October 6

October 6

Today it was the Prague Castle. We tried to get to the Castle by opening time because Rick Steve said it got really crowded in the church early on. He wasn't kidding, we didn't miss the tour groups and they basically went through like traffic at rush hour one right on the bumper of the next. There was a brief break at 10 as the next group began to start their tours so we sort of jumped in the gap and took a few photos without too many heads in them.

The castle and church are fantastic. The cathedral is huge with high vaults supported by the flying buttresses outside. The stained glass is magnificent some very old and some from the mid 1930's. The sun was coming in through some of the windows and created the most wonderful rainbows of color on the walls.

The main hall of the palace is immense, they say that one time they actually held jousts in the hall. It was here that coronations happened for centuries and then in the 20^th century the first president of the new free government was sworn in.

The gardens are lovely and in European terms relatively new they were created in the 1800's. There has been a castle on this site since the 500's and a church since the 300's. There was a fire that destroyed much of the castle in the 1500's. It was stunning to read about building that went on here before Columbus had even crossed the ocean and long before the pilgrims came to the American continent.

We ended our sightseeing today with the Loreta chapel and convent. There is a small chapel that is supposed to contain some of the remains of Mary's home. The main chapel is intensely ornate with gold statues and relics. There is one side chapel that is the place that women in bad marriages go to pray for help. Nor offered me change to light a candle but I really couldn't imagine my marriage getting better so I declined. The Loreta Chapel is a starting place for many pilgrims and they had a list of the dates that the next pilgrimages would be starting and where they would be going.

After our dinner we went back down the hill to see the castle from across the river at night – and of course to take a few pictures.

We had planned to take the tram back up the hill, but without a whole lot of good thought we decided to walk back up. We did stop a few times, to take pictures – I promise they are really bad but we managed to catch our breath while we snapped. And then of course I managed to find the good dump spot for the Praguean dogs and we had to find some grass for me to scuff through so I wouldn't mess up the carpet in our hotel.