Prague Day Two

Day's Summary
"First walked to the Vysehrad, looked at the church and cemetery and gardens and then got the metro to the other end of Wenceslas Ssquare that we had previously missed, before going to the Old Town Square to see the astronomical clock. From there we went to the Jewish quarter where we were disappointed by the high prices. Then crossed the river and went up the Petrin hill using the funicular, and had lunch in the gardens. We next climbed the Petrin tower which gave excellent views of the city and then used the funicular again to go down the hill again, going back to the campsite to collect our bikes. Although it was late we still enjoyed cycling along the river and managed to get some lovely photos in the evening light. We caught the ferry from the other side of the river so enjoyed a longer ride back to the island"

We woke up to a rather gloomy overcast morning. We crossed the Vitava River again with the little ferry, getting out at Vyton. Went to Vysehrad (castle) across from the campsite first. It was a bit of an uphill walk, but we soon got to the castle wall and crossed through it to the square outside the church of St Peter and St Paul. We arrived at the same time as a group of Oriental tourists! Again and so early!! But we were able to enjoy the interior of the neo-Gothic church and then went to enjoy the adjacent cemetery with its very elaborate headstones and where some of the Czech greats are buried, including composers Smetana and Dvorak. We then walked around the gardens with statues by Josef Myselbek (two of which were being restored) and along the walls overlooking the river and our campsite. We went on to the walls on the opposite side and got to see the horrendous freeway that cut across the Nove Mesto area of the city. Left the castle through the Tabor Gate passing the St Martin’s Rotunda which is the oldest building in Prague, though it has been extensively rebuilt on a number of occasions.

We got onto the metro at Vyserad as far as the Muzeum, where we got to see the other end of the massive square, or rather rectangle, that we had previously missed. Went back to the subway to get further down the square (my foot was rather sore!) and then walked to the Gothic powder tower and and art nouveau City Hall going past the National Theatre (Divadlo Hibernia) on the way to the Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti). We had been here yesterday, but had missed the Astronomical Clock! It was truly beautiful, but the crowd of tourists waiting for it to strike 12 was certainly not. We decided against waiting 20 minutes as we would hardly have been able to see anything with the numbers in front of us. We tried going into the city hall, but this proved not to be possible. As there was not much to see except for the saints moving past the windows at the hour change, we decided to move on.

The weather had now cleared as we headed for the Jewish Quarter. The streets in this part of Prague are very beautiful and seem to date from the 1870’s to 1920’5, given the number extent of art nouveau decoration that was apparent. We got to the Jewish quarter and discovered that everything was exorbitantly expensive. So we took a few pictures and missed the cemetery which had a big wall around it and could not even be looked into. Marianne managed to peep and she did get a picture!
The plan for the afternoon was to go to the Petrin Tower, so we went to the Staromestska metro station and got the metro that went under the river and then took a bus to the funicular. This took us to the top of the Petrin Hill, from where it was a short walk through the gardens to tower that was erected in 1891 as part of the centennial exhibition and was intended to be a scaled down version of the Eiffel tower in Paris. We made a stop in the gardens and “enjoyed” an unappetising lunch of dry rolls. The setting in the monastery gardens was good though! We decided to walk to the top instead of using the lift and luckily this queue was much shorter! There were two lookout landings, the top one being 55m high. What was good was that there were separate spiral staircases for going up and going down. Very good for Marianne as the steps were see through which not ideal for her!

The view from the top was superb in all directions, but particularly over the old city and the river. A lot of pictures later we headed down the steps again and made our way back to the funicular. This dated from 1891. It was closed from 1914 to 1918 (first world war) and was replaced by a longer line and new equipment in 1932, operating through the second world war until 1965 when it was damaged by a landslide. It was reopened in 1985 with new cars, but using the same equipment. When we got to the bottom we caught a bus that took us across the river, changing for our number 17 on the other side. We managed a glimpse of the crazy Dancing House building on the way back to the campsite. We decided to go and fetch our bikes (we had discovered that the bikes could go on the ferry), so we had another ride on the little ferry.

After getting the bikes off the camper we gave them a ride across the river on the ferry. We rode along the river for as far as we could – we were not sure of the traffic and particularly the trams – so were a bit cautious. We were also a bit unsure of the bikes, Marianne having a funny back pedal brake model. And the cobble stones were not very "bicycle friendly either! We went onto the Strovansky Ostrov island, which was easy, and then onto Strelecky Ostrov island where there was a bit of a music festival getting going. It was difficult getting the bikes off the bridge down onto the island as there were lots of steps. I got bumped and fell off my bike – not a problem, but a bit unnerving. Marianne found someone to carry her bike up onto the bridge and we continued on the west bank. This was quite difficult as there was no road along the river and we ended up in some quite busy streets. Eventually got back to the river. The evening light was wonderful for pictures, but it was a bit stressful with crowds and traffic. We happened to be near the ferry landing on the opposite side and decided to get back on and from there continue via the Vyton landing to the campsite (so we got a longer ride!). Back on the island, I twisted my ankle quite badly as I got the bike down from the ferry at the landing stage.

We put the bikes back on the back of the camper, watched crazy speedboats on the river and had supper at the camper. Then we showered (the coins both worked this time) and listened to the noisy party boats on the river. It had been two fun filled days in Prague. We would have loved to stay for another day, but there was so much waiting for us to explore.

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