Tour of Prague Castle

The above is Charles University - the school with which NYU has a so-called partnership and the oldest university in Europe!

Our tour guide had attended Charles University for American studies I believe. Quite radical for her time. She actually was a class-mate of that university student who burned himself in protest of the communists - I forgot his name.

The above picture is somewhat out of place but I saw it nonetheless. It is a figure that marks the place of the observatory of Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe!!!

Note: This shall be informative and long but you can admire the pretty pictures all the same.

I went on a tour of the Prague castle area.

At the strike of 14:00, I heard the bells in the tower behind me ring. The building is called the Loreta for it is named after the place in Italy where the Virgin Mary is believed to originate. The church now serves as a jewelry museum. The buildings in the area are designed in the elaborate baroque style to the bankruptcy of their owners. The rich of the middle ages apparently never heard of investment spending and drank a few too many pivos.

This is case-in-point of the excessiveness of baroque.

Another building in the area (not pictured) was a prison/torture camp for captured Americans and British soldiers during the Second World War. Their keep was a complete secret to the surrounding people as necessary for the propaganda to be correct.

This is the gravesite of an innocent boy who was shot in May 1945, after Berlin was liberated and Hitler had already committed suicide. The fanatics who killed this young fellow were hell-bent on re-creating their new Nazi regime in Prague. They were so extreme that they actually conducted their racist psuedo-science at Charles University. There is a joke about what you could trust about the newspapers of these intense times: the only thing you can trust is the date.

Here is the building where apparently the best beer in Prague can be found.

Here is the house of where former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright had lived during her early years as daughter of a diplomat. It is a few blocks from the Republic’s castle. For a long time during her life, Albright did not even know she was a Jew.

The above is what I would like to call the Royal Foyer of Prague Castle. It is so grand that it is indeed outdoors.

Here are some fierce statues that greet you upon entering the castle. The complex is still used today but not by royalty - but as the Czech Republic's chief executive offices.

These are some of the seemingly useless, for-show soldiers. They guarded the gates but we freely walked pass them. A few of us took pictures as they stood at the gates, stoicly, like the ones at Buckingham Palace. I refrained from such mischief because I didn't want to embarrass them nor myself.

The kind fellow pictured above, on the other hand, enjoys embarrassing himself.

We looked out at what is called Little Prague, I believe. And I took a picture of this gentleman, a real artist!!!! And he was sitting over a wall that goes down maybe hundreds of feet! Hardcore! Do you see that neatly kept mound with beautiful snow on it? Above the houses? Well, that's your American tax dollars at work. It is the sprawling gardens of the American Embassy and it rivals the Czech national gardens in beauty. Take that, Czech land!!!! Boo-yah.

Gardens.

Now it is time to visit the Czech National Cathedral.

It is also known as the St Vitus' Cathedral.

Look at the wonderful jambs and the pointed typanum! What a display of artistry! The wonders of gothic architecture.

The glories of gothicism's shine upon the people of God!!

Look at the flying buttresses! They.are.flying!!!!

View down the nave. Everything is so awe-inspiring! Gothicism knows how to do God right.

The above is the emblem of Prague. The two-tailed lion at the top represents Bohemia; the checkered eagle represents Moravia; The black and white one represents the borderland with Poland, Silesia.

Here I make a farce out of the dear local culture.

Just outside of the cathedral is the former quarters of the imperial governors, who were kept above the lowliness of the people. Long story short, protestants hated them and threw them out of the these windows. These windows have a history of having people thrown out of them - thus coining the word "defenestration." Three times this has happened and each triggering a war. It is said that Prague is the start and the end of all wars in Europe.