The Old Town Hall is right on the main Old Town Square which is our next stop. It is an impressively huge town square, one of the biggest we have seen. It is also the first one we see that is anchored by two churches and that has two monuments in the middle of it, one to Jan Hus, the famous reformer and the second being the Marian Column, demolished after independence and erected again in 2020.
Right in the square is also a fast food stand selling Old Prague Ham. We are not yet hungry and we assume that they available everywhere so we don’t buy one. Little did we know this would be the only one we see throughout our visit.
The houses surrounding the square are suitably impressive with a few hosting museums while the other ones are converted into various businesses, mostly restaurants and souvenir shops.
We go round the square a few times admiring the buildings and then trying to enter the two churches. One is closed but St Nicholas Church is both open and free. It is also one of the few surviving Hussite Churches, a Protestant branch whose creation was one of the causes of the Hussites Wars that ravaged Bohemia as Hussites defended against multiple Catholic crusades.
Inside the church is quite beautiful, especially compared to the Lutheran Protestant churches. We enjoy a bit of respite from the heat while we sit in the pews but then it is time to continue slowly towards the Jewish quarter just known of the church and old town square.
The houses in the Jewish quarter are quite elegant and impressive and we stop a few times to take photos of them as we make our way towards the ticket counter for the Jewish Museum in Prague where we plan to buy a combo ticket, to visit all attractions.
