Prague, Czech Republic Part 5: Sights and Misc.

All good (and overly drawn-out things) things must come to an end, so here’s the final installment of the Prague journey.

St. Vitus Cathedral
Atop the highest point in Mala Strana (and I think all of Prague) is the castle area, highlighted by St. Vitus. We bought a ticket to visit some of the highlights of the castle, but in the end that seemed more like a tourist trap to me than anything else (Royal Palace = lame, Basilica of St. George = nothing compared to the churches in Assisi, Golden Lane = an old street turned into shops to buy more crap). St. Vitus was by far the most impressive thing there and it was free to enter.

Here are some exterior shots, as well as more of the beautiful stained glass windows.


Detail from one of the main doors

Flying buttresses out the wazoo

A look down the nave


Good ol’ St. Francis





This domed room in the Basilica of St. George was one of the few non-disappointing parts of the castle ticket


Jewish Quarter
On Sunday afternoon we headed to the Jewish quarter, a trip made even more interesting since we were accompanied by Yonaton, an Israeli guy staying at our hostel. His insight into various traditions and even his translation of some of the Hebrew on the buildings gave some nice gravity to our visit. The ticket we bought for that area was a much better value than the castle one—it got us in to 3 or 4 synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetary, which the Nazis did not destroy.

Yarmulkes: free to rent or available for purchase


Some images from the Old Jewish Cemetary, the only place photography was permitted




Stones laid atop one of the graves


The Spanish Synagogue was incredibly beautiful, so much so that I whipped out the camera to take this quick shot. It features an organ which a rare feature for a synagogue.


Complete Randomness
These photos didn’t really fit with anything else, so here they go:

A quick glane into the lobby assured that this was definitely not a museum dedicated to James Brown…


Soldiers on their way to the changing of the guard at the castle. Pay close attention to the small child be whisked out of the way in the lower right


Really neat clock on one of the churches in the Old Town


One day we stopped into a music museum and Natalie and Nadia decided it would be a good idea to buy these paper mask-things. I decided it would be a good idea to walk several paces away from them


And that’s a wrap. Fun times, lots of walking, and restless sleep (from the snoring, if you remember all the way back to part 1).