Tuesday 1/7 Prague Castle and the old city

We had resolved ourselves to make this a full-on, jam-packed day of industrial strength sight seeing. We got up at 7, got ready and went down for breakfast. In fact, we were ready so early that breakfast hadn't even started yet. We didn't want to waste the day, so we headed straight out and picked up some breakfast snacks along the way, from a convenience store.

We took the metro over to the west side of the river. Our first target was the Prague castle, called Prazsky Hrad. We made our way, trekking up the hill leading to the place, following a steady stream of tourists defying gravity and travelling up the slope.

As we ascended the view of te city got increasingly more spectacular. I kept on wanting to stop to take photos, only to find a better shot several meters up the path.

At the top there was a nice old square, filled with tourist groups and some solo-ers like us. There was a small band playing classical pieces of music, adding very much to the atmosphere of the place.

There were some guards at the gate to the castle; those kind that stay still no matter what. Some people were doing stupid things around them and taking photos. I didn't think that it was all too respectful to them to be doing that, albeit it was a tad funny. As we walked past and into the main courtyard of the castle I saw the eyes of the guards moving. I suppose that they have to keep their heads still but they can look around to see if anything is happening that needs their attention.

We took photos with a statue of the first president of the country, Tom.

The gates had some rather macabre statues atop them. One had a man holding a knife to another man who was pinned to the ground. Another statue had a man holding a club, in a similar manner. Very surly.

Inside, we took some photos with the big fountain there, and then bought some tickets. The level of tickets we bought allowed us access to the palace building, The Basilica of St George and the Golden Lane. Walking around the grounds and the Basilica of St Vitus were both free.

Our first stop was the Basilica of St Vitus. There was a bit of a queue to get in but it moved quite quickly. The architecture around the building was pretty amazing. Very Gothic, with gargoyles around every single corner and up all the walls. Inside it was quite a sight, very large with lots of stuffs around the place, but very crowded, packed with tourist groups. It was really just another church to me, even though I´m sure many would find it a completely amazing experience.

We did the rounds and saw most of what we could, and then headed outside to continue our tour of the castle. We made it outside to a large open area where photo opportunities loomed. Malfi, having been neglected a tad lately, got some time in the sun. We then went into the palace building. Was a tad boring with nothing out of the ordinary to point at in complete awe. Yep, no awe to be had. The views out from the terrace were all right though.

The St George Basilica was also not much of anything, but I think the attraction of it lies with the man and not the place. Finally, we hit Golden Lane which was a street where builders and artisans lived, built into the walls of the castle. It seemed basically like an opportunity to buy lots of expensive souvenirs, and we had paid for a ticket for that opportunity, heh.

We left the tower and made our way down a path that led to a nice little park with some benches in the shade. It was quite a beautiful little place. We ate the lunch we´d made for ourselves there, and decided what our next move was. After finishing our food we made our way over to St Nicholas Basilica.

Wow, what a place, a bastion of baroque architecture, and a completely inspiring place at that. The inside was filled with many statues and sculptures, most painted over in areas with gold. The amount of gold that caught the eye as you looked in gave off an overwhelming feeling, and didn't let you doubt the effort that someone had put into making this church a place to impress. The truly amazingness of the place however lied in the frescos on the roof. The roof and the walls just below it were painted to imitate more sculpted architecture there. In some places you couldn't tell where the building ended and the painted area began. Inspired.

When our necks were sufficiently sore from staring upwards at the ceiling we headed to a nearby café where we had some coffee/tea drinks and some cake; caramel cake and a cheese cake. Yum!

We made use of a camera store and a post office, and sent off a whole bunch of shot glasses, a couple t-shirts and a cd with backed up photos from the last few weeks. We bought a little bendy tripod for our cameras, for less than $10. A very good buy.

Then, we headed over to the John Lennon wall. What an absolutely amazing place. Apart from a brief interruption by a loud young American tour group, it was a peaceful serene and beautiful place. The wall was covered in every colour imaginable and slogans of peace, love and the such were painted across in large bright letters. In every bit of small space on the wall were also hundreds of little messages written by people in pen. Emma and I left our own little comments hidden in the massive chaos of the thing.

From there we headed back over Charles Bridge to our usual metro station, in order to get back to the hostel. The whole way back we had Imagine in our heads, and also Bridges and Balloons due to the very obvious image in front of us as we crossed the bridge.

We got back and did some blogging downstairs in the bar, over a beer. We really shouldnt do the whole beer during the day, on an empty stomach thing. It just leaves us tired, and sometimes a bit tispy. We went out for Chinese take-out and returned to eat it. Afterwards, we kept blogging, laying on our beds. Second mistake. We completely slept through to about 10:30, way past the 9pm start time for the kareoke thing we were planning on going to that night. Oh well, a shame. Emma tried to get us to go out a bit, but I had already given up, being pretty tired myself.