Pražský hrad

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I returned to consumate tourist form today, and hit Prague Castle after a nice breakfast at the hotel. Top Hotel Praha, where I'm staying, actually runs two places. The Top Hotel proper, which is a four star joint, and then the Garni wing, which is basically a high-end hostel. We get use of most of the Top Hotel's facilities (albeit for a price), and get their breakfast free. Hence, most of us gorged ourselves on a fairly decent buffet breakfast.

Prague Castle, aside from not really looking like a castle, is huge.I was there for close to four hours, and I didn't really get to everything. Like the town, there's a potpurri of different architectural styles, often right next to each other. Apparently, the people here get tired of the same look after a while, so they plaster over a lot of the facades. In other words, while most of the buildings were originally built in the gothic style, many now have baroque or romanesque facades. Katedrála sv. Víta (St. Vitus's Cathedral) and its bell tower are pretty much the only obviously gothic structures left. The cathedral compensates though, by having more than a dozen tightly packed flying buttresses, and a very large number of gargoyles (for drain pipes).

I wandered down to Charles Bridge, and spent a while looking at all the artists with setups there. I really wanted to get some original paintings back in Paris from the booths along the Seine near Notre Dame, but I had over a month of travelling ahead of me at the time, making lugging a painting around impractical. It's not so impractical now, so I'm going to be doing myself some art shopping the next few days. I can't leave the walls of my new apartment blank can I?

I just watched the hourly show of the Astronomical Clock, and I'll probably just take the rest of the night easy. I got one of the cliche'd postcard shots of the Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the background earlier, but the other one with a cascade of the bridges over the Vltava River involves a hike up to a hill, which doesn't appeal to me right now.

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Photos

Stare Mesto
A view of Prague Castle rising above the "little town".

St. Vitus' Cathedral
Church'd out as I was, I could still appreciate the only thing gothic left in the "castle".

Rooster?
There were quite a few of those. No shortage of flying buttresses either...

Colourful Masterpieces
The Cathedral was full of some stunning and stunningly massive stained glass windows.

Gargoyles
The Cathedral's numberous gutter drain-pipes had their usual disguises.

Castle Gardens
Prague Castle's gardens were beautiful, but rather tiring to explore as they're built on a series of steep terraces.

Astronomical Clock
The clock is pretty amazing. The lower ring is a calendar, and actualy has names for each day of the year!

Sunset at Wenclas Square
The huge strip is full of shops, tucked away restaurants and prostitutes - all in equal measure.