Day 79: Prague

June 30, 2022

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We woke up looking at our own version of a painted church ceiling.

We had threatened to go down to the Charles Bridge at dawn, and so totally beat out any other tourists, but we were lured by the 7:30 time for the hotel breakfast, and so we hung around. The breakfast was worth the wait, as it included most of the 10 jammer requirements, with real bacon as well, and also mohn roll of the same quality as the Polish Bakery, in Montreal.

Not to suggest that the layout and sights of Prague are at all limited, or simple - far from it! but it is possible to take a simple minded approach to a one day walk. Rick Steves actually set forth the simple walk, and I'll reproduce it here for a bit of a reference.

In the middle of the map you'll see Old Town Square. That contains the Tyn Church (with pointy roofs, seen on all Prague postcards), the Nikolas Church, the Old Town Hall (has the astronomical clock on one side), and yes, our hotel! The rest of the square is totally lined with absolutely gorgeous buildings, and in the middle of the open space is the statue of Jan Hus, the guy who pre-dated Martin Luther and got burned at the stake in Konstanz.

To the west of the Old Town Square is the Charles Bridge, the 665 year old stone structure with saints' statues all along, and leading to the Little Quarter and the Castle Quarter. The Little Quarter is more and more beautiful buildings, and for us - as you read on - a great farmers' market and an interesting McDonald's.

Back to the Old Town Square and looking southwest, you see Wenceslas Square, which is actually a very long street, lined with shops both high and low end, and reaching the National Museum and the mounted statue of Wenceslas.

So that puts you in the picture. What we did was to walk to and over the Charles Bridge, into the Little Quarter. We then retreated to our hotel, ditched our rain gear (because rain had turned to broiling sun) and headed for Wenceslas. That's where we ate lunch, before wandering back, by the Jerusalem synagogue, to our hotel again.

Come out with us on this itinerary, seeing through the camera some of what we saw, with a little guidance in the captions:

The Old Town Hall. The astronomical clock is on the left side of that tower. By the way, the ground is not a lake, or flooded, that is just the early morning rain.

The Hus statue, with the Hussian Nikolas Church in the background.

On the way to the bridge - next 3 shots too.

The bridge is almost free of tourists. They must breakfast even later than us!

If these guys sat beside us at breakfast, would we shift to another table?

The gate off the bridge, to the Little Quarter. No modern architects achieve this kind of texture and colour and arrangement!

McDonald's is in here with an outlet. Its interesting to see how they adapt to the different country with changes to the products. There is a bit more greens and tomatoes in there, and also a croissant on offer. I ventured a comment on this to the man standing beside me, in English. "Yeah", he replied, "Sure different from Tennessee".

We had stopped in to McDonald's not to research breakfast options, but for the WC. In Europe they charge for the washroom, and here we see Mcdonald's happily falling into line. 20 crowns is about .8 euros. Often you are asked 1 euro, so maybe Mcdonald's can claim to be the bargain option?

We were lucky to stumble on a little market, with one produce vendor, several specialized bakers, cheese truck , BBQ, fresh juice maker, etc.

We were first drawn to the strudel maker, whose product was filled with the most amazing amounts of mohn. This stuff is very expensive - basically unobtainable in Canada and quite costly in Germany. Quark on the other hand is common and cheap in Germany, and again fabulously costly or not available in Canada. We bought a lot from this lady!

This lady's pancakes were not all that great, (we had a sample) but I liked her iconic kerchief and colour coordination.

The little market. Notice run of the mill gorgeous buildings around.

Later in the day , in a different spot, we would actually choose two of these items.

There was a charge for this Nikolas church, in the Little Quarter

The walls are not marble, but clever plaster work.

Here is a minute and a half actually twirling about in the place:

More crazy sights in the Little Quarter:

Back to the market for some much needed juice, and to check out the BBQ.

Waaa, we're back in the Old Town Square, and so is everyone else.

Inside the Tyn Church for a bit.

Tycho Brahe is buried here - who knew? Brahe gave Kepler his start, but data collected by Brahe was withheld until Brahe's death. Kepler then came up with his three laws of planetary motion.

Walking now towards Wenceslas.

We were running out of steam and needed some shade and food and a seat. There were two free outdoor tables at the restaurant blurrily pictured below, and the menu seemed good. We approached a table and the pictured waiter came. "You need to wipe the table", said Dodie, who had just observed the previous customer leave. "The table is clean", said the waiter. "Not by the standards of my house", said Dodie. The waiter turned and went to chortle about it with his colleague. "You are a very rude man", said Dodie.

Fortunately the next restaurant also had a good menu and very polite staff. In all cases we are talking about traditional Czech cuisine, which is very heavy, but yummy. It also seems the right thing to eat for a visit to Prague. Here is the menu.

Something we really liked a lot was fresh "lemonades", which are a common offering here. Dodie's was lavender flavour and she just loved it.

The restaurant got a shipment of drinks, and a portion of sidewalk magically rose up to reveal an elevator that could stash the goods below ground. Tricky.

This was a strange lineup of people, that I guessed was for a discount money exchange. But no, the sign reveals it's a help point for people from Ukraine.

Ukraine support is seen in many spots, usually with flags on public buildings, like this on the national museum.

Prague has a well preserved Jewish Quarter, between the Old Town Square and the river. The Jewish Quarter is there for the historical quirk that the jews were forcefully concentrated there, beginning in the 13th century. The Nazis then conceived of it as " a museum to an extinct race", and they brought Jewish artifacts there from other parts of Europe. Today there are six synagogues, a ceremonial hall, and a cemetery, as part of what is treated as a single museum. The whole thing makes us a bit nervous and we have not made a special effort to check it out, much less buy a ticket for this. Read a bit more about this here. We did however pass by the Jerusalem Synagogue, which while a part of the museum concept is not in the Jewish Quarter. This synagogue is interesting in the way it uses Islamic architecture. Today it was swathed in some kind of mesh, so here is my 2019 shot of it:

Back to the Square now, and and the astronomical clock. As promised yesterday, here is one general youtube recording - a little better than I could do -of the thing in action.

What Gave Meaning to Life today? Lavender Lemonade

Today's ride: 17 km (11 miles)
Total: 4,390 km (2,726 miles)

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