** Have spent the morning wandering around the old Baroque city streets and squares . Wanted to do a visit of all the Schuls but the price was as exhorbinant for a few museums as was the A$150 plus steak I saw advertised in the window of the Argentinian steakhouse window. In both instances the price tag was outside of my budget.
** Images from my walk around this morning.
The roads here are constructed more for the 19th century rather than the 21st century.
The Alchemy & Golem Museum. Whilst alchemy is certainly acknowledged as the foundations of modern chemistry, this museum belongs more with the nay-sayers on the Web who tout every bit of junk going.
Statue to Kafka
A version of St George as a Roman soldier slaying the dragon
More boobs and bums. Full frontal women of all ages seems to have been a national pastime in Europe some time in the past.
A bird of prey high up on a lightning rod/ metal sculpture.
Monument to Jan Hus. On 6 July 1415, he was burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church. He could be heard singing Psalms as he was burning. Among his dying words, Hus predicted that God would raise others whose calls for reform would not be suppressed; this was later taken as a prophecy about Martin Luther (born 68 years after Hus's death. (Wikipedia). His followers are known as Hussites.
The Astronomical clock in the old city . According to at least one legend, if the clock is not maintained and it stops working, the whole of Prague will suffer. The legendary clock was severely damaged by the Nazis during the Prague uprising in 1945.
Jan Sindel, one of the two designers behind this masterpiece, was a Catholic priest and a scientist.
The clock has earth in the centre because it was created almost 200 years before it was established that the Sun, and not Earth, is at the centre of the solar system. The Calendar dial was added 80 years after the clock’s first installation.
To my mind, the figures are remeniscant of some Wedgwood designs, the ones where the motif stands out.
Old water fountain
Different ways that Prague is spelt in various languages
This piano with a stool at the ready for some Stanger just to come along and start playing.
Modern water fountain.
Extremely dangerous weapons being openly sold in the Baroque old city.
This is how they make donut here.
An amazingly powerful sculpture.
** The Naprstkovo Museum.
I was wandering and came across this museum by chance. Although I do not normally enjoy anthropological museums, this one was presented differently. Only negative point was some artefacts were in very dark rooms and we are not allowed to use a flash.
Mongolian bow and arrows
An Aztek sacrifice blade
A boomerang, possibly from the Perth area, dating back 150 plus years. The translation on my phone was not clear.
** At a restaurant called Matzip having a Korean boneless fried chicken for lunch, at 2:30pm, with a local draft beer that like anywhere in the east of western Europe is why beer is cheaper than ordering a glass of sparkling water . From the look of the full tables, either there are a lot of Korean tourists here, or else a lot of expats. I also wanted to order tteobokki, my favourite goto spicy snack but they only offer it as part of a massive plate for two that includes a whole lot of all sorts of things most of which I most probably won't eat.
The chicken is amazing and the spicy sauce is certainly creating my sinuses. The. Bill came to 355czk and that becomes $21.45, which is an improvement in the 24 hours since I have arrived.
** The MaHaRal of Prague (Judah Loew ben Bezalel)
He is buried at the old Jewish cemetery, which is not too far from my botel.. The image below is off the web as the queues into the cemetery were somewhat heavier than anticipated.
A statue of the MaHaral outside the new city hall in Prague. I question the need for the artist to have given him a Roman (or so called Jewish) nose and have a naked pubescent boy or girl hanging onto him. In fact the statue makes him look like a nightmare terror.
** The Golem
A brief background of the legend of the golem can be found at this link. Please remember though it is a legend, a story with no factual foundation.
** Jews of Prague (taken from the WWW)
The history of the Jews in Prague (capital of today's Czech Republic) is one of Central Europe's oldest and most well-known. Prague boasts one of Europe's oldest recorded Jewish communities (Hebrew: "Kehilla"), first mentioned by an Mizrahi-Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub in 965. Since then, the community never ceased to exist, despite a number of pogroms and expulsions - and the holocaust and subsequent antisemitic persecution by the Communist regime in the 20th Century [citation needed]. Nowadays, the Jewish community of Prague numbers approximately 2,000 members, although the number of Jews in the city is probably as high as 10,000 but for various reasons they remain officially unregistered as such. [citation needed] There are a number of synagogues of all Jewish denominations, a Chabad centre, an old age home, a kindergarten, Lauder Schools, Judaic Studies department at the Charles University, kosher restaurants and even a kosher hotel. Famous Jews from Prague include the Maharal, Franz Kafka, Miloš Forman and Madeleine Albright.
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