Below is a panoramic shot of the Staroměstské Náměstí (Old Town Square) whose usage dates back to before 1400. From left to right there is the large dark building, the Staroměstská Radnice (Old Town Hall) whose construction began in 1338. Next is the Kostel svatého Mikuláše (Church of St. Nicholas) in the Staré Město (Old Town) district. This church should not be confused with the Kostel svatého Mikuláše in the Malá Strana (Little Quarter) district, which you will see on the next page. The dark statue of the Jan Hus Monument is just to the right of center. It was unveiled on 6 July 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Hus's burning at the stake in 1415 as a heretic by order of the Catholic Church's Council of Constance. Hus preached about the church's corruptness, which, of course, was a no-no. The red-roofed Palác Goltz-Kinskych (Goltz-Kinsky Palace), built in 1755-1765, is next. U kamenného zvonú (House of the Stone Bell) with the dark squarish roof behind the palace dates back to before the end of the 13th century. The two large steeples belong to the Kostel Panny Marie pred Týnem (Church of Our Lady Týn) which is above the parked van. Its beginnings date from the 14th century. The church. Not the van. One of the members of the UTEP group, Ben, is standing to the right of the van. He dates from probably the early 1980's.
One of the must see attractions is the astronomical clock, or orloj (horologe) in the picture below. It is on the side of the Old Town Hall, and can just be seen at the left end of the panorama above. A crowd gathers every hour to see a small statue of Death (the small picture) at the right edge of the upper circle ring a bell and turn his hourglass over, and to watch the twelve apostles parade by the two windows at the top of the clock. Using a GPS synchronized wristwatch we determined that the clock was exactly one minute slow. I guess we can cut it a little slack seeing as how its construction began in 1410. Everyone cheered and clapped when the twenty second long show was over.
In various places across America there are signs purporting "Washington slept here" (the first president of the United States) mostly as a sales gimmick. Not to be outdone, Praha has clearly upped the stakes a bit with a plaque on one of the buildings in the Old Town Square effectively stating that "Einstein played music here". I would guess he probably slept there too.
Karlova Nábřeží (Karlova Street), below, leads through the Old Town district from the square towards the Staroměstská Mostecká Věž (Old Town Bridge Tower) of Staré Město, and the east end of Karlův Most (Charles Bridge). Construction of the tower was started in 1380. At this point we were pretending to be salmons by walking upstream. It looks real crowded in the picture, but it really didn't seem that way.
Below we are looking back towards where we just came from in the picture above. To the left is the Křižovnické Náměstí (Knights of the Cross Square) created in the 16th century which was part of the route that was followed from Vyšehrad to Praha Castle by the coronation processions of Bohemian sovereigns. The blue-green dome belongs to the Church of St. Francis Seraphicus, which is part of a larger complex of buildings which were the Charles University and later a Jesuit college. In front of the church you can see that there is a statue of Charles IV which was unveiled to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the university -- in 1848!
Charles Bridge is 516 meters long and 10 meters wide and was completed in about the year 1400. At that size it was hard to get a good picture of the bridge while on the bridge. Below is a picture of the Towers of Malá Strana at the west end. The shorter of the two towers dates back to the late 12th century and was part of the older Juditín Most (Judith Bridge). The taller tower was built in the second half of the 15th century. There are 30 statues on the bridge with half of them down each side. Most of the statues were added between 1706 and 1714. The statue in the picture is that of St. Vitus which was made in 1714.
Below we are looking in the downstream direction of the Vltava river from Charles Bridge with Mánesův Most (Mánesův Bridge) in the center, and with the buildings of the districts Josefov and Staré Město to the right.
Two bridges upstream from Charles Bridge is the Jiráskův Most (Jiráskův Bridge). Below is a picture taken from that bridge looking downstream towards the Legií Most (Legií Bridge) and Charles Bridge beyond that with Pražský Hrad (Praha Castle) in the background. There are four islands in the Vltava river near the downtown area of Praha. On the left is a portion of Střelecky Ostrov (Střelecky Island). The guy in the boat was trying to impress his girlfriend by paddling upstream.
2018-03-06