Praha - Hrad

Praha - Hrad

Towering over Prague, you find the fortress (Hrad in Czech) with the St. Vitus cathedral.

The Charles Bridge (Karlův Most), connecting the old city with the (even older) part with the fortress, is decorated with lots of statues. But you need to come early if you don't want too many people on your picture, as this is one of the main attractions of Prague.

Prazsky Hrad seen from the bridge

On this picture you can see St. Nicholas saying "no" to an annoying child (with horns on his head).

First you pass the St. Nicholas church. As he is the most popular Saint in Holland, we pay him a visit. To our surprise, there were a lot of statues dressed just like the saint. We found out they were the early fathers of the church, so that would make them the stand ins for St. Nicholas. That's what we always tell little children in Holland when it is almost December 5 and there are a lot of people walking around, dressed like St. Nicholas.

Nicholas Church

Entering the Hrad

At the gates of the Hrad you find guards, of course. Notice there are two guards standing at each gate, while three of them march to and from the gate at changing time. A riddle we couldn't solve (partly because we didn't run after them to see what happened).

On guard

In the Hrad are several squares, surrounded with palaces and so. From the outside these look a bit boring, but most of them are quite interesting on the inside. Like this ceiling, decorated with coat of arms.


	The St. Vitus Cathedral is not just beautiful from the outside, but also from the inside. And when you climb the tower, you have a view all over the city. There are lots of tourists visiting the cathedral, but fortunately not all of them want to climb the tower; otherwise the stairs would be very crowded.

In the Hrad you can also find the Golden Street and the National Gallery with lots of paintings. A nice touch are the paintings that are already duplicated by the painter, quite a lot more work than an extra photo.

Another popular saint in Prague, is St. George. Especially in the Hrad, there are many statues of him. Most of these statues are George fighting a "dragon". Usually this "dragon" is just a little lizard.