Prague day 2

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Day 17-Prague
9/2-Wednesday

We had overcast weather again today.

We started the day with a group tour of the Little Quarter. The first stop was the Wallenstein Palace Garden, the largest and most beautiful garden in the neighborhood. Aside the garden was the most unusual wall. It was an artificial wall of stalactites. Embedded were a few strange looking faces. We never heard the meaning of this wall.

After the garden we walked up through the Little Quarter towards the Charles Bridge. As we walked we spotted an interesting courtyard of a restaurant with two mechanical men working as a fountain. The hips of the men rotated from left to right as the men seemed to be urinating into the pool. Instead of being an adults only we could see a “Children’s Zone.” I guess their sense of humor is broader than ours.

The plan with the tour group was to cross the Charles Bridge and pass through Old Town on the way to a Metro station. Once we got on the bridge, Jackie and I broke away again. We took time to find the good luck spots on the bridge that our friend Greg Ebelhar had told us to look for. We took full advantage by rubbing the well worn brass for good traveling luck.

After shopping for a while we had lunch in the Hard Rock Café. I had my first and only hamburger on the trip. It was very good. After lunch we took the Metro back to the hotel to wait for our afternoon “optional” tour.

About 4:00pm we boarded a bus for a 40 mile trip in the Czech countryside to the Sychrov Castle. It seemed to me to be more of a palace than a castle. It had beautiful English-style Park and grounds. The place had an interesting history in the 20th century. It seems that the royals living there became allied with the Germans in the beginning of the WWII. After the war, the castle was confiscated and became state property. It stayed that way during the communist period. After communism fell, the law allowed prior property owners to reclaim their land. The only exception was for anyone that allied with the Germans. So, the original owners survive but they are not allowed to reclaim the palace.

We enjoyed a private organ concert in the chapel and then, after touring the entire building, walked next door for dinner in a modern hotel. We returned to our hotel in Prague late that evening.

Tomorrow we plan to follow the Rich Steve’s recommended self-guided tour of New Town. Tomorrow evening we will have our farewell dinner in the Lobkowicz Palace Café, in the Castle Quarter. Should be fun. The next day will be the return trip home.

Hang around for just a little longer…

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Photos

Wallenstein Palace Garden
For a better view of my photos, please click on the photo and it will enlarge.

Wallenstein Palace Garden
You should enlarge this photo and look for a couple of embedded faces.

A different kind of duel
I could not help but laugh at this stupid thing. The mid-sections would rotate in opposite directions always facing the viewers.

Charles Bridge
This is the West end Gate to the bridge.

Charles Bridge
We followed the Rick Steves guide to find the places to rub for good luck. You can see how bright the brass is. We were not the first.

Charles Bridge
I rubbed this one. So, if I have good luck and Jackie bad, we'll know which worked. Or vice-versa.

Old Town Prague
It was time for a hamburger! We could not resist the Hard Rock.

Metro
As we were returning to the hotel, we saw Camille and Jay arriving in the Old Town. Its a small world after all.

Sychrov Castle
The is the "back entry" to the castle.

Sychrov Castle
A view of the castle from the English garden.

Sychrov Castle
Notice the private chapel on the left. This is where we had the private organ concert.

Sychrov Castle
The inside of the small chaple. We learned that many weddings now take place here.

Sychrov Castle
This is one of more than 100 oil portraits in the palace.

Comments

[patty]

end of blogs?
I've throughly enjoyed your journey. Thanks for letting us go along with you. The "faces" in the wall were weird and fascinating. They weren't "sculptured" that way...just looked that way after they became a stalagmite or stalagtite (?)

[TED46]

Wall
If fact they were sculptured into the wall. They were hard to see but once you did it was quite strange.

[kathie kirts]

palace garden
Just read this blog... would love to watch them trim and mow the island in the middle of the pond.