech Republic and a Monument to the Czech Resistance, which I somehow deleted.

I've just spent over three hours trying to connect to the internet long enough to transfer some pictures from my phone to the pc.  I'll try again tomorrow.

(Tomorrow) We then walked under the Charles Bridge, named after Charles IV, the king of the Holy Roman Empire  from 1355 to 1378.  While controlling most of eastern and southern Europe, he lived primarily in Prague.  He was known by other names in other languages, including Vaclav in Czech and Wenceslaus in Germany.  He must have been a "Good King"!  

We walked under the bridge and it turned out we were

 

along side a channel of the river around an island.  The channel ran along a row of buildings that in the historic past would have been mills and factories.  At the end, there was a water wheel which was located next to an old granary.  

This was a break time, so I wandered around by myself on the two loops I've shown on the map, just getting a feel.  

St. Nicholas Church and Bell Tower                  and              The Entrance to the Garden of the Knights of Malta.

The Knights of Malta were a subset of a larger group known as the "Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon", now days known by another name, the Templers.  They were a brotherhood of knights originally assembled to be guardians of the holy sites in Jerusalem during the Crusades, from 1118 to 1312.  Their influence grew over the passage of time to become the bankers and warriors for the pilgrimages from Europe to Palestine.  They took a sinister turn when their secret initiation ceremony became known and in 1307, Pope Clement V had many of the order's leaders arrested, tortured and burned at the stake.  He then disbanded the order in 1312.  There is a lot of fascinating history of the Templars, much of which is true.  This being one of the most eastern European cities, it was an important stronghold during that time.  

I did stop in one place, the Mozart Interactive Museum.  I obviously didn't have a chance to go in, but I will try the next time.  I did talk to the hawker in front for a while.  He had a MS in Nuclear Physics at a US university I don't remember, but this job was much easier!  

Another place I (we all) stopped at was a Chimney Cake store.  Looking like large ice cream cones, it's an interesting process to make.  

             You start with a roll of dough,           which is wrapped around a cone-shaped mold.

You roll the dough in the mold to flatten it and make the edges tight, and then roll it in sugar.

You put it over a grill and it spins like a rotisserie,             Then you roll it in cinnamon sugar and take it

on a chain drive.                                                                    off the mold.  That is the cone.

It then gets filled with custard, strawberries, nuts and whipped cream.  Thank goodness, because the strawberries make it a health food.  (I couldn't finish it.....)  (And as we are entering Vienna right now, there is going to be a talk on making Apple Strudel.  Wait till you get that talk!)

Crossing the Charles Bridge