The Cathedral at Last!

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Hello!

Prague street scene

Have you ever seen a fancier Hard Rock Cafe?

Well, after something like 10 more hours of sleep, I (may be) back from the missing!  Yipee!  Not sure if I am getting a cold or not, but we have loads of Kleenex to see me through!  Up around 6:30 a.m. and ready for breakfast when the ladies arrived at 8 a.m.  Today they had fried eggs, with small crepes with cream – which were delicious!  So far we have had no repeats – only sorry that we’re going to have to miss breakfast tomorrow morning, as we have to get to the train station for our 8:30 a.m. train.

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

Today was our day to return to Prague Castle, and go to the St. Vitus Cathedral.  Just getting ready to go out – I was at the tooth-brushing stage, when – voila! – NO water!! (And there had been shower water just an hour earlier.)  So, I brushed with sparkling water – always fun; gets really foamy!  Then out and past workers in the street who were obviously dealing with water issues!

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

Over to the Metro station to get day-long transit passes, then the walked over past Tesco Department Store to catch the #22 tram.  Much less crowded today and we were able to get seats right away.  Over across the river, then a right turn in front of the castle hill and up, up, up to the top!  We opted for the “long” tour (with senior discounts!) and the audiophones for information.  The only problem I had was that it was SOOOO cold inside the cathedral, that I couldn’t punch the right numbers with my new mittens!  Very difficult! 

St Vitus Cathedral

Chapel of St Wenceslas

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

Tomb of St John of Nepomuk

So, St. Vitus Cathedral – it is truly magnificent; much of the glass is incredibly beautiful, and with the sun (!) coming through it – breathtaking!  We followed the audiotour, which was very well done – and were able to stay out of the way of the numerous tour guides and groups.  Neither of us had much knowledge of Bohemian/Czech history, and it was interesting to learn, for instance, about the Thirty Years War!  (Who knew?!)  As it turns out, the cathedral, which was started around 1060, was only completed in 1929 – only 600 hundred years, plus or minus!  Robert took some truly stunning photos of the cathedral and glass; enjoy!

As it turns out, the palace rooms that are normally open are now closed, we think, for an upcoming Presidential inauguration on March 8.  Disappointing, but to be honest, the cathedral more than made up for anything else!  I was absolutely freezing after the cathedral, so we went across the street to get some hot chocolate and coffee.  The chocolate was SO thick that I had to eat it with a spoon!  My kind of drink!

Church of St George

From there, we went to the church of St. George, a very, very old church built between the cathedral and the convent.  Some very, very old frescoes as well as tombs of some of the CZ Republic’s patron saints – St. Ludmila (who was strangled by an assassin hired by her daughter-in-law…) and St. Wenceslaus – not sure how he died, but if precedent was anything to go by, it was probably grisly!  (Don’t get me started on St. Vitus and his “dance” – suffice to say that boiling oil was involved…) [And I thought St. Vitus was the patron saint of dancers.  No? - RJB]

St Vitus Cathedral

After this, we decided to turn in our audioguides and head back down the hill.  Again, the #22 tram – so convenient!  Off at Tesco (we’re learning all the high spots!) and decided it was about time for lunch.  We found a really nice place – Cinque Coronnes (5 crowns), an Italian place, as I was feeling like pizza.  The only problem was that they had no water yet either! – but as they had it in bottles [and they had wine – RJB], that was fine with us!

At The Five Crowns

No water at the restaurant - but who needs it?

Robert ordered a bowl of steaming minestrone soup, and ended up sharing it with me!  (He is SUCH a good guy!)  That was followed by a pizza margharita, which we split.  Honestly, both things were great – not sure if the folks are Italian or not, but with a chef like that, it doesn’t really matter!

By this time it was getting on for 2 p.m. so we decided to head back to the flat to see if by any chance water had been restored.  We walked in on the two lovely cleaning/breakfast ladies, and – Yipee!  Water once more!  I decided that as I was still thoroughly chilled to the bone, that a nap would be in order…lovely! 

Minestrone soup

Margaret with Margharita pizza

Out again about 3:30 p.m. to see what, if anything, we were going to do about Czech crystal.  After thinking about it for a couple of days, I’ve decided that we do NOT need any more wine or champagne glasses…we’ve enough to equip the 6^th Fleet!  And, while we do have plenty of sherry/cordial glasses, there is always room for more…wandered a bit through some of the crystal stores but didn’t come to any decisions…My favorite store is actually open until 11 p.m. tonight!  Wow!! [Yes, but Margaret won’t be “open” until 11:00! – RJB] And, for the first time since Phoenix, I was actually too WARM!  Needed to get home and remove the silk long-underwear shirt – could nicer weather be actually around the corner???  Hmmm…

Not sure what we’re doing for dinner tonight, but will need to get back and repack.  Pasquale will be bringing us a breakfast “bag” which is wonderful, in the morning, and we’re meeting our driver at 7:40 a.m. 

So!

That’s all for now!

m

Astronomic clock ringing the hour.  Can you hear the bells?

xxx

PS – Have been looking at the schedule for Vienna – 4 museums in two days, plus laundry!  Fortunately, most of the museums are fairly close together…what fun!

m