Yesterday we spent most of our day in the old town of Prague which is located on the east bank of the Vitava River, today we spent the day in the interestingly named Lesser Town on the west bank of the river.
Despite having the diminutive name of Lesser Town the west bank of the river has the Palace and main Cathedral for the city. They are located on a major hill that looks down on the river and the rest of the city.
The climb up the hill is very steep. As we were beginning the climb an Irish Pub (Ton and I believe that it is a EU law that every city must have at least one Irish Pub.) had a great sign, “Look at how steep that hill is, you are going to need a Guinness to make it up there.” Despite the warning we took on the hill without a Guinness.
The Cathedral and the Prague Castle are part of the same grounds, with the Castle and Government buildings surrounding the Cathedral on all sides. There was very little historical commercial activity in the vicinity of the Cathedral which is unique to what we have seen in most cities. In this case the Cathedral was integrated with the center of government, not commerce.
The Cathedral is considered Gothic, and there has been a church on site here since the region was converted to Christianity around 1000 AD, construction of the current Cathedral was begun in 1340, but building ebbed and flowed over the next 500 years and the building was not completed until the 1870’s. For this reason it has elements of Renaissance and Baroque architecture also.
When we got to the entrance there was quite a line to get in, but we decided to buy a ticket because it looked interesting, and also because we were cold, and it looked warmer than outside. It was quite crowded inside, but the building is immense and could handle the crowd.
We both really enjoyed the stained glass windows. They also seemed to be from many different eras which was interesting to compare.
The Cathedral was undergoing repair in the center, so parts of it was roped off. Most of these giant buildings require constant maintenance, so it is rare to visit one that does not have part of the building closed off or covered in scaffolding.
After the Cathedral we moved to Prague Castle. Prague Castle was begun in 970 AD and is the largest castle in the world at 750,000 square feet. Part of it is the official home of the President of the Czech Republic. It was originally built as the home of the King of Bohemia, and has also served as the residence of the Holy Roman Emperors.
Only a small part of it is open to the public, but the scale of the rooms, especially the coronation room is very impressive. The public areas are sparsely furnished, but given the crowds that makes sense.
There is a small street next to the palace that is supposed to represent typical merchant shops from the middle ages. Mostly it looked like an excuse to capture some money from the tourists visiting the Castle. But one of the buildings had a collection of armor from the era which was interesting.
The walk back down the hill was much easier than the walk up the hill, so we decided to reward yourselves with a Pilsner (after all we are in Czechia, not Ireland), and some Goulash. We picked a restaurant at random, and had a nice warm meal. When we ordered our beers the waitress asked a large for the gentleman and a medium for the lady? We said sure, my large beer turned out to be a full liter, which was twice as much as I expected, but I managed to finish it.
After lunch we decided to head back as the forecast called for heavy rain in the late afternoon. It was a good call as a few minutes after reaching François and firing up his heater the rain hit. We spent the rest of the afternoon staying cozy and dry.
