In Prague...Look Up
Prague is a melting pot not just of cultures from the variety of expats (expatriates) who call Prague home, but it is also a melting pot of art and architecture. Many buildings have detailed designs as you might see in the above gallery of images. Chateaus, churches, and monuments are on hills, and random sculptures like the man with the umbrella are suspended randomly from wires in the most unlikely of places.
One of my most favorite sites in Prague is the church Our Lady of Tyn Church (Tynska). Pictured in the gallery on the far left. I’ve only ever been inside the church once and it is beautiful, but the draw are the ulicka’s (alleyways) pronounced (ulitska) behind you which lead can you lead to tourist ticket offices, over-priced pubs most often meant for pub crawls, yet if you’ve got an adventurous spirit, there are quiet, unassuming paths between that lead to ancient pubs and restaurants that have been around since the 14th century or so, schools and offices, and a locals hang out in the middle of it all.
It’s quiet little cafe that serves beer, coffee, snack plates, and so on. To get to its courtyard, you have to go inside and through the building, and suddenly, steps from the center, you’d never know you were so close to the swathes of people who walk the Old Town Square, sit in front of the Jan Hus memorial, and return home without really exploring the area.
The bottom middle is another site which requires you to look, or rather, climb up to Vitkov Hill; a monument to Czechoslovak history beginning with the Hussite Wars. I’ll get deeper into history in the next post. But for now, in the land of a hundred golden spires, it inspires to look up, out, and around.
And if you’re here on a Saturday, be sure to check out Naplavka Market, along the Vltava River. Below is a video from yesterday, we took from above on Rasinovo Nabrezi. There’s a ferry to take you to the market on either side of the river, plenty to eat, drink, experience, and buy from fresh vegetables, eggs, and meat or chicken to soaps, ceramic dishes, leather goods, beer, and wine.
This weekend, we went to the market, and are planning our weekly transit adventure in which we get on the metro (subway), tram, or bus for which you buy one ticket you can use on all three types of public transit. If you’ve got 3 days, by the 72-hour jizdenk (pronounced yiz-daenk) or plural (jizdenky) in the metro station kiosk. It’s 330kc (or about $14). Don’t worry, the kiosk offers several languages including English.
And a quick nod to the remaining pictures above: Troja Chateaux, Vitkov Hill, and Grebovka park, vineyard, and grotto.
Next week, Czech lessons. The book by my friend, Jessica, who’s been here for 20 years, and my own experiences from 10 years ago and now.
If you’ve been here and have a secret, off the beaten path experience, I’d love to read about it.
Hezky den! Have a nice day! :)