Prague Castle, Lennon Wall and Charles Bridge

guarded exit onto
Hradcany Square

We did our walking today! Prague Castle, which according to the Guinness World Records, is the largest ancient castle in the world. It covers about 18 acres of Prague with its royal palace, cathedral, four courtyards, several museums and towers. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it was founded around 880 by a prince, and added onto and rebuilt several times over the centuries. It still serves as the seat of the Presidency, in the non-historic sections that weren't open to the toursts. We spent about seven hours walking and touring the buildings and museums.

Lucky for us, Zora, the receptionist at our hotel, told us to take the tram up the hill instead of getting off at the first Castle tram stop. Excellent advice: when we left, we walked down the multitude of steps that our niece Becky and her family had walked up when they visited Prague Castle in August. Zora also recommended getting there early, which we did. By noon, we were sharing the courtyards with several thousand of our close friends and the ticket line wait was probably over an hour long.

Thru security (FYI, no drones allowed) and into the second courtyard, and we came to St. Vitus Cathedral.  The foundation stone was laid in 1344, but the cathedral wasn't finshed and consecrated until 1928. Since it's the first major feature after the entrance, the line to get in was already long at 9:30 am. We skipped it, planning to return. However, when we walked back a few hours later, the line of people at the entrance wrapped around the side of the building and almost all the way to the back of the cathedral. So, just pictures of the outside. It has gargoyles, but I've given you enough gargoyle pictures for now. Since most of the construction was done in the 1800s, we've seen older cathedrals in Switzerland and France.

We went into the Old Royal Palace, one of the oldest parts of the Castle, dating from 1135. The Vladislav Hall was used for coronations, banquets, and indoor jousting tournaments. The steps out the back of the hall had a high arch and a wide, shallow set of steps for the horses and knights to enter the hall.  The late-Gothic vaulted ceiling is from 1500. The Old Palace is also famous for the 1618 Defenestration of Prague that started the Thirty Years War in all of Europe. That was when Protestants nobles threw a couple of Catholic councillors and their secretary out the window into the dung-filled moat. (They survived.)

Our next stop was the Basilica of St. George. This one didn't have fancy stained glass, but rather crypts of dead kings. The painted scenes on the walls and ceilings were original, so they were a bit faded.

After the Basilica, we walked down the Golden Lane, actually an alley with tiny cottages. It was built in the 16th century to house the sharpshooters of the castle guard, but later used by goldsmiths, then artists. Franz Kafka lived in House 22 during 1916-1917, renting the house from his sister and writing one of his books there.

Accessed from one of the doors off of the Golden Lane was perhaps our favorite museum, the armor museum. A spiral staircase took us up to two halls of armor.

The displays of armor were labeled as to the time period and empire name from which they came. I walked thru and looked at each one, but none of them had been worn by the Knights who say Ni.

After the Golden Lane, we came to the Dalibor Tower. It had originally been a cannon tower, but it became the Castle's prison in 1496. The displays there were of the torture devices, such as racks and cages. It is named after its first prisoner, a man who backed rebels against a feudal lord. He was imprisoned for two years, then ordered to "forfeit his chattels (property), his honor, and his head." Yep, he was beheaded in 1498. This display isn't him.... it still has its head. The tower also had an oubliette - a word from the movie "Labrynth" (my girls learned to appreciate David Bowie from that movie!) It is a pit. Prisoners were lowered into it and left for... however long the king wanted them left there.

Enough of dungeons and military exhibits, we then walked along the south wall, so here are some pictures of the view.

Phillip and I wandered around looking for the entrance to the Powder Tower and came across a hall with a special exhibit of artwork made by children from around the world. It was a bit off the beaten path and the only exhibit at which we were the only persons viewing it. The kids had used Legos, cardboard boxes, folded paper and whatever they had to create their version of Prague Castle.

Next, we crossed the bridge over the moat (we couldn't see it - it was either overgrown or drained) and walked thru the Royal Gardens.

St. Vitus Cathedral, seen from the Royal Gardens

Two of the many statues in the garden

glassware from the 15th century

Our final stop in the castle complex was the museum under the Royal Palace. We had missed its entry when we were on that side of the Castle, so we walked back over to it. This museum had rooms of glass cases containing the historic items that had been found over the years. King Wenseslas's helmet and chain mail, the grave of a 9-th century warrior discovered during a reconstruction, and items from palace life over the years.

We left the Castle and walked down the hill toward the river. By now it was well past lunch, so we stopped and both had a plate of Czech goulash. Before we crossed the Charles Bridge, we walked a fe blocks farther east and visited the John Lennon Wall. During the 1980s, young people keyed on John Lennon as an icon for their protests of the communist regime. They started putting graffiti on this wall, even after 1989's revolution. The current owners, the Knights of Malta, no longer whitewash the wall, allowing anyone and everyone to write on it. A man was sitting in front of the wall, singing Beatles songs, and making money from those (including me) who donated into his guitar case.

Phillip and I strolled across the Charles Bridge, built in 1390. Over the years, it sustained some flood damage but is mainly intact in its original state after over 600 years. The bridge is pedestrian only, but that change wasn't made until after WWII. Statues adorn the bridge at each end and about every fifteen paces across both sides. The statues are generally religious in nature, but some of them may be famous people from the 14th century.

By the time we got to Charles Bridge, the wind had picked up and the sky had gotten more overcast. It didn't feel like rain, and it didn't rain on us, but I checked the temperature. 49 degrees. So, what does one do when the weather is really chilly? If you're Phillip, you get ice cream. Actually, the ice cream was just to fill the chimney cake, called trdelnik in Czech. It's a yeast dough, formed around a stick, baked, then rolled in cinnamon sugar. Phillip had his filled with ice cream. It was as if a cinnamon roll had been transformed into an ice cream cone. Delicious! After we ate the trdelnik, we walked back to our hotel. Tomorrow, we have a guided tour of Terezin. Thursday, we'll visit the Old Town area of Prague.