Elf's Shrine

And we're halfway through our trip! There is a walking tour through Prague this morning that starts at the Prague castle. It is still functioning as a government building though. It's kinda like our Istana, just older, grander and open all the time to tourists.

There is St Vitus Cathedral (I can't read Czech so you're gonna have to just go with the English names for everything I list in Prague) on the grounds. The present cathedral was completed over a period of several hundred years. It was first started in 1344, then the master builder (Matthias of Arras) died in 1352 and Peter Parler (seriously I mistyped it as Peter Parker) took over. The left over stuff was completed and the new builder added his own ideas. Because construction on the cathedral proceeded slowly, this went on for another two builders (Wendel and Johannes Parler - his sons). Construction stopped by the 1400s but in 1800s and 1900s, renovation and completion works were done on the cathedral. As such the cathedral is a mix of many different styles over several hundred years.

After that we pretty much strolled through Lesser Quarter and over Charles Bridge.Of point to note on Charles Bridge is a statue of John of Nepomuk. He was thrown off the bridge for not telling the king the secrets that he learnt during confessions. Apparently you get threee wishes and good luck if you touch the statue. If you look at the statue, you will see two sections of shiny areas on the pedestal which the statue rests. One of the areas is on a picture that depicts him being thrown into the Vltava and so if you touch the part where he is being thrown into the river... you get your wishes.

When you get into Old Town, one of the first places you go to is the Astronomical Clock. Every hour, from 0900 to 2100, the clock will sound the hour with a procession of the 12 Apostles, a skeletion will ring the bell and some other statuettes will be shaking their heads. At the end of the procession a cockerel will crow and then someone at the top of the clock tower will sound the trumpet. I really like the trumpeting part lol. 

I also saw one of the places where Bedrich Smetana used to live. So cool! Next year, the choir I am in will be doing a choral version of Die Moldau which is actually composed by Smetana. It is commonly known by it's German name but the original name is Vltava from a suite titled Má Vlast. Here's the piece and enjoy some nice views of Prague while you are at it.

And this is the version that we will be performing.

We also got on a lunch cruise on the Vltava (still feeling all cool about the Vltava and next year's concert). The food was nothing special really and all in all I would say that if you don't have that much time to spend in Prague, you could skip this unless you really wanted to be able to tell people that you were actually on the Vltava.

With lunch settled, it'd free and easy for the rest of the afternoon and the night since I didn't want to go watch the Ice Hockey game. I walked alot, seriously and it was quite irritating for me in Prague especially after Berlin, since I could not read Czech. :D And the street names are hard to find honestly. Quite an adventure though, always fun to get alittle (or quite a bit lost). However, I still think I much preferred Berlin. Prague seems to be mainly shopping, after we took away the stuff that we had covered on the walking tour.

Still, managed to get back to the hotel via their metro system. Not too bad.