Our first and lasting impression of Prague is of a Hallmark card. This is the fairy tale city except that it is real! I don't remember too much from our first visit to Prague 53 years ago except that it was pretty then and it still is. It did not suffer the same extent of destruction that Warsaw and some other cities did during WWII.
The central point of Prague is the Charles Bridge. Our hotel was just one block from the bridge and we had an excellent view of the bridge, the river and the castle.
We were met at the airport by our guide, Radek, dropped our luggage at the hotel and then we were off for a walking tour of the area. The streets are narrow, curve every which way and unless you know where you are going you can get lost easily. We went winding in and out until we reached the Old Town Hall and the Astronomical Clock. We had to wait to see the clock work on the hour and it was amazing.
The clock was so amazing we decided we should return the next morning and take movies. Click here to see a You-Tube video of the clock at 9am on a Sunday morning. Watch how the apostles appear in the left window and disappear from the right window. Also the little man on the right that rings the bell.
This is the view from our room. That's the Charles Bridge and the Castle is up on the hill in the background.
On the way to the Old Town Hall. This isn't one of the narrowest streets but it gives some idea.
The Old Town Hall with the Astronomical Clock is the last building on the left. The tall spires belong to the church.
On our walk around the city, we saw many interesting facades. Prague suffered relatively little damage during the war so there are a lot of the older sights remain. However, the streets are so narrow that the parallax distorts the image. The picture on the left shows an interesting facade. The picture in the center is part of one of the squares. On the right is a close-up of part of that facade which shows the pictures that are part of the wall.
I was intrigued with the long limousine because I didn't think it could maneuver through the narrow streets of Prague. I guess it can because it wasn't there when we got back to the square. On the far side of the square you can see the spires of a church. The picture below and to the right show the interior of that church.
The Charles Bridge is one of the main attractions in Prague. It seems to always be filled with tourists from all over the world. We walked over the bridge one evening about 10pm and it was still crowded. Below are a couple of pictures of the bridge and a night picture of the Palace. It is really like a fairy tale both day and night. The funny looking structures in the river by the bridge are not water-ski jumps! They are there to protect the bridge from debris that might float down the river and bang into the bridge columns.
