The next stop after the Dancing House is the Old Town area. We start from where we stopped the day before, the Charles bridge. Today we are planning to go inland from the Vltava River and visit multiple attraction in the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter just north of it.
The streets in the downtown area are packed by both tourists and locals. For good reason of course as it is a beautiful area with stately and magnificent homes on both side of the street.
The first attraction on our list is the Klementinum, s a historic complex of buildings in Prague which houses the National Library of the Czech Republic. It can be visited but we don’t have that much time so we look at it from the outside before continuing on.
There are many winding sidestreets that we explore and shops that we look in. And of course we stop almost every few steps to take another photo of the beautiful buildings all around us.
In the end we cannot resist and have to buy some souvenirs. Beautiful owls made out of wood is what made us finally succumb to the siren song of shopping. But we hold strong in the face of the rubber ducks, there are simply to many to choose from.
We then finally arrive in the huge central square. It is much larger than we expected and it is not really square as most central squares are it has more of an L shape. We enter on one of sides of the L and then follow it’s length towards the Old Town Hall marvelling at the beautiful houses along the way.
The Prague Old Town Hall is also atypical. It started with one house but then expanded over time to incorporate more and more buildings. Five in fact, this is quite different from the other major Town Halls we have seen.
Two of the major houses in the complex are the House at the Minute where Franz Kafka lived for a few years and beautifully red West House.
We know there is a ticket that is self guided so we buy that one even though it is hidden and then it is time to visit the Old Town Hall. There are some beautiful ceilings but of course given that it is a Town Hall many of the exhibits are meeting rooms, old and new.
In the middle of it all is a small church, obviously a medieval Town Hall needs to have a church in it. Here we have a surprise, we can see the saints that appear outside in the famous tower clock every hour hidden away and resting between performances.
We then continue on exploring the meeting rooms and the beautiful decorations including some marvelous doors.
The last room looks to be the most ancient, or it is the least renovated one. We really enjoy it especially given that it has some interesting frescoes.
And now it is time to go up the tower. Only one of us paid the elevator so we walk up the stairs before we understand there are two elevators…and the first one is free. Of course when we find this out is after we climbed the stairs to the top of the house and are facing the tower climb.
It is easy enough though with a few breathing breaks and a one way passage marked by green/led lights. On top there are fewer people than we expected and the views are better than we expected.
There are viewpoints in all directions and we really like to point out where we have been and where we plan on going during the next days.
Of course the next goal is the Town Square clearly visible in an easterly direction. Surprisingly there are few people visible in it, we are wondering why?
The two major churches nearby are also visible including one that we intend to visit next. And behind is the mystery of the Jewish Quarter, something that we are quite curious about.
Descending we learn where all the people are, in front of the clock. It is almost on the hour and the people are gathered for the show. We hurry downstairs….and just miss it as we arrive at about 3 minutes after it started and it already ended, it is not really a long one. So now it is time to explore the rest of the town square before entering the Jewish Quarter.
