Prague Castle and a Great Beer Hall

View of Prague From The Castle District


The Lennon Wall

We decided to start the day off with a visit to Prague Castle. It is situated atop a hill across the river from Old Town. We caught tram 22 and took a scenic ride up the hill to a stop near a monastery that sits even higher on the hill than the castle. The top attraction of the monastery is their library where they have an impressive collection of theological and philosophical texts. We saw some beautiful illuminated manuscripts from the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The monastery was a center of learning and also had a natural history collection with a specimen of a baby dodo bird. The bird was rather bizarre looking, all black and shriveled with a grimace on its face and looking as if it were being garrotted by a wire attached to the specimen board. How grotesque. We saw two library halls, one panelled in dark wood with floor to ceiling shelves of books, the other was decorated in baroque style with frescoes on the walls and the ceiling. Outside the monastery are a couple of lookout points that afford spectacular views of the city == that is, of course, if the weather is on your side and it wasn§t for us today. It began to rain lightly as we left the monastery and came down steadily as we made our way through the castle complex. Despite the wretched weather and being so late in the tourist season, the place was mobbed with tourists. It really made it difficult to enjoy our visit to be jostled by the mobs of tourists. Prague Castle is not what zou think of when zou imagine a castle. There is no large building that serves as a fortress. Rather it is a complex of buildings all surrounded bz a wall. The largest building is St. Vitus Cathedral. We also visited the Old Rozal Palace, The Basilica of St. George adn the Golden Lane == a row of small medieval shops and residences now turned into overpriced gift shops. They say that Franz Kafka lived at number 22 for a time.

After the castle we went for lunch at a little cafe in the Lesser Quarter. We popped into St. Nicholas church == verz ornate Baroque church. Then we spent some time trzing to find Lennon Wall. No, that is not a typo. There is a memorial to John Lennon. A wall full of peace=minded graffiti. We finallz found it but it was rather sad looking. So totallz filled wth grafitti one could not read anz of the messages and the original portrait of Lennon is no longer there.

We then went back to the Old Town did some browsing in shops, rested up at the hotel and then went out for dinner. We went to this great beer hall called U Medvidku. Had delicious wurst and goulash and dumplings for a decent price. Oh, yes, great beer too. Budvar,the original budweiser, bearing little resemblance to the American version.