Praha (Prague), Czech Republik

In late June and early July, 2005, my family and I (I'm Glenn, by the way) took a trip to the Czech Republik. It had been a long time since we had taken a proper family trip together, since my wife and I usually got vacations at different times and the kids also were in different schools with different vacation schedules. But finally, everything came together, and we decided to splurge and make a trip. We had been wanting to take a trip to Prague for fifteen years, even had it planned one time in the early 90's, but this time we made it happen. You can see the route we took on the map at left.

We took a night train from Frankfurt, Germany to Prague, so we arrived pretty early in the morning. We had done a web search of hotels from our home in Tokyo before leaving, but the all seemed so pricey that we decided to just show up and see if anything reasonable was available locally. Inside the train station we found plenty of agents with clear files of hotels with pictures attached, and we picked one out that was not too far away from it all yet reasonable in price. Since it wasn't too far way from the station, we decided to just walk to it. The subway could have been another viable option, although we didn't realize it at the time. The subway stop for the subway is Hlavni nadrazi and a subway map is available at http://www.dpp.cz/download/schema-metra-v-praze.pdf. Streetcars are more romantic, but their routes are also a little harder to understand. Of course, taxis are also an option.

We stayed at the Pension Platan, pictured here. As you can see, the first room we had, the one we book at the station, just had some windows in the ceiling, so you won't be staying here for the views. As it turns out, they have a few rooms booked at the station and they book the others privately. We thought the ones booked privately were a little nicer, so we moved to one of them after we returned to Prague from our car tour of the country.

I can't say the location is quite as convenient as the web site claims, but we soon became accustomed to using the subway, so it was not an issue.

Before I get into a tour of the city, let me say a few words about the subway system, because it was so different from the subway I ride every day here in Tokyo. There are ticket machines, but we didn't find them very user-friendly, or at least we couldn't figure out what to do with them. Not to worry - you can also buy tickets from shops near the entrances. You buy the tickets not for a destination, but rather for a certain number of minutes from the time the ticket is validated. Therefore, you must validate the tickets upon entering the subway, or you should validate them, as there is nothing stopping you from not validating them or for that matter from walking in without any ticket at all. Once on a train, though, ticket inspectors will frequently come by and ask you for your ticket. If you don't have a valid one, I can imagine there is hell to pay. This system is also used on the trams.

I have often seen pictures of the super-long escalators in the Moscow and Pyongyang subways, although I've never been to either city to see them first hand. I can imagine what they're like, though, after having been on the ones in Prague. And are they fast! They must be twice the speed of the ones in Tokyo. Hang on to your hats!

Of course you can't go to Prague and avoid the Charles Bridge (Karlov Most) or Prague Castle (Prazsky Hrad) any more than you can to Paris and avoid the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame, so let's get it over with early. Here's a picture of the entrance to the bridge. The guide books and signs warn you of pickpockets, so that means they must be there. However, I guess we were lucky, because we just had a nice time walking across the bridge taking pictures and listening to the music.

Music, you say? You bet. I do have some street musicians in Tokyo, but they are quite rare. As you can tell, two of these pictures at left were taken on the bridge. The bottom of left is of three ladies that sang beautiful a capella melodies, and the group at top right played jazz. The gents at top left were at the entrance to the castle, of course playing polkas, and the accordionist at bottom right was playing on the steps up to the castle.

Well, this IS the picture of Prague, isn't it, so here we go. Even though I'd seen this view of Prague Castle and St Vitus' Cathedral many times before going, I hadn't really focused on the fact that what gave it its unique look was the fact that it had a Baroque spire plopped in the middle of a Neo-Gothic Cathedral.

We took the tram up to the base of the castle (tram stop Prazsky Hrad on trams 22 or 23) and then walked up from there. After going through a nice little park and past some shops you get to the gate with the guard in the powder blue uniform (you can see him on the banner at the top of this page). Here's a close up of the south side of St. Vitus Cathedral. Just read a newspaper article this week (I'm writing this on Feb. 22, 2006) that the church and the State are "fighting a legal battle for control of Prague's iconic St. Vitus complex." It calls the Czech Republic "the most atheistic country in the world." This is odd, considering it borders on strongly Catholic Poland.

Naturally, once inside St. Vitus you will be treated to some lovely stained glass windows.

If you're there at the right time of day, you get to see Prague Castle's changing of the guard. At left you can see the guards passing through the main entrance. A plaque on the front of the gate says the original statues were replaced with the copies you see. Perhaps that was to protect them from the acid rain?

If I remember correctly, admission to Prague Castle itself is free, but there is an admission charge for the more interesting areas of it. This was Golden Lane, one of those areas. It was the area where the artisans and groundskeepers who performed maintenance functions for the castle stayed, the workshop of the castle if you will. Just up beyond that group of tourists is the entrance to the museum, where you can see weapons, armor, instruments of torture, etc. We found it pretty interesting.

As you might expect, there are some nice views to the city to be had from the top of the hill. Here's a view of the Charles Bridge from the castle, a view much less famous than the reverse. There aren't too many breaks in the wall where you can take pictures like this, so I had to wait quite a while for the tourists ahead of me to take their souvenir shots before I could get up to it to take this one.

Let's take time out to go to Google Earth and see how that looks from the satellite. The resolution of the photo of Prague that I first saw when I downloaded this program was horrible, but they've really improved it. Here you can clearly see the spires of St Vitus, the red roofs below, and over the river Wenceslaus Square with the Museum just barley visible at top right.

I'd read in several guidebooks that Wenceslaus Square was considered the center of Prague, but I had already walked up and down this broad boulevard before I figured out that this was Wenceslaus Square. Doesn't exactly look like Tiananmen in Beijing, does it? That building at the top is the National Museum, so you can get here by subway if you get off at the Muzeum stop.

The Czechs are known for their love of the offbeat, and this is evident is some of the artwork exhibited in Wenceslaus Square. The inset is a sculpture made from gutted Skodas or Trabants or whatever, welded into a sort of pyramid shape. Doesn't do much for me, but, as I've said before, any artwork for me is like pearls before swine.

Up at the top of the hill, in front of the National Museum, you will find a Mc Donald's. Nothing so noteworthy about that, but they did serve salads with balls of white cheese in them, Czech style, along with Pilsner Urquel beer to wash them down with. Pilsner Urquel is a little too bitter for my taste, so when I went for the Czech platter (pork, duck, two kinds of dumplings, and two kinds of sauerkraut) I went for draft Staropramen. Although the guidebooks will tell you that the Czechs have the distinction of being the biggest beer drinkers on the planet, I can't really say that I saw any real evidence to corroborate that. I will say that we enjoyed the pivo there and helped push up their numbers a little bit.

OK, another "must see" place in Prague is the Old Town Square. On one side of the square you'll find the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn with its similar but different spires. I don't know a lot about it, so I'll direct you to someone who does.

And if you want to see a more dramatic picture of it, go here: http://www.landiss.com/tyn.htm

In case you want to add even more romance to an already romantic setting, you can see the area by horse drawn cart. I took this picture in the Old Town Square, right in front of the Tyn Church, pictured above.

Just around the corner from the Tyn Church you'll find this "Astronomical Clock" which they say dates from the 15th century. We found another one on this in Olomouc. The dials beneath the clock tell you the month, positions of the stars, even the saint for each on the one in Olomouc. Of course everyone waits with baited breath for it to strike the hour, when the windows open for a minute or two and statues of various saints come creaking up and rotate to look out the window at you to a chimed melody.

Another stop on the tourist trail is the old Jewish quarter of Prague. It centers around this synagogue, interestingly known as the Old - New Synagogue. It dates back to the 13^th century. Up and to the right you will find the Old Jewish Cemetery, but it is quite expensive to enter (USD$16), so we gave it a miss. However, you can find pictures of it here.

As beautiful as Prague was, the rest of the Czech Republik was out there waiting for us, so we were looking to rent a car and hit the open road. There were brochures for car rentals all around us, even one on the first floor of the building that our hotel was in, but they all had one nasty trait - they doubled their rates on Saturday and Sunday. Luckily, the lady in our hotel offered to let me use her laptop and get on the Internet, and I found Royal Rent a Car. They offered the same low weekly rates through the weekend, spoke great English, and offered us some good travel information. Therefore, we decided to go with them and, although they had a Fiat for the same price, we rented this Czech Skoda so that we could "go native." You can see the route we drove at the top of this page.

As I walked through the streets, stopping into souvenir shops and reading the neon signs, I couldn't help but wish that I'd been able to see Prague in the Communist era when there were no signs and shops were bare. Still, I don't want to say anything to detract from its beauty; All of the good things that we'd heard about the city are true. Prague is truly one of the most beautiful and romantic places on Earth, and as I look at the pictures on this page and read what I've written, it's clear to me that I haven't come close to capturing the magic of the city.

I guess the best thing I can say to you is that if you have the time and the financial wherewithal to see Prague, by all means go. You will not regret it.