We took our first walk around Prague today. The sun shone, making it a perfect, crispy fall day. “The Moldau” and “Slavonic Dances” provided my mental soundtrack as we happily made our way through Prague.
Prague is overwhelmingly beautiful. Unlike the cities we visited in Germany, WWII bombing was limited here, so a thousand years of architecture remain. As I thought about what I was seeing, the word “decorated” kept coming to mind.
In the Old Town, and our neighborhood across the river too, each building is beautiful and different from the next. Here is on Art Nouveau building I studied; I loved the doorway detail, the iron balconies and the mosaics.
Prague is called the city of hundreds of spires, but I’m calling it the city with thousands of statues. On building and bridges, in parks and squares.
I noticed dragons holding up a humble bench we were sitting on.
The Astronomical Clock is a central attraction. On the hour, the Twelve Apostles appear in the blue windows above the clock. But what I liked was the skeleton ringing a little bell, one ring for each hour.
Mike was especially moved by a wall that has been decorated by the people since the early 1980s in memory of John Lennon and his messages. Under the Communists, tribute to John was not permitted, so the authorities would paint over the graffiti. Then it would appear again, over and over again. The thirty year celebration of the end of Communist rule is coming up November 17 and is the focus of inscriptions people were painting today.
Katy’s Blog Trip to Europe 2019 