Prague - Day 1

Prague was one of the top few places I had on my must-visit list. However, our travels had not taken us anywhere near Prague to-date. So since we were in Munich, which I figured was as close to Prague as I'd be getting for a long time, I eagerly started searching for a way to get to Prague.

Initially, I thought I'd take a train from Munich to Prague, but we bumped into a Taiwanese (living in America) mother-and-daughter duo who had been travelling around Europe fm Munich for a few weeks already, and they advised us to fly as the price of a plane ticket was about the same as the train ticket and got to the destination in a lot less time. So, we checked with our concierge and went to Eurostar at the Munich Hauptbahnhof train station and got a fantastic deal on our plane tickets!

Our plane: Lufthansa ....

(At first glance, it looked like a perfectly safe way to get to Prague, then ....)

then I saw the PROPELLERS!!! ... erm ... weren't propeller planes supposed to have a reputation for being dangerous? Hmmm ... oh well ... too late to turn back now ... besides, the plane was completely full ... lots of ppl must think it's safe to travel on these planes, so who am I to argue with them?

So, we had an uneventful flight and landed safely ... and hungrily :) After checking in to our hotel, we went off on our hunt for Czech food ...

We found this pub-like place and ordered beef goulash and bread dumplings (surprisingly, I found the bread dumplings much like Chinese "mantou", so that was infinitely more palatable to me than potato dumplings ...)

We also tried their sausage ... this is normally served cold, but the weather was so cold, we wanted something hot. For a small charge, the eatery grilled the sausage for us, and voila ...

(oh ... and on food, we found that in Munich and Prague, at fast food places like McDonalds, Burger King and KFC, tomato ketchup and other condiments are NOT free! Everything had to be purchased! So, be warned if you happen to be in these countries and are wondering why your fries weren't accompanied by ketchup.)

As we were wandering around the old town centre searching for a place to have our lunch above, I was struck by all the beautifully well preserved historical buildings everywhere ... really EVERYWHERE! It's no wonder Prague is a UNESCO site - they were given this honor for having one of the most well-preserved historical city centers in the world. And it is this that makes Prague so beautiful.

This is the high-end designer street- Parizska Street. I guess cos of their ex-communist days, this street wasn't as impressive as similar streets in more fashion-savvy cities like Paris, NY and London. Nevertheless, the buildings were eye-candy enough ...

Old Town Square ...

It was snowing! The snow gave the whole Old Town Square such a romantic feel!

There was a shop in my guidebook which I very much wanted to visit ... I had seen in some other Taiwanese blogs that lots of people had bought baskets and baskets of stuff from this shop, which was located at Tynska in the Stare Mesto district ...

This is supposed to be the lane where Franz Kafka walked down every day to the boys' school around the corner.

Charming!

Here's the shop: Botanicus ...

A famous landmark in the Old Town Square is the Astronomical Clock ...

There are four figures flanking the clock which are set in motion when the show begins. These figures represent four things that were despised at the time of the clock's making (1410). There is Vanity (the one admiring himself in a mirror), a stereotypical Jew (holding a bag of gold), Death (a skeleton holding a bell signalling the start of the show or the time of the hour), and finally the infidel Turk (wearing a Turban). At the start of the show, the skeleton starts ringing the bell. Then the windows above open and the wooden figures of the 12 apostles start appearing in the windows by rotation. The overall feel was very dark and gothic ... if I had been alone in the square watching this all by myself, I'd be terribly spooked!

I only just realised that I hadn't taken any pics of these characters ... prob cos they were just too Goth for me. I did, however, photograph the ones lower down... these looked much nicer :) These 4 figures on the lower clock were: a Historian, an Angel, an Astronomer and a Philosopher:

Thinking back about my trip to Prague now, I realise that this was the start of my realisation that behind the beautiful facade of Prague lay a very dark history. Have a look at a video I found off youtube and you'll understand why I felt that way ...

While searching for a video of the regular Astronomical Clock show, I found this special one which commemorates the Clock's 600th Anniversary (I believe that was in 2010). Talk about bringing the Astronomical Clock into the future indeed! How cool is this?!