Golden Prague

We had a wonderful time exploring the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. What a beautiful city, like something out of a fairy tale!

Prague castle at night. "The Golden City"

Jason and William in front of the river Vltava, Charles Bridge, Prague castle, and St Vitus cathedral

St Vitus cathedral and Prague castle. Prague is often referred to as "the city of a thousand spires". There are so many beautiful churches; most are no longer used for religious purposes and many are now concert halls. Most people of Prague are atheists, especially due to the former communist rule there.

Gotta love the Mercedes taxi

Another view along the Vltava river

I love this building!

The kids loved watching swans stick their heads in the water with their tails up in the air.

Starting out the river tour

Complimentary hot wine, coffee, or the "real" Czech Budweiser was served. People were quite surprised we only wanted water!

I love the colors and architecture!

Sailing the Vltava

William enjoying the boat ride

Ethan was right there with the "Captain" asking all sorts of questions. He learned what most of the buttons did, and how to steer. Ava was quietly enjoying the scenery.

An old entrance off the river for the brothers of Prague, still active there!

The Astronomical clock. The upper part was made in 1410. They say the creator of the clock was violently blinded, his eyes burned out with a hot poker, so he couldn't duplicate the clock anywhere else.

The calendar was added in 1870

What amazing detail!

The figures near the top of the clock move every hour, and all 12 apostles can be seen rotating in and out of the top 2 windows at the top.

Buildings in Old Town Prague

One of many ornate doors to a house

Lovin' the orange and the Prague lion on this building

Walking through Old Town

Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Church of Our Lady before Tyn. The surrounding buildings have been built so close you can hardly get a good view.

Isn't this building amazing?

Jason looking in our guidebook- where to go next? I swear, many tourists were stopped and took pictures of us because we have so many kids close in age.

I love the colorful mosaic in the center

Old Town Square and the Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Baroque Church of St. Nicholaus

Jewish Synagogue

Entering the synagogue with all the kids- yikes...

Josefov, the Jewish quarter

Just a little background... The Jews were persecuted in Prague, beginning with the pogroms when the Crusaders killed numerous Jews. In the 11th century they were forced to wear special caps or the Yellow Star of David. In 1781, the Jews were given civil rights, they could live outside the walled ghetto and had no restriction to schools or occupations... then Germany invaded.

Old Jewish cemetery from the 15th century and on. The Jews were only given a small amount of land to bury their dead.


There are about 12,000 visible tombstones and an estimated 100,000 burials here. There are 12 layers of graves!

Written prayers and messages placed in the wall.

Walking through the cemetery was a harrowing experience

I got the following information about the Jewish Cemetery online:

"It is surprising that the cemetery even exists, as Nazi policy was to destroy all Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. However, during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, once the Nazis drove all the Jews of Prague into the concentration camp at Terezin and then on to Auschwitz, Hitler gave specific orders to leave the cemetery in Josefov intact. His plan, once all the Jews in Europe had been exterminated, was to build a Jewish museum in Prague with the cemetery as the centerpiece to his “exotic museum of an extinct race”.

Sarcophagus

Statue of the Holy Roman Emperor, Bohemian King Charles IV 1350 A.D.

Charles Bridge

Detail of the start of Charles Bridge

Looking toward Old Town from Charles Bridge

Looking toward Prague castle from Charles Bridge

One of many statues along Charles bridge

Entrance to Prague castle. Ava got so excited when we told her we were entering a castle. She wanted to find a princess, but we never saw one. :)

This scary thing was on the castle wall

The infamous 'Piss Sculpture' by David Cerny. The puddle is in the shape of the Czech Republic and the two guys actually move and are writing out famous Czech literary quotations. What the freak?!? To top it off you can SMS your own message on your cell and they'll stop and 'write' it mid-stream. Gotta love Czech ART

Church of Our Lady Victorious

Prague's baby Jesus, a 400 year old wax figure that has supposedly protected Prague for centuries. Nuns actually change his clothing 70 different times according to a strict calendar. I love the Catholics ;)

Lennon Wall

The Lonely Planet guidebook says the following about Lennon wall:
"Dissidents in communist Czechoslovakia often revered Western rock musicians, especially John Lennon for flouting social norms. And after Lennon's 1980 murder this wall was painted with his image and turned into a graffiti-splattered memorial - repainted each time the secret police whitewashed over it."

In memory of the Velvet Revolution, when in 1989 the Czech people overthrew the communists

Don Giovanni Marionette theatre. Mozart composed the "Opera of Operas" for Prague and premiered in 1787.

Don Giovanni Theatre

Marionettes, hand carved and hand painted puppets. We bought Queen Anne here

St Vitus Cathedral

Our family

Czech guard

Guards marching by

A beautiful fountain inside the courtyard outside the cathedral

Ava had to carry all of her Littlest Pet Shops in a bag all day, or she went crazy

St Vitus cathedral

One of the entrances

It is gigantic, pictures don't do it justice

This is referred to as the Golden gate, above the archway that royalty entered for coronation ceremonies. The Golden Mosaics are spectacular.

A Nativity scene outside the cathedral, all made of straw

How in the world did they build these cathedrals?

A beautiful stained glass window in St Vitus cathedral

Every cathedral we enter, William either cries or tests the acoustics by being very loud. So I took him outside to chase pigeons while Jason and our other two walked through with the audio guide. Those poor pigeons!
William, our little world traveler. It's funny because he will eat anything: Afghan and Turkish, German and Thai.


This door is where royalty entered the cathedral directly from the castle, through a private corridor. William got behind the roped area, I guess he feels he's the King! It wasn't very funny to me, until Asian tourists and others started videoing and taking pictures. They thought it was hilarious and cute, especially that I was telling him to come back and he'd flash his dimples and say "No!"

Looking into St Wenceslaus Chapel

This is where King Wenceslaus is buried and many precious jewels and relics are kept. The Bohemian crown jewels are accessed from this room, through a door with seven locks.

St Wenceslaus (from the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas) was Duke of Bohemia. His brother had him murdered for political and religious reasons.

Organ

What a beautiful pieu

Again, you got to love the Catholics :) It's too bad this depiction of John baptizing Christ is incorrect. It's beautiful nonetheless.

The other side of St Vitus

Large room in the palace

Ceiling of the records room

St George's basilica, the oldest church building in Prague castle's walls

Inside St George's basilica

The view of Prague from the castle

We ventured out to a small Christmas market

We had the best Trdlo, a yummy warm sweet bread. The dough is cooked on a circular steel tube then rolled in sugar and cinnamon.

Old Town Square Christmas market. It was a good thing we went to the smaller market, because this one was too crowded!

This tree was unbelievable! By far the largest decorated cut tree I've ever seen.

Old Town Square all lit up