2003/05 Prague and Sussex trip - Prazský Hrad (Prague Castle) |
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I had every intention of going back to the hotel and to bed, but this was my last full day in Prague, and I couldn’t resist one last look at the city. I took the metro to Malá Strana, across the river, and just below Prazský Hrad (Prague Castle), and climbed the hill to the castle entrance. Today, it isn’t really a castle, more a very large palace that covers the top of the hill. It’s large enough to have a full size cathedral 
fitting inside one of its courtyards. 
St Vitus Cathedral is gothic with magnificent stained-glass windows, full of statues and carvings, and lots of gold and silver in its many altars. It’s also home to St Wenceslas’ tomb (yes, as in Good King W). The walls of his room were covered in more of the “semi-precious stones”.
My admission ticket covered a half-dozen places inside the castle, and I wasn’t going to have time to see them all before everything closed down. After wandering through the crypt I found a stairca
se to a tower that “closes in 15 minutes”, and started up. The staircase was perfectly circular, no landings, no places to rest, and there were nearly three hundred steps! Passing people that were coming down was tricky, and stepping over collapsed teenagers on their way up was even harder. Maybe I was starting to recover.
The view from the top was really spectacular, as shown in the front cover of this letter. I could see all the places I’d been to, even the conference centre way off in Vysehrad. Eventually I was the only person left up top and I thought I’d better hurry down or end up spending the night there. Jogging down was easy, and the guard was holding the door open for me at the bottom, but as I came off the last few stairs my judgment was affected by all of that running in circles, and I missed the doorway and hit the wall! The guard just stepped out of my way and grinned. Obviously a common problem!
It was too late to visit the palace, but I could still get into a street of old houses, called the Golden Lane after the goldsmiths that used to work there. They were now souvenir stores, but quite pretty. The top floor of the houses used to be part of the castle wall’s defenses, and it was one long room with shooting positions on one side and display cases full of unusually pretty armour and weapons on the other.
There was a shooting gallery for crossbows at one end, and an armory at the other. The armory was selling made-to-measure suits. So, if you feel like clanking around in your own suit that’s the place to go. Perhaps I should have got one for Phil and Lynda’s “Camelot” wedding next year, but I suppose wearing it onto the plane might be difficult. Probably has the makings of a Monty Python skit. “Perhaps you should try taking the change out of your pocket, sir?”
I had a very good dinner in a little bistro in the back streets of Malá Strana, mounds of 
goulash and potatoes and dumplings. It was so cheap I felt like I was stealing, but I guess this is what the Czechs pay when there aren’t many tourists around to elevate the prices.
The alley from there down to the river was so narrow that it had a traffic light for pedestrians! It was a pretty walk from there across the Charles Bridge and back through the Staré Mësto, but by this time I was completely shattered. Sleep at last!
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