DAY TWO: February 11, 2008 - Old Town Square

First thing we did in the morning was pay our apartment bill in cash. The lady didn't speak any English but we ended up saving about $20 by paying in Kc (karunas: Czech Crowns) instead of Euros). The total bill was 245Euro or 6, 651Kc which equals $378 for the entire week for the both of us!! Not bad.

We started walking west (I think) and found that Old Town Square was only a few short tiny blocks away. Everything in Prague is walking distance we discovered.


Tiny cobble-stoned streets. You pass thru an archway or a small alley and POOF! you are in another beautiful world surrounded by amazing architecture and so much history.










The black house with white etchings on it on the right hand side of the picture is the house that Franz Kafka grew up in. He is the author of such works as "Metamorphosis", "The Castle", and "Capital Punishment". Metamorphosis is probably his more well known work...it's the book were the main character goes to sleep and when he wakes up the next morning he has turned into a giant cockroach and his and his roommates learning to live with the situation. Very strange...but good.




This is the famous Astronomical Clock. Every hour it dances a little ditty...the 12 apostles dance by the two blue windows and Death rings his bell while holding his hourglass to let you know that your time is slipping by....I have close-ups of the clock which I'll post later...

The pointy thing in the background is the Tyn Church. I can't remember what the building in front is but I do remember that legend has it that in order to get it built the owners sacrificed a peasant child and buried the body under the foundation.








This is a sculpture of Jan Hus. He was on of Europe's earliest Christian Reformers (even before Martin Luther by a century!). Jan Hus taught philosophy at Charles University and later became the Dean while also preaching at the Bethlehem Chapel where sermons were given in Czech rather than Latin. Years later when political and religious crap boiled over Jan Hus was convicted of heresy and was burned at the stake in 1415.




Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti) has been Prague's principle public square since the 10th century and was it's main marketplace until the beginning of the 20th century.










Church of Our Lady Before Tyn is an early Gothic church. Very pointy. Night or day as long as Ellen and I could see the pointy top of this church we knew where we were and what direction to head to get to where ever we happen to be going at the time. It was quite helpful!








I took this picture as we were deciding on whether or not to take a dinner cruise/tour that evening. The ticket booth was to the left. We did finally decide to take the tour/dinner cruise called "Prague By Night" which was a 45 minute bus tour then a 3 hour dinner cruise on the Vltava River with live music. The cruise cost about 1200 Kc which is about $70. More picture of that to come later as well.


I do apologize for taking so long to update this site...but finally...Day Two in Prague has been started!!