Pretty, Pragmatic, Pricture-Prerfect Prague

A most beautiful city, but cold and rainy today. At about 9 degrees for most of the day, we succumbed and bought gloves and umbrellas before setting out exploring. We had a taste of Prague last night; we went out for dinner and experienced the magic of all the old buildings around the Old Town Square (just metres from our apartment) lit up to create a really beautiful atmosphere. We also found a delightful restaurant in a building that dates back to the 13th century - an old malting house -and had roast duck and goulash, preceded by a local liqueur aperitif and washed down (for John, anyway) by the local beer. Today we visited the old town hall, which has a Gothic astronomical clock on its tower (lit up last night). On the hour, death rings a bell and inverts his hourglass and the twelve apostles parade past the windows nodding to the crowd and finally a cock crows before the hour strikes. We then ascended the tower for a spectacular 360 degree view over Prague. This allowed us to witness the pragmatism of the Czechs - a beautiful church dating back to the 16th century is now literaly enclosed by a number of more modern buildings, including a school.

We visited this and other churches (as we love to do). Two of interest were the Church of Our Lady of Tyn, containing the tomb of a Danish astronomer who apparently died, in 1601, of a burst bladder whilst attending what Australians might refer to as a royal piss-up - he was too polite to leave the table to relieve himself. Another church was the Church of Saint James, built in the fourteenth century and containing a shrivelled human arm hanging off the wall. Legend has it that a thief tried to steal jewels from the statue of the Virgin and she grabbed his wrist so strongly that his arm had to be lopped off. Whatever the legend, it certainly looks like a shrivelled human arm hanging out from the wall, high up, just inside the church entrance.

Next was a visit to the old Jewish quarters and museum which consisted of six Jewish monuments including various synagogues, including the Spanish Synagogue (see photo), the ceremonial hall and the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in the world. The Jews settled in Prague in the tenth century and have made a significant contribution to Czech culture and commerce. The Pinkas Synagogue contains wall-to-wall inscriptions of the names and dates of birth and death of 77,297 Czech victims of the Nazis, as well as drawings by children held in Terezin concentration camp - so very tragic and moving. The cemetery, founded in the early fifteenth century, contains 12,000 crumbling gravestones and beneath those are 100,000 graves piled in layers.

Tonight we've had a nice home-cooked goulash, with a local red, and we're hoping for better weather tomorrow as we visit the magnificent Prague castle and gardens.Until then Na shledanou (goodbye).