Day TWENTY FOUR

On our last day we visited the beautiful Karlův Most, or Charles Bridge, and then walked up the hill to Prague castle, where we looked inside the cathedral of St Vitus. 

Construction of this, the most impressive bridge I've ever seen, started in 1357 (?!) by order of King Charles IV of Bohemia, and was the only way across the Valtava river until 1841. It is made of Bohemian sandstone, is about 600 metres long and has three guard towers, but the real interest are the beautiful sculptures which look down at you from the sides of the structure as you cross. 

Although they are replicas of the real ones (mostly erected between 1683-1714 but taken down in the 1960s for preservation) they are breathtakingly beautiful. Further restoration occurred between 1965-78 after the damage made during WWII, and the bridge was made pedestrian only. These days there are small craft and gift stalls set up along the bridge (like everywhere else there are tourists) and some groups also busk or perform music for free. There would have been shops along the bridge in earlier times, and the bridge itself is quite wide (about 10 meters), so I didn't find the stalls to be too annoying or to detract from the experience. The architectural style of the bridge is gothic, and the statues baroque. They are mostly bohemian saints.

We started from the Old Town side of the bridge, and crossed over onto the more hilly side of town to explore the cathedral.

Two photos of Tyler actually smiling. You're welcome world. 

^ Walking up Nerudova Street to the castle...

^ You can literally get a bloody Pumpkin Spiced Latte anywhere. 

^ view looking back over Prague from the castle

^ Very violent statues guarding the gates - loved the brutality in these - sure fire way to scare the peasants away!

^ door to St Vitus's

^ Sebastian having a nap before dinner after another long day. In each hostel his stuff seemed to spread further and further away from his bunk by the hour haha

with love from Prague

Prague | Old Town | Day 23

Day TWENTY THREE

Contrasting with the sites of yesterday, we decided to explore the beautiful Old Town of Prague 1 today, and (spoiler alert) see the other side of the river and go up to the castle tomorrow. The town square and astronomical clock were the highlights of today, as well as a statue of a naked lady who's vagina you can climb into (anyone else just get a terrifying 'Grimsby' flashback?).

David Černý is the man behind a lot of Prague's public pieces of political art - alliteration - including the weird giant black babies with no faces that you can see crawling up the TV tower, the reflective lady with the open womb, and many other statement pieces. When the new President moved into his river-facing mansion, Černý erected a giant purple hand, pulling an enlarged middle finger, on a barge and moored it on the river so the President could see it. Because of his popularity as an artist, and the political climate, the President decided to let it remain there, rather than deal with the possibility of a riot.

The astronomical clock (local name Orloj) was installed in 1410, and it meant to tell us the location of the sun and moon n the sky. It is also the oldest astronomical clock still working.

^ When in Prague, order half a duck with dumplings. It has to be done, and then never done ever again.

next: Prague | Karlův most | Day 24

Prague | Holešovice & Městská | Day 22

Day TWENTY TWO

Aaand we are out of Germany! 

With Tyler down again with a bad case of food poisoning - a German parting gift from a sandwich at the Berlin train station - Sebastian and I decided to leave him in bed and take a 'Prague alternative walking tour'. Now, being a born and raised West Coast American, Sebastian was attracted to the guided tour like a moth to a flame. Nothing wrong with that. I, however, had never been on a guided city tour, and had no desire to ever go on one. 

I am so glad I went on this one. 

I can't do it justice on here, but I can tell you that the tour is run by Prague Alternative Walking Tours, and covers Czech (youth) society after the fall of communism, the current street art scene and graffiti areas, other local art and art galleries, urban bio gardens, and a brief look at the (secret) headquarters of the Czech branch of the hackers group anonymous. I haven't included photos here, but the hacker HQ has an eco cafe on the first floor, where the only way to buy food or drink is to use bitcoin, or physical labour by form of washing up the dishes. 

Our tour guide is one of the only female graffiti and street artists in the capital, a documentary maker and political thinker. She gave us insight into the 'illegal' punk scene before the revolution, contemporary hip hop and graffiti political jigsaw, the  Prague grime and D&B scene, and she even showed us her old block of apartments, which were being demolished that very day, where her and other international artists lived and created. At the end of the tour she took us to the Cross Club, a steampunk style club with yet more interesting backstory.

Even though this tour is clearly aimed at foreign tourists, it has a feeling of originality and authenticity to it, which I feel is missing in many of these 'tourist activities' the world over. I think we have forgotten that we (the tourists) go to visit a location or landmark because it is unique, and it is a real thing that has both historical, political or cultural (and sometimes all three) importance to the place it belongs to. Far too often the 'attraction' has been engineered to fit the tourists' wants and needs, and a catch 22 ensues; are we here to look at something interesting, or has something interesting been engineered for us to look at? And pay money to do so? One of the reasons I have no interest at all in visiting Disneyland.

Our party included our bossy but strangely motherly Eastern European guide, Myself, Sebastian (loud American accent and giant camera in hand), a gay guy form our hostel who seemed shy of everyone else's extroverted personalities, and a gender-free American goth woman called Sybil, who was both a source of amusement, mainly for her humorous questions to our guide, and annoyance - again, because of her questions to our guide. A lively bunch in all.

We started in Prague 1, the most historic, affluent and touristy part of the city. We then went north west to Prague 6 and Prague 7 to see a different, more modest side of Prague, and I was able to imagine what life in the capital is actually like away from the buzz of the town centre. 

^ Most of the churches in Prague were sold after the revolution to private foreign buyers with the only requirement being that they maintained the buildings. this has resulted in a lot of beautifully restored and well kept private churches which are not open for public services, but can be rented out for private functions, such as birthday parties.

^ The Prague TV tower, voted ugliest building in Europe, the black dots on the coloumns are actually sculptures of giant black babies with no faces, representing the fragile new Czech Republic and the unknown direction for their future.

The apartment block formally known as home to our tour guide

I thought I would include this last picture as I felt it was quite well juxtaposed to our interesting and alternative day. Sebastian's Netflix-ing was compromised. Never mind, Tyler was better in time to join us for beer and cards. Naturally.

And no. This is not an ad.

Find their website here:http://www.praguealternativetours.cz/prague-alternative-tour/

and our tour guide's HBO documentary on female graffiti gangs in Prague here: http://www.girlpowermovie.com/

next: Prague | Day 23