Petersontravels

We enjoyed our guide, Dagmar, on our first day so we hired her as our guide again, where we actually went inside Prague Castle and Saint Vitus Cathedral.  Once again, she snagged tram passes and we made our way to the Castle.  To be honest, don’t skip the tours, as the interiors are what makes this place really stand out.

Inside the cathedral, our guide pointed out this stained glass window, only it’s not stained glass, it’s paint.  This window was created in 1930 by a Czech artist named Alphonse Mucha, and depicts the young Saint Wenceslaus with his grandmother Saint Ludmila, as well as small vignettes of the lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius who spread Christianity among the Slavs.  We just liked the use of blues and greens!

Our guide then pointed out this room, the Chapel of Saint Wenceslaus, which houses the relics of the saint (that’s his tomb on the right).  The chapel was built in 1356, and has 1300 semi-precious stones and paintings depicting the Passion of the Christ, all original, from 1372-1373.

The Chapel has this door that leads to the Crown Chamber which contains the Czech crown jewels (no, not the body parts, these are actual jewels).  There are 7 locks on this door which are held by 7 different people, namely; President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Prague Archbishop, the Chairman of the House of Deputies, the Chairman of the Senate, the Dean of the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Vitus Cathedral and the Lord Mayor of Prague.  They must all convene to facilitate opening of the impenetrable door and coffer.

Impenetrable??  Has anybody asked the Mission Impossible people about this?  The jewels are only displayed to the public once every 5 years (some websites say 8, so your mileage may vary).  I’d at least bring them out once a year, just so everybody knows Ocean’s 11, part 3, hasn’t happened!

Adjacent to the altar is this luxury sky-box for the Royals.  They could sit up here and avoid the commoners, which was likely a good thing, since deodorant didn’t exist back then.  They even had their own entrance from the castle!

There are numerous tombs in the cathedral, but the most impressive one is that of Saint John of Nepomuk, the guy who King Wenceslaus killed for not divulging his wife’s confessions to him.  Two tons of pure silver were used to create this tomb!

The cathedral has this wooden panel that depicts Prague back in 1630.  Our guide pointed out that was before any of the statues ended up on the Charles Bridge.

I love the shaft of light coming through the window right above the altar.

Here is a shot from further back in the cathedral.  We were lucky to have a sunny day, as it really makes for a dramatic effect!

Towards the exit of the Cathedral I saw these glowing lights on the walls.  Are they playing Pink Floyd over there?

The sun was creating a light show for us!  Sadly no Pink Floyd.  😞

This window depicts Saint Ludmila (King Wenceslaus’ grandmother) as well as the Twelve Apostles.  I just liked the resulting lighting spectacle!  Quick hint, if you ever hear a European guide mention the “twelve apple-sauces”, they mean Apostles.  They seem to say “apple-sauces” every single time!  I kept thinking “do we even have any cinnamon?”

We then crossed the castle courtyard and entered the “Old Royal Palace” which dates back to the 9th and 10th centuries!  The area below is called Vladislav Hall, and was originally used for horses and jousting ceremonies.  The area where the wooden boards are was depressed and filled with dirt for the horses.  That had to be quite the spectacle inside the palace!

Our guide than dragged us through a very crowded corridor, and I was curious what could be so important to run that gauntlet, when she showed us these windows, known as the “Defenestration Windows”.

Back in 1618, after the Holy Roman Emperor King Ferdinand II ordered the cessation of Protestant church construction on royal lands, a group of Protestants demanded answers from two Catholic regents.  After accusations flew around, the two Catholic hard-liners and their secretary admitted they were the reason for the Emperor’s decision.  The Protestants ended up throwing them from these 3rd story windows, presumably to their death.  The Catholics survived after falling into a dung heap…which is where we get the saying “Shit Happens”.  This act sparked what is known today as the “30 Years War”.

We entered a room that had a replica of the Crown of Saint Wenceslaus, the Royal Crown of the Czech Republic.  At least we didn’t have to wait 5 (or 8) years to see it!

This area is known as the “New” Office of Land Rolls.  This office held a record of who owned what for the entire country, and it actually burned down in 1541, hence the name “New Office”.  On the walls and ceilings are the coats of arms for each position in the court structure.

This is a representation of what the land records looked like dating back to post 1541.

Here we are exiting the Royal area.  The path we are walking down is called the “Rider’s Staircase”, and is specifically designed for horses to get into the castle to gain access to Vladislav Hall.

Our next stop was Saint George’s Basilica, the oldest surviving church building in Prague Castle.  It was founded in 920, and reconstructed over the years, particularly after a fire in 1142.  It’s a mere blip in size compared to Saint Vitus Cathedral!  The walls are very thick and the windows very small, simply because they didn’t have the technology to build a church differently back in 920.

Our last stop within Prague Castle was a region known as the “Golden Lane”.  This is the most famous street in Prague, and lies completely within the walls of the castle.  Here is a look down the very narrow street.

It was also called Alchemist’s Lane or Goldmaker’s Lane, as this 16th century street was inhabited by alchemists supported by Emperor Rudolf II, as they were trying to unravel the mystery of making artificial gold.  Below is the home of an alchemist, with pieces supposedly dating back to the time of his living here.

I guess back in those days you slept where you worked!  The houses in this street were very small, basically like today’s tiny houses.

Down in the basement of this house is where the real work took place, but I’m guessing they never found the key to making fake gold.  I think the Czech Republic would be a far different place today had they figured it out!

This is the interior of a very small pub.  An inventory of houses and taverns in Prague in 1653 indicated that one in every seven homes included a tavern!  That’s my kind of city!

The quote on the pub wall reads “better to put the axe in the block than kneel under the axe of executioner”. In a 17th Century pub this would be seen as a warning of the fate that awaited anybody who took up arms against the Catholic king.

One last stop on the Golden Lane was the torture chamber.  It was so crowded I didn’t bother going down and inside.  What a zoo!  I can’t imagine coming here in the summer!

This is where our guide left us.  We took one last shot from the edge of the castle walls, as they views are so nice up here, and the weather was perfect!

Kim and I needed some food and more importantly a pint of beer, and right across the street from our hotel is an Irish pub, so we had to stop for a Guinness!

I know, another long post…hang in there, almost done!

We relaxed for awhile and then decided to head up to Petrin Tower for an overlook of the city.  We waited awhile for the funicular and then made the short walk to the tower.  Built in 1891, it’s supposed to resemble the Eiffel Tower.  Maybe the one in Vegas??

Regardless of the alleged comparison, there are excellent views from the top of the tower!  This is looking towards Prague Castle.

This shot is looking just to the right of the castle, towards our hotel and the northern reaches of the Vltava River.

While this is the view towards the Charles Bridge.  Look at how crowded that bridge is!  It’s crazy!

Here is a shot from the funicular on the way back down.

Ok, two more photos then you are done!  We ate at an excellent restaurant, one of the best of the trip, called Mylnec.  The view of the Old Town Bridge Tower from the restaurant is excellent!  The food was just as good…book this place!

We met musician and all-around nice guy John Fresk the night prior at the Italian restaurant next door to our hotel.  He was so nice that we invited him to dinner the next night.  John is an ex-pat from Oregon married to a Czech woman, and he is a professional jazz pianist.  It was very cool to meet him and chat him up over dinner.  I only wish we could have seen him perform before we had to depart.

Up next, we take a day trip to Kuntna Hora, a nearby city with a remarkable bone church.  Until then, thanks for reading!

 

 

I’m going to apologize in advance for this long post.  I prefer to post a full day over breaking days up, so this post will cover a little of our first night, as well as all of the next day.  If you experience reading fatigue, go for a walk and yell sweet nothings at the sky…that always works for me!  If you stop reading right here, I don’t blame you, but come on man, it’s mostly photos!

Our driver pulled into Prague, pointing out a few sights along the way.  I’ve gotta say, our first impression is “wow, this place is impressive”.  Our impression has only gotten better since then!  It’s hard to believe it used to be run by the Soviets?!

We spent 5 days in Prague, so I’m going to try to hit the highlights over several posts.  Just like Budapest, we again stayed at the Aria Hotel, although the two hotels are not affiliated, at least not anymore.  Both hotels are run by childhood friends of our friend Paul Fridrich.  The Aria in Prague isn’t nearly as impressive as the one in Budapest, but it is still pretty nice, and has some excellent UNESCO World Heritage gardens included on the property.

The owner even has some impressive artwork in the bar area.  This one is by Salvador Dali!

For our first night we had dinner at a restaurant with an incredible view, Terasa U Zlate Studne.  This is a “must book” restaurant, as the food is excellent, and the views are even better!

The entire skyline of Prague is quite beautiful…

…particularly as it gets dark.  These views were from our table, so make sure you book this place!

Unfortunately at the end of the night we had to say goodbye to Casey and Terri, as they had an early morning tour before heading home the next day.  Great traveling with you guys!  Let’s do it again soon!

We had our own private city tour, again with “Tours By Locals”.  Our guide was Dagmar, who was a wealth of information for everything Prague!

She arranged for tram tickets and got us on the right tram to take us to the #1 tourist attraction, Prague Castle.  Built in the 9th century, this is the largest ancient castle complex in the world!

The gardens are trying to be Keukenhof….nice try buddy!

The main entrance is guarded by these two human statues.  There is no way I could stand still for any length of time like these guys.  I was half tempted to ask one of them “doesn’t your neck itch?”, just to plant the seed.  Yes, I’m a tad evil.

There was a soldier with a machine gun standing near this guard, both in the above and below photos…and I thought it detracted from the photos, so I used Google’s “Magic Eraser”.  It doesn’t always work well, but when it does it’s great!

Here is Saint Vitus Cathedral, the central point of Prague Castle.  This is the third cathedral to be built on this site.  Construction on the current cathedral started in 1344, with the right side in the below photo being the oldest.  The Cathedral took hundreds of years to build, with only the right side and the central tower being completed before war stopped construction in the early 15th century.

The left hand side of the cathedral finally started construction in 1870 and was finally completed in 1929, so it only took 600 years to complete the thing…but who’s counting!

On our way out of the castle our guide pointed out this gate.  This is where dignitaries were led inside to meet the King.  The castle is now used by the President of the Czech Republic, so the gate serves the same purpose today.

This is the entrance of the castle used for dignitaries.  Are these statues meant to threaten people who are about to enter?  I tried “Magic Eraser” on the people in the foreground…no dice.

We then made our way down the hill and walked across the Charles Bridge, the #2 tourist attraction in Prague.  A photo of the entire bridge, from the bridge, would not have done it justice, as it was like rush hour in Grand Central Station, and this is supposed to be the shoulder season!

There are 30 statues on the bridge, and this was the first one, Saint John of Nepomuk, installed in 1683, .  He was a 14th century Saint of Bohemia, who was drowned after being thrown from the bridge into the Vltava River on the order of King Wenceslaus IV.  According to legend his wife, Queen Sophia, made confessions to Saint John which he would not reveal to the King.

If you look below the statue, there is a dog on the bronze plaque that is very clean.  It is said if you rub this spot it will bring good fortune as well as a prompt return to Prague.  I didn’t bother, as I know we aren’t coming back to Prague anytime soon, and I didn’t want to tempt fate!

Our guide then got us onto a boat tour to see the area from the water.  It looked like the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  Did Walt visit this spot??

Here is a better shot of the Charles Bridge, with all of the statues.

You can see Saint John Nepomuk on top of the bridge.  The angled logs below the bridge pier were originally put there to break up ice floes before they reached the bridge supports.  An upstream dam now prevents the ice floes, but the logs remain for historical purposes.

Below, on the right, is the Old Town Bridge Tower, one of the original gates to the “Old Town” of Prague.  It was built in 1357, during the rule of Emperor Charles, hence the name of the bridge!

This is a shot of the bank of the Vltana, with a statue of the famous Czech composer Smetana.  Click on the photo if you need a better view.

Our boat ride took us around Kampa Island, where we saw this working water wheel.

After getting off the boat there was a small museum that showed that the Charles Bridge was not the original bridge across the Vltava.  The below diagram shows the original bridge in white, called the Judith Bridge.  This bridge collapsed in 1342 during a massive flood.

The museum has some stairs that led underground so you can see some supports of the original Judith Bridge.

Our next stop was the Prague Astronomical Clock.  We were there just before 2:00 PM, and you’d be amazed how many people gather around to watch this less than stellar spectacle.  The clock is cool though.  It took about 10 minutes for our guide to teach us how it works.  I won’t bore you with the details…you have to come and experience it for yourself.  It is pretty incredible that it was built in 1410, and is the oldest operational clock in the world!

Here is a video…the clock at “It’s a Small World” is more impressive, but that’s just me.

Adjacent to the clock is the “Church of Our Lady before Tyn”.  Why do they give these churches such strange names??  In any case, it looks like Walt Disney spent time in Prague, as there are definitely parts of this church in the main castle at Disneyland!

Across from the church are these white crosses on the ground, 27 in total.  These crosses represent 27 Protestant men who were beheaded on this spot in 1621 for working against the Catholic Habsburgs.  Outside of having a guide to explain this to us, I doubt that anybody walking by has any idea what these represent.

We then ventured into the Jewish Quarter (aka Ghetto), and everything was closed since it was a Jewish holiday.  Our guide told us that this ladder on the back of the Old-New Synagogue (not sure about that name, but it’s the oldest in Prague) led up to the attic, where a mythological nasty creature called Golem lives (not to be confused with Lord of the Rings “Gollum”).  A renovation in 1883, and an exploration of the attic in 2014 revealed no signs of the Golem….but do you dare to enter??

Just across the street is another Synagogue, with an old cemetery in front of it.  The bodies are supposedly buried up to 6 or 7 deep here, hence the elevated position from the street.

Our last stop of the tour was this look down Wenceslas Square, the main city square of Prague.  This square has the busiest pedestrian traffic in the entire country!  Looks just like Charles Bridge, just wider.

If you made it to here, congrats….you win a box of Cracker Jacks!  Just send me your address and I’ll ship it your way!  Up next, we visit more of Prague Castle and Saint Vitus Cathedral, and take a funicular up to Petrin Tower, for an awesome view over the city!

Our driver from Daytrip (a company you need to use if you are traveling in Europe) picked us up right as we departed our ship, and shuttled us northeast towards Prague.  Enroute, we had arranged to visit the small town of Cesky Krumlov, a jewel of a city in the Czech Republic.  We are coming back here later during our trip, but Casey and Terri only had this one shot to see it, so we booked a two hour stop here.  This is the initial view of the city from the parking lot.

After walking through the above edifice we were greeted with a view of the Vltava River.  Interesting to note that this is the same river that runs through our next destination, Prague, but it gets a lot larger by the time it reaches the BIG city.

Little tributaries of the Vltava run right through the city.

Some of these tributaries power historical mills.

There are beautiful buildings at every turn!  While this is a small town, there is an endless supply of gorgeous views.

This is Svornosti Square, which is pretty much the center of the city.  The entire square was ringed with restaurants and bars.  I like this city!

As you exit the square to the north you get a view of the Cesky Krumlov Castle Tower.

From the edge of the ever-winding Ztlava River you get excellent views of the  tower!

This is an extension of the castle, just to the left of the castle tower.  As you can see on the lower left, there are numerous restaurants with great views!

As we approached the entrance to the castle, our guide pointed us towards the inside of the moat, which has slightly better security than simple water.

Here is some video of them going at it.  Reminds me of our son fighting with Corky, our Aussie-Doodle!  It’s all in fun after all!

There are terrific views of Cesky Krumlov from the castle…

…in every direction!

I actually had to jump in front of some tourists from a far east country, known for a historic 2019 sexual romp between a Pangolin and a Panda to create the Fauci virus, just to get a group photo.  They would have been there another half hour otherwise!  Why do they need 200 photos at each spot??  It’s not like Fauci is going to show up for a selfie!  Take one or two and move on!

One last stunning view from the castle.  You literally can’t take a bad photo here!

We visited the castle gardens, and while they had some nice flowers, we have been completely spoiled by the tulips in Holland last year.  Yes, we have become “flower snobs”.  Once you’ve been to Keukenhof, you will forever be a flower snob.  Trust us on this!

Here is a better set of flowers, photo courtesy of Kim.  Still no Keukenhof!

Our guide found us a nice spot for some lunch…

…and some Czech beer!

One last shot of the castle tower from a different angle.  There were very intricate paintings on the side that we will have to get a closer look at when we come back here in about 9 days.

I know, short post for a change.  That will change with Prague, which is coming up!  Thanks for reading!

 

Our last stop of the cruise was Passau, Germany.  We were docked right in the heart of the old town.  Passau is known as the “City of Three Rivers”, as it sits at a point where the Danube is joined by both the River Inn and the Ilz River.  Everytime I heard somebody say the “River Inn” I could swear they were talking about a hotel.

We had signed up for a hike along the Ilz River, and met our guide on the dock.  There was road work going on so our bus had to take a back road to our starting point.  We were basically taking a bus down what should have been a one-way residential street, but it was two ways, and it wasn’t wide enough for that!  I was so stressed (terrible back-seat driver that I am) to even take photos!  Needless to say, our driver ran into two spots where I thought for sure he was either taking out a parked car or the wall of a house….but he managed to miss them both with nary a scratch!  We even had one spot where a guy ran out of his house to move his car because he was sure the bus wouldn’t make it by!  The bus driver earned his pay and then some!

We finally made it to the start of our hike, and I needed some time to decompress because I always put myself in the position of the driver.  Thankfully the hike was beautiful!  First up were some castle ruins overlooking the Ilz River.  I loved seeing the windows of the house just to the right of the ruins…what a cool spot to call home!

Here is our trusty group of 8 fellow cruise passengers who opted for the hike.  I can’t imagine how crowded the other excursion was!  Three busloads = not a fun time!

We crossed the Ils River on our way upstream.

The views upstream from the bridge are excellent!

Our guide pointed out these markers on the trees, which marked the path of Pandurensteig.  This is the same path taken by the Pandurs, a troop of soldiers working under a charter from Empress Maria Theresa (her name keeps coming up!) who took this path in 1742 during their campaign in the War of the Austrian Succession.  We just did this little snippet of about 5 miles…the complete path is 112 miles long!  Maybe in our next lives.

The hike we took was a loop, and the place where we looped back was this damn on the river.  The dark color of the water is due to bogs upstream, much like several waterfalls we saw in Ireland.

The view across the lake created by the damn is so gorgeous!

On our hike back we hit this high point looking down on the river.  I’ve gotta say that if the rest of Germany looks like this I can’t wait to get back!

As we finish the loop we look down upon the bridge where we previously crossed the river.  Off to the right of that bridge is a set of man-made islands that were placed there to assist with logging in the past.  They would line up barricades to keep the logs from going downriver, and then feed them into a tunnel they blasted into the side of the hill we were standing on to bypass a tight part of the river.

Here is  that tunnel, set up today to allow hikers to complete the loop.  The water would have to be a lot higher than it is in this photo to float any logs through this passage.  The stream on the left was barely flowing.

We made it back to the ship without making the bus driver endure his prior experience…we ended up taking the city bus, which we should have done in the first place!

Once safely back, we took a walk around the city center, which sits on an island between the Danube and the River Inn.  The confluence of these rivers is quite interesting, since they all have a different color of water.  Here is a photo that tells the story better than words (not my photo).

We had some extra time to walk around Passau, so we headed towards yet another “Saint Stephen’s Cathedral”.  We passed this beautiful square near the church, and were disappointed to see all of these young people smoking…it remains a huge problem in Europe, but seems particularly bad here in the Czech Republic.  We’ve even seen the old smoking vending machines littered through the cities here.  Ok, enough of the negatives.

Saint Stephen’s comes into view between two other buildings.  I love the views on the streets in these old cities!

The interior of the Saint Stephen’s Cathedral was of course beautiful.  As we say when we are traveling in Europe, it was “ABC”…Another Beautiful Church!  This site held a church as early as 730, but the current Cathedral was built from 1668 to 1693 after a fire destroyed its predecessor in 1662.

My only minor issue is the lack of stained glass windows, which we have come to love…so a little ding there.  A- perhaps?  In their defense, they did lose the entire roof during WWII due to flying sparks from houses which were burning in the vicinity.

I noted this reliquary in the cathedral.  I love my reliquaries, as they always hold something interesting…or comical…depending on the implied item held within.

This one is supposed to contain an organ, I can’t remember which one (heart, liver, whatever) of Altmann, the Bishop of Passau from 1065 until his death in 1091.  They truly were pretty damned morbid!

As you exit the Cathedral you get a damn nice view of the main shopping street that runs through Passau.

Everybody was out shopping…the weather was perfect!  One thing to note, I go out of my way to try to avoid shots of large crowds, so presume that no matter what my photos show, it’s more crowded than it appears.

The next morning we departed our Uniworld ship, and had a driver ready to take us to Prague, but not before stopping at a Czech Republic highlight and the subject of my next post, Cesky Krumlov!