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| Yummy Czech treats |
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| And Beer - Nice beer mustache eh? |
Our 2nd day in Prague and time
to hit the castle! We had a later start before doing some shopping in Wenceslas
square and then headed to the old town square for some lunch at the Harvest
Festival. Heaps of booths and stands selling all kinds of traditional foods
(and of course beverages – aka BEER!) We settled for a chicken skewer each with
a bread roll and 3 kinds of potato salads washed down with a Pilsner Urquell.
Once we had done lunch we made our way to
the meeting point for a castle tour.
We met our guide Kate – an Aussie who has
lived in the Czech Rep for 20 years and it married to a Czech man with 3 half
Aussie, half Czech kids she told us as we headed across the river to the lesser
town at the foothills of the Prague castle, a very prestigious area covered
with the palaces of many of Prague’s nobles.
The most notable of these was the Palace of
Valestein, Emperor Ferdinand’s army commander in the 30years war.
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| War memorial with some sort of demonstration in the back ground |
The Palace now houses the Czech senate and
features a lovely garden complete with a water feature innovatively named “Pond
with Fountain” – very imaginative! The pond is filled with carp some of the
best fish in the Czech Rep no less and the traditional Christmas dish for Czech
families. Kate told us that leading up to Christmas the marketplaces are filled
with tubs of carp, you come and pick your fish and it is wrapped in paper for
you to take home (carps can live up to 8hrs out of water apparently) where you
keep it in the bathtub. The family gets to know their carp giving it a name
such as Johnny and come Christmas morning Johnny is murdered so that the family
can enjoy the feast along with potato salad and sauerkraut.
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| I will call it - "Pond with Fountain" |
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| Weird garden walls that looked like dribble castles |
The gardens also had an avery where giant owls
are kept and peacocks roam the grounds.
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| Peacocks everywhere |
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| They are hard to see but I swear there are giant owls in there |
Next we trammed up the hill to the Stahor
Monastery. Here we sampled the St Norbets brew – 1 bottle of amber and 1 bottle
of wheat beer @ 12% alcohol each!
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| View from the top of Castle hill |
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| More views over Prague |
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| ... and another view... of the inside of the monastery brewery! |
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| Fancy a St Norberts? |
While we drank and walked we heard the
story of Edvard Benes who was responsible for moving the Czech government to
London where they continued to run the government in exile for the duration of
WWII and the Nazi occupation. He was also responsible for ordering the
assassination of the Czech’s most hated Nazi Reinhartz Heidreich and forcing
all German Czech’s out of Prague at the end of WWII leaving many homeless and
forced to walk back to Germany, a country which many no longer had any
affiliation with.
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| The lovely buildings surrounding the palace |
We also saw the church dedicated to St
Umberta – the woman who prayed to God not to have to go through with an
arranged marriage. God’s response: Umberta grew a beard! Miracle – Problem
solved! Shes now the patron saint for women in bad relationships.
By now we had finished our beers but
carried the bottles around with us to try to take them home as souvenirs.
Further along we saw yet another church, this one with cannon balls lodged in
its façade from the war of assession when the French took exception to a woman
Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresia being in control of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. She later went on to marry the youngest of her 11 daughters (she had 16
kids in total) Marie Antoinette to the French king.
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| Forget bullet holes - these are cannon balls! |
Even further on (we haven’t even gotten to
the castle proper yet) we saw the infamous Dompchek prison, now the Ministry of
Defense. This building nicknamed the cubby house in Czech was used by both the
Nazis and Soviets for torturing and imprisoning political opponents and
undesirables.
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| Doesn't look too scary for a house of torture |
We were nearly at the palace gates by now
passing by the Scwartzenberg Palace with its Scraffito fascade and the plague
pole built to attempt to appease God and prevent the sending of another plague.
At the castle gates – the Gate of the
Giants we made it just in time to watch the changing of the guards’ ceremony.
The biggest and grandest version happens at 12noon so we only got a taste at
the 4pm ceremony. When this was over we went through the outer gates and
through the inner Mathais Gate to see the inner palace which today houses the
presidential offices of Vslav Claus.
In the center of the castle grounds was the
famous Gothic St Vitas Cathedral. The Cathedral contains the remains of King
Wenceslas as well as the relic arm of St Vitas. Unfortunately most of the
cathedral was roped off and so we could only explore the back section and try
to make things out n the chapels further up. Also buried in the cathedral were
Charles 4th of the Charles Bridge fame and Rudolph 2nd –
a crazy Hapsburg emperor obsessed with collecting clocks.
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| St Vitas Cathedral |
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| PREEEEEEETY :) |
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| PS bit of an obsession with stained glass windows |
The Czech crown jewels are also kept here
with the security of 8 key holders all required to enter their keys before the
jewels can be accessed. The crown is believed to have a curse placed on it
saying that only the one truly destined to be the Czech ruler was able to wear
it; otherwise he/she would die within the year. A famous example of this was
when Nazi Reinhartz Heidreich tried the crown on and within a year he was
assassinated.
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| Typical gothic Cathedral |
The palace complex was huge like a town in
itself with every ruler adding some extension or another. Vladislav made his
mark by adding an indoor jousting arena so he and his friends could muck around
jousting even in the winter.
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| Dave checking out more of the castle |
Our last stop was the Bergrave Palace with
its famous black tower (which is actually white) and the statue of the boy with
the GOLDEN WANG (as Dave delicately put it) Touching the well polished area of
the statue is supposed to bring you fertility.
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| Guess what part every person in Prague has handled |
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| ...when in Rome, er Prague |
Most exciting for me there was also a
Barbie museum – 50 years of Barbie dolls!
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| One last view before leaving Prague Castle |
After walking (cobble stones are murder on
the feet) we put our feet up for a cruise down the Vitava River. A lovely view
of the city by evening and twilight topped off with a 3 course buffet and some
Budvar (aka Budweisser) to wash it down. PS although the name is the same it is
not the American “Bud” beer and a legal battle has been going on over the
naming rights. The Czech’s had it first and the Americans used the name as it
was associated with good beer.
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| Sunset over the Prague cathedral |
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| Our dinner setting |
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| Dodgy night pics but you get the idea |
The cruise lasted 3 hours and included
going through the lochs to take us between the 2 heights of the river avoiding
the rapids.
On our way home we saw a great 1 punch
fight on the escalator at the train station, the original aggressor being sat
on his arse and rolling all the way back down the stairs. He was fine by the
way – blood nose and wounded pride were the only injuries.
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