Prague Day 1

This morning, we drove the two hours from Gorlitz to Prague, navigated the city parking (yikes!) and checked into our hotel. It's lovely, just steps from Old Town Square. So for the location, the headache of getting the car parked was worth it (in my opinion, anyway. I wasn't driving...).

We stopped by a seemingly local lunch spot (in fact, it was called Lokal). Some of us had hotdogs. Some of us had other things that were delicious.

Then Maya and I sunscreened up and joined a 2.5 hour bicycle tour of the center of Prague (that some friends had recommended). It was a great way to get a feel for all of the things to see and do in Prague. Tim and Cora instead went for a walk across the Charles Bridge and found a little island playground to spend some time on. We topped off the day with some beer, meat, and potatoes (with a little fortunate sprinkling of arugula for the pickiest among us to get something green).

Photo op with the Charles Bridge as a background:

Checking out the dancing house by bike:

It's cool to paint on the wall. The story was interesting, too. This is the Lennon wall. When John Lennon died, apparently a mural of his likeness appeared the next day on this wall. That's all fine and good and seemingly ordinary. Except when one lives in a society where, well, no one was supposed to know about the Beatles. So the government painted over it. And it reappeared. And was painted over, and reappeared, etc. Until one day, the occupants of the building next door (which happens to be the Malta Embassy) happened outside and said, hey, that's our wall. And we kind of like the painting. So today, it's the only place in Prague where it's legal to graffiti. Luckily the tour guide had a sharpie.

I have no idea what this is. But Cora seems to like it.

This is one of thirteen similar bronze sculptors by the Czech artist David Černy. The funny looking face is supposed to be a bar code, symbolizing the fact that our lives are overtaken by consumerism from an early age. Černy is also famous for painting a soviet tank pink (which was frowned upon since, at the time, it was a war memorial). We also saw two other of his sculptures on the bike tour (we'll have to take Maya and Tim back to see them): one of Sigmund Freud dangling over a Prague street, and one of two men peeing into a pool the shape of Czech Republic. We also heard the story about how, unhappy with some actions of the Czech president, he created a sculpture of a purple hand giving the middle finger in the direction of the presidential palace then floated it on a barge up and down the river outside of the palace for a few weeks.

Tim and Cora walked across the Charles Bridge.

My understanding is that Cora art-directed the following photos of sculptures.

We heard a story about this statue on our bike tour also. First of all, its the only remaining original statue on the Charles Bridge. The story behind this statue goes like this. The statue depicts John of Nepomuk, who was a priest under King Wenceslas IV (the son of Charles IV). John of Nepomuk heard the confession of the queen, but the king was very suspicious and demanded to know what she said. When the priest refused to tell, he was tortured. He conceded and said he would tell the most trustworthy person in the room. The king ordered everyone to leave, but then the priest leaned down and whispered the details of the confession into the ear of the king's dog. The king was none too pleased with this, so he dressed John up in a suit of armer and tossed him off the bridge. Observers say they saw gold stars rise from where John hit the water, hence the stars on the halo in the sculpture. (Now check out the bronze plaque below, which sits below the statue of Saint John.)

It seemed like a good choice at the time, so Maya opted for the ice-cream filled cinnamon twist (note to self, figure out what this is called tomorrow). It was very messy.

This is the Tyne Church on Old Town Square. (Our hotel is just behind here.) Note that the two columns on the church are actually quite different, most notably in size (the one on the left is smaller). The architects/builders claimed it was to represent Adam and Eve; however, this being the Czech Republic, most people just assume they were drunk and got too far along before they realized the difference.