Praha - Day I

 We began our Prague visit by walking up the hill to Prague Castle, which is reportedly the largest castle in the world. Over its 1,000+ year history, it has served as the residence of Bohemian Kings, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.

Emilie and I decided to go for the "short" visit, which includes entrance to the majority of the castle's main sights. My favorite part was the St. Vitus Cathedral, whose construction began in the 14th century and took over 600 years.

The inside was pretty impressive, with a very high ceiling and beautiful stained glass windows.

I also really liked the Zlatá ulička (Golden Lane), which is the site of the 16th century houses of the castle's marksmen. Given the number of marksmen and the limited space, the houses are extremely tiny and appear better suited for elves than people. A notable resident in more "recent" times was Franz Kafka.

Our next "stop" was the Charles Bridge, which we took to get to the city's Old Town area. The bridge dates back to the mid-14th century and is named after Charles IV, who was Holy Roman Emperor at the time. Here's a view of the bridge taken from a couple hundred yards down river.

I particularly liked the guard towers on each side as well as the bridge's 30 statues, which date back to the early 18th century.

The bridge also offered a nice view of Prague Casle, which can be seen at the top of the hill in the photo below.

After crossing the bridge we visited the Staroměstské náměstí, the Old Town's main square. During December it is home to a large Christmas market, which allowed for a nice picture (the late-afternoon sun definitely helped as well).

The square contains the world's third-oldest astronomical clock, which was built in 1410 (it's also the oldest one in the world that is still functioning). It is visible at the base of the clock tower on the left in the photo below.

Shortly thereafter it was time for us to head back to the hotel for a quick meal as we had tickets to see Carmen at the Prague State Opera House. Here's a picture that I took along the way that shows one of Prague's many bridges just after sunset.

The performance was excellent and the venue was beautiful. To demonstrate my ignorance when it comes to opera, I never knew before the show that Carmen was a French opera.

After the opera we broke one of our cab driver-from-last-night's rules -- never grab a cab on the street as they will charge you a horrendous fare. We were freezing, however, and it was getting late, so we figured we were willing to pay a premium just to get back to the hotel fast. And we ended up bargaining a bit and only paid about half of what the first driver that passed asked for, so we considered that a bit of a victory.