Praha

Ahoy! Hello!

We're in Prague,  Czech Republic. We slept while crossing the border. No one asked for our passports, we're in the European Union.

Day One: we walk toward downtown seeing streets and people (who were drinking beer at 11 am),

catch up with a guided group looking at art-nouveau buildings

walk through the plaza

with the phenomenal clock

that shows the zodiac, the day of the year (with the names of the saints inscribed next to it) and when the clock strikes the hour, the statues move (especially the skeleton, reminding us that time flies and we are all going to die)

and a real man plays the trumpet, dressed in a red old-times uniform.

We walk past tourist shops where Pinocchio and Charlie Chaplin are close to Harry Potter and Jack Sparrow,

past groups playing jazz at the corner of the street...

or guys dressed like Mozart that are levitating.

Across Vltava river we can see the Hrad, the castle.

We walk over the Karluv Most, Charles bridge, where people sell their art wares...

or play the harmonica.

Those black belts come in handy as their watching their father's back, while getting money from the ATM

to buy some ice cream (try to pronounce z-mirh-jlee-nah)

Where's your ice-cream?

This plaque is on the wall of the Romanian Embassy, and it shows Mihai the Brave, the first to unite the Romanian Countries under one flag, in 1600.

As we climb the hill toward the castle, we watch a guy picking up his laundry from the roof.

These guys are playing old Czech music, the kind that you would hear in a restaurant while enjoying your Pilsner.

After that we enter the castle grounds, into St. Vitus Cathedral, 

where the third window on the left is made by Mucha (Moo-ka).

The closed eye old woman represents the past and memory, the boy with wide eyes is the future and the hope...the window has lots of hidden messages.

This is St. Vitus tomb, made with 3000 kg of silver.

And here is the private praying chapel of the king, in which the crown and scepter used to be kept,

and its walls are covered in precious stones.

The main hall of the castle has an interesting vaulted ceiling, with no pillars to sustain it

and a beautiful handle door.

And after the castle we see Zlatna Uliça, the Golden Lane, a tiny alley along the castle's wall that gives access to the tiny houses built along it.

This is the house of the seamstress, on the right side you can see the side of the bed, on the left corner is the cupboard and outside the picture the wood stove.

Above the houses, in the wall, there is an armor display, pictured here is one with a bird beak.

The Prague, view from the Castle...

A park where a young man was making soap bubbles and accepted donations to go to Jamaica. He was from Poland and spoke little English. He was one of the few who was working, there are many young people who are just begging, knelt, heads down and petting their dogs.

Then it's time to go home, we take the metro, that has the fastest stairs, I don't know how the elders are managing it.

Last minute groceries, rye bread with cumin seeds...

and cake for her name day!

Morning arrives too early, men are working on the façade of our building (it seems that they are constructing wherever we are going).

So we leave the house for another day of strolling, and not biking, as we could do on this six seats bicycle

or segway-ing, like these people are doing.

We visit the Jewish Quarter, with Franz Kafka's statue...

and synagogues (with two clocks, so you could watch the one that has your numbers, Arabic or Jewish)

We visit almost all of them and learn so many things, Mihai will tell you more in a future blog. They have a no picture policy, and though some of them were transformed into museums, they still retained that sober air. Pinkas synagogue's walls were covered with the names, date of birth and of last date to be known alive of the 77,297 Czech Jews murdered in the Nazi's camps.

In their Jewish Quarter, in which they were allowed to live, but could not have any jobs,  beside lending money and becoming doctors, they had one cemetery and over the 300 years it became a small plateau. 

Back in the Old Town we visit another church...

watch people as they go in horse-drawn carts...

admire the new style of building...

look at painted 5 euros bricks that will help disabled people to have a work place...

and at a one man orchestra, before going to Mucha's museum, which also has a policy of no pictures. His moment came when Sarah Bernhardt didn't like the poster for her new play, they asked him

courtesy of wikipedia

 and from then on he just created wonderful art.

This is my last picture in Prague, though we stayed another day. While Ileana and Mihai visited Kutna Hora, a church decorated with human bones, the rest of us stayed in bed and took advantage of the internet.

Dēkuji (dee-eh-koo-you)! Thank you for the memories!

Na slehdanou (nah sled-ah-know)! Good bye!