What Are They Doing?

After a very warm night’s sleep in our hotel (heating was set to max we think), we went down for a great breakfast. We filled ourselves up and also made ourselves a ham and cheese sandwich which we snuck out for our lunch. We decided the plan for the day would be to just walk around and get our bearings of the town and try to find somewhere to book for Christmas dinner. We worked out the transport system and made our way into the city on the train. We hopped off at the Museum stop and walked out on to what is Wenceslas Square (we did not realise it at this stage). This is a very famous part of Prague, made so by the fight against Communism. It was in this square that two students burnt themselves to death in protest of the Communist occupation of Czechoslovakia. Flowers are regularly placed on the spot where the burnings occurred.
It was a bit of an overcast day and a little cool. From Wenceslas Square we tried to head towards the famous Charles Bridge. We got a little lost and ended up coming across the Powder Tower. The Powder Tower was built around 1475. It was joined to the Municipal House which is an amazing theatre that was built to add an even more powerful element to the cityscape to celebrate the glory of the Czeck nation. Outside of this theatre we were harrassed by ticket sales people offering tickets to the Christmas concert that was playing on Christmas day. The salesman that caught us was quite convincing, not allowing us away without a definate yes or no when we said that we would think about it. We decided to go ahead and book tickets. He offered us a student price as he assumed we were both students. Bit of a surprise, but we went along with it and saved ourselves a few hundred Krona.
Still trying to find Charles Bridge, we wandered through the streets admiring the buildings. The buildings were amazing with so many different styles of architecture and colours. We stumbled across the Old Town Square (Staro-Mestsk Nam). It was captivating at this time of year with the Christmas markets in full swing. They had a huge Christmas tree with lights that were in synch with the live music that was being played on the stage in the square. Here we built quite a fondness for some donut’ey looking things called a “Trdlo”, that were made in some of the stalls. They were dough rolled on a metal rolling pin and coated in course sugar and then baked over a flame until just right. We ended up having one of these each day - justified to ourselves as they weren’t deep fried or too fatty like normal snacks. In the Old Town Square is the Astronomical Clock (Orloj) which was built around the 15th Century. It not only shows the time but the position of the Sun, Moon and much more. It has animated figures that perform on the hour and attracts huge crowds. We watched it this first time and didn’t really see what all the fuss is about. I guess it is one of those things you have to do it to say you’ve done it.
Now we had our bearings right, we headed for Charles Bridge (Karlv most). We first saw the bridge from the next bridge up the river, and took a few photos of it from here. The bridge, built on the orders of Emperor Charles IV in the 14th Century, was the only bridge across the river Vlatva for centuries. It is lined with 30 statues of various saints. It is said that egg yolks were mixed into the mortar to strengthen the construction of the bridge. The bridge leads over to the Lesser Quarter (Mal Strana).
We walked through this area after having a break in McDonalds to warm up and eat lunch. We then found the Church of the Baby Jesus of Prague. This church was filled with gold statues and artifacts. It was built in 1611 and is famous thanks to the Spanish wax effigy of the Prague Child Jesus gifted by Polyxena of Lobkovic and brought to Prague at the end of 16th century. From here we walked towards the area of Petrin which is a large hill overlooking the city. We caught this cool cable train up the side of the steep hill. At the top was a a few different churches, a maze of mirrors, the city’s space observatory and a large observation tower. We had a quick look around here and decided to come back another day when there was more light left.
On the way back down we walked towards Prague Castle (Prask hrad). We took a quick walk through the castle grounds and admired the unbelievable Prague Cathedral which is the centrepiece of the castle grounds. As it was nearly dark, we made our way into the town centre to find some food for dinner. We found another concert that was playing that night and decided that because we were students again, we could afford to buy tickets to it as well. We then went off to get some dinner. It turns out that Christmas Eve is when Christmas is celebrated rather than Christmas Day and accordingly all of the shops were shut. Not even McDonalds was open (it shut at 4pm that day). As there was literally nowhere to get a decent meal, we had to buy a Czech Sausage each from one of the hundreds of hot dog stands that are around the city centre. It tasted really good at the time, but it soon started to repeat badly.
We got to our concert early and managed to secure great seats. The concert was being performed in a small church called the “Church of St Martin in the Wall”. We were seeing a string quartet named “Musica Praga”. They played Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” and “Divertimento in D”, Vivaldi’s “Spring” (from the Four Seasons), “Concerto Magridalesco” and “Sinfonia in G”, Bach “Ave Maria” and “Air”, Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and Handel’s “Concerto Grosso in H Minor”. The performance was unreal and the atmosphere in the quaint little church really made it a lot more amazing.
After the concert we headed home and went straight to bed.

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Filed under: Travel, Czech Republic