Prague

Prague was the first destination of my travel month during the summer school holidays. I had planned to make the most of my holidays by travelling as much as I could. A new city each week was more tiring than I expected!

Before I left for Prague, I had in my head a picturesque view of the castle with the Charles bridge in the foreground, quaint houses and buildings that lined the streets with a romantic atmosphere. I have to say, I was slightly disappointed but overall enjoyed what we saw.

View from Prague's Old Town Square, home of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn. Prague has a lot of churches/cathedrals that were built in a Gothic style. This is one of the most prominent. Do you think the church is symmetrical? Look closely. It isn't. As part of Gothic architecture, they wanted to represent the masculine and feminine sides of the world.

The Astronomical Clock that's not so astronomical :P

Yes it is the oldest and one of the most visited attraction in Europe (within the top 3) but definitely not astronomical when you gather at the clock with hundreds of other tourist to watch a whole 3 mins of the 12 apostles go around in circles and that's it. It's made up of three parts which were thought out quite thoroughly by the clockmaker Hanus: The Walk of Apostles (top), The Clock Dial (middle), The Calendar (bottom). (Go here if you want to read about the historical features behind all three parts Astronomical Clock).

Estates Theatre

A beautiful theatre where the first performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera  'The Marriage of Figaro'  played right here in this very place and now the theatre's repertoire consists mainly of Mozarts operas and occasionally the odd ballets and concerts. We managed to get tickets to watch Don Giovanni but more on that later :)

The Gothic Powder Tower: the gunpowder storage place. 

Our lunch stop: Bagels... gourmet bagels. 

Franz Kafka Statue

Kafka was a German language author that wrote short stories and novels. He is seen to be one of the most influential writers in the 20th century. This statue represents a line from one of his books where he writes about a person sitting on top of someone's shoulders walking through the streets. Apparently his books are quite negative and include writings about his feelings of isolation, pain and hopelessness. 

The Jewish Quarter

The Old Jewish Cemetery/Synagogue

This place definitely pulled a few heart strings as I walked around looking at the 77000+ names, who were victims of the Holocaust. Their name are written by hand on the walls. I was amazed at how the names covered so many walls from top to bottom! It seemed never ending! It also has a collection of paintings and drawings by the children held in the concentration camp during WWII of how they felt, what they hoped for and what they saw. 

Pinkas Synagogue

On Charles Bridge with the castle in the background. 

Look what we found! A Gloria Jeans in Prague! :D Just like back home :)

We made our way up to the top of the castle and saw magnificent views of Prague. 

They have a lot of red roofs :)

When you buy the ticket to go into all the different areas of Prague Castle (I don't think it's a castle, it's so big and structured like a small town!) There are 9 areas you can visit: Cathedral of St Vitus, Old ROyal Palace, The Story of Prague Castle, St George's Basilica, National Gallery, Daliborka Tower, Prague Castle Picture Gallery, Powder Tower and Rosenberg Palace. These could not all be seen within a day so we spread ours over the 2 and still didn't manage to see everything! 

St George's Basilica 

Inside the Basilica where I took a photo and somewhere lost the ticket to get into the other areas of the castle :( Luckily the lady who sold us the ticket was lovely and gave us a Media Pass costing only CZK10 as opposed to a full ticket costing CZK350 :)

Another Powder Tower  (how much gunpowder do you need to store in a city?! :P)

A museum of war stuff - was slightly boring so Kum and I decided to make our own fun by standing behind the glass display cabinets and pretending to be a soldier or Boba Fett from Star Wars :)

Our night with Don Giovanni :)

Inside the theatre - beautiful and classy isn't it?

The opera, even though Kum and I couldn't understand a word of it, was very entertaining. They only had 3 musicians for the whole performance, who were very talented, and two opera singers/actors. They were all brilliant at what they did. 

As we took a long time finding a place to eat dinner before the performance, we were actually by 5-10mins late. Not knowing how strict these theatres were for late comers, we quickly made our way to the theatre to discover that it was worth missing the first 5 mins as we were given box seats (the lady forgot to write a seat number on our ticket :D)! Of course we had to take a photo in there for evidence :)

What's behind door number one?

Kum! :P haha... cheesy I know. Its ok, I told him to do it :)

Prague by night :) Magical.

We found a cute breakfast cafe near our hotel.

 But when we ordered poached eggs, we weren't expecting ice cream...

...or two measly sausages with thing slices of vegetables. haha, must have been a skinny pig :P

Our favourite busker in town :) He was so cute and charming. He could dance, sing and play the sax very well :) 

Around and around - it's Trdlnik! 

A sweet bread rolled around a cyclinder, baked and covered in sugar! Simple but oh so yummy!

Look at me twirl! :P

We watched a couple of guys make it up at Prague Castle. 

In the middle of the Old Town Square was small stalls with traditional Czech food. Of course we had to try them :)

Klobasa

Sauerkraut, potato, onions and ham and cheese. 

Unfortunately we didn't have good weather on the second day in the afternoon.

Wenceslas Square - similar to Trafalgar Square. 

The place where public demonstrations, celebrations, festivals etc. happen. 

One famous riot that everyone in Prague remembers is when a young boy, Jan Palach, died for freedom by burning himself in front of a crowd to protest the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1968. A memorial is placed here in Wencaslas Square where he tried to burn himself.