Prague, family and tennis

We spent a weekend in the beautiful city of Prague. It was an easy to get around as most of the signs were in English.  

On our first day we did a walk thru the old town of Prague and  started on Wenceslas Square. The square is named after Wenceslas the Duke of Bohemia. He's also famous from the Christmas carol good King Wenceslas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_I,_Duke_of_Bohemia

This is the statue of him at the top of the square.

and the view of the square from his statue. This is where protesters assembled during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. During the protest the people would shake there keys at the communist officials. This was there way of telling them "goodbye its time to go home".  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

The Hotel Evropa an Art Nouveau building is halfway down the square built in 1889. It was used in the Tom Cruse movie Mission Impossible. 

A shop that sells special tobacco---i think you know what the mean by special.

An on to other odd things. We found this statue of good king Wenceslaus hanging from the ceiling riding an upside down horse. These Czech's are funny people.

We came upon these statues in a garden and Leanne took a liking to them.  Not sure what the meaning of it was.

Our gear of choice as we do our walks, a back pack and a mule to hall it.

One of the many beautiful streets with a good looking woman.

A side street with walkways connecting the buildings. 

The Municipal House, this was another Art Nouveau building. This was built in the early 1900. We stopped at the coffee shop on the out side of this building---and some sweets. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_House

The Powder tower is one of the original gates to the city. It stored the gun powder and is over 500 years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Tower

Groups will come here to party for just about any reason. They go from bar to bar all day and night. As they walked down the street there was lots of singing and chanting.  I think it was for there soccer team.

Heading into the old town square.

As we stood in the square we did a 360 degree look at the buildings. This is the Old Town Hall built in the 14th century.

This Astronomical clock was built in 1350 and still works. It does a lot of things it is best described on the web site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock

The yellow building is the Church of St. Nicholas and the statue is the Jan Hus Memorial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus

The Tyn church which i will show you later and a row of colorful buildings. Most of the buildings in Prague were brightly colored like these are.

From there it was a walk to the Charles bridge down more streets and past a few trolley cars.

The walk was enjoyable but a bit crowded. 

A view o Prague Castle from the beginning of Charles bridge.

The Charles bridge was finished in the 15th century in crosses the Vitava river. It was built at the time of  King Charles IV and was the only river crossing till 1841.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge

Another view of the Castle

One of the many statues on the bridge. This one shows a prisoner in a jail.

As we got to the other side we saw this water run mill store. Its now a restaurant.

And now for a few odd pictures from  Prague.

Lee's foot is not odd just one of those pictures you take when you can keep your finger off the button. At the end of the day we delete all the pictures that show nothing at all. And have a good laugh at some of them.

Do you think a 9 euro massage is really going to be good?

This statue of two guys re leaving themselves was in the middle of a small square. A lot of questions go thru you mind when you see something like this. Is that doing what i think its doing, who agreed to this, who paid for it?

And then this, first the make a statue of it then they have to tell you not to do it. Maybe there's a big bladder problem in Prague.

City's always have some interesting statues, do not land in a parachute near this one.

Heading back down a few streets to cross the river.

Another view of the Charles bridge in the back ground.

Next on the walk was the Jewish quarter of Prague. Our first stop was at the Pinkas Synagogue built in 1535.  On the walls inside are the names of 77,297 Czech Jews sent to the gas chambers. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkas_Synagogue

When you see the names and dates of entire family's its a real sobering sight to see.  

Out side was the old Jewish cemetery. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jewish_Cemetery,_Prague

From 1439 till 1787 this was the only burial ground for the Jews. Over time the graves had to be piled on top of each other, sometimes 7 or 8 deep. 

Back to the old town square we were able to get a few good night shots of the The Church of Mother of God before Týn or the Tyn church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Our_Lady_before_T%C3%BDn

Walt Disney must have gotten some ideas from this building.

And a few fireworks to end the day.

I told Leanne i had them done just for her---she didn't believe it either.

The next day was a visit to Prague Castle the largest castle in the world. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle

Inside the castle grounds is St. Vitus Cathedral 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vitus_Cathedral

We had visited it on Saturday, i think everyone else visiting Prague was there also.  

We bumped and were bumped every step we took, it was very hard to see everything. 

Outside in the square was statue of St. George slaying a dragon. He must have been good at it because we didn't see any dragons while we were there. 

 Vladislav Hall, built around 1500 was a room in the castle used for large public events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Hall

A view of the back of the church and more people.

The Czech people must have been short or didn't know how to build tall doors.

Gargoyles, lot of them 

Kids must have loved seeing the monsters looking down on them as they entered the church.

Another view of the church 

Saturday night we were off to the opera to see Carmen at the National Theater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Theatre_(Prague)

We had great seats and the show was wonderful.

The next day we would leave but not before a great breakfast. Leanne ordered scrambled eggs with beetroot. It was one of those things you have to order just to say you tried it. It was delicious. 

Prague was a great place to visit but it always great to be home. I signed up for a sourdough bread class this week. It was fun and i was able to bring the loaves i made home with me. I plan on making our own bread, or at least try.

This week we had another family member visit us. My sister Mary, brother in law Greg, nephew Josh and his partner Travis came on Thursday. After running all over London doing the tourist thing on Friday, we slowed things down and went to the Holland Park Opera that evening. It was a nice venue as it was just a short walk from our house.   

Saturday Mary and Greg did a tour of Parliament and a tour of Westminster Abby before calling it a day. Dinner and some cards were in store for the rest of the night,

On Sunday after church we were on our way to the Churchill war room. And as luck would have it there was a parade for the Queens 90 birthday.  The entrance to the War room was right behind us.

And being it was raining we were able to get a front row spot to stand.

On Mary and Greg were off to France and Josh and Travis were off to Scotland. They will all return on Sunday and stay one more day with us before they head home. 

As for Leanne and I we were able to go to a grass tennis tournament that was less than a mile from our house.

They had rain the day before and more rain was called for the day we were there. To make up some of the games they opened up more courts. This is where we stood to watch a pro event, a singles match was on our left and doubles on the right. 

Can't get closer to the action than this. We were able to watch one set on each court and then the sky opened up and the rains came.

 Lucky for us we made it to the champagne tent before it got real bad. We would be in there for about an hour before the rains stopped. There would be a delay in the play so we were off to the food area

Not sure if ham goes with champagne, but it did today. 

 Strawberry's and clotted cream goes with anything. 

Inspecting the courts to see if there ready for play.

And there playing again, Leanne seemed to like this guys legs.

 We were able to watch a couple of matches and have already made plans to be back here next year.