A morning in the Old Town of Prague

28.07.2015

I did spend a morning in the Old Town Square, but the night before I took my camera out on the way to my favourite restaurant and took some photos of the nicely finished buildings in the area. If you spend the time to look up it's amazing how much trouble the builders went to in the early 20th century to individualise each building. One of the sad things is that if you get down to the street level, stupid taggers have done their best to make every street look like it was in the ghetto. In Prague my favourite eating place is an Italian Restaurant about 100 yards down the street. In Rome my favourite Restaurant was Chinese (it must be the Irish in me). It is a quality restaurant so the prices may be a little high for Prague, but the quality of the food is the best that I have eaten so far on my trip, and I'm worth it. Having said that, the soup (which was a meal in itself), the huge bowl of Risotto (I took half of it home for lunch the next day), and the small vase full of Tiramisu, plus a pint of lager came to just NZ$19. The previous meal I had there was a thick chicken and vegetable soup with floating gnocci, and a huge bowl of Spaghetti Bolognase covered in Parmessan cheese, plus a 1/2 pint of lager came to NZ$13. I limit myself to every second night cos I can't handle those size of portions every day. So at about ten am the next morning I headed out on the tram which took me half way to the Old Town Square. I got off at the right station and then proceeded to get lost( not a lot lost though, just a little bit lost) It didn't matter because I found another square to look at called Republik Square and that had a few really cool buildings on it like the Powder Tower (which was originally the Old Town Gate, but then it was used to store gunpowder in the 17th century and so they changed it's name) By then I noticed a steady stream of people following tour guides down a certain street, so I joined them and it wasn't long before I got to where I was supposed to be Prague Old Town Square. It is a huge square surrounded by monumental buildings that have in some cases been there for hundreds of years. After I had walked all around it I noticed a couple of hundred people gathering in one corner, so I strolled over to have a look. There was the oldest working astronomical clock in the world, and it was almost time to do its thing, so I squeezed into the crowd to try and get a photo of what was going on. On the dot of 11 o'clock the bells started chiming, the little statues started to move and the top doors upened so you could just see the 12 apostles moving past. The crowd was dead silent while this was going on, but when the golden rooster popped out and made a loud SQWAWK noise everyone burst out laughing. After that bit of excitement I decided that following the crowds was a good idea, so I followed them down lots of little shopping lanes and arcades, until we came to the river and the Charles bridge. It is one of the must see places in Prague because there is always a crowd on the bridge and several musicians or bands play on it every day, and there are lots of artists and craft stalls selling souvenirs all along it. The 30 statue groupings were a focus for people taking photos or selfies and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. On the other side I found a tram stop and by 1pm I was home having a well earned cuppa having walked for miles...

in my street