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Old Town, New Town: Central Prague by Night
Old Town Prague, on the east side of the Vltava river, is about 1,100 years or so old, depending on how you define the birth of the city. New Town, on the west side of the Vltava, sprang up around the Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge, which were built by King Karel (or Karl, or Charles, depending whether you speak Czech, German, or English/French) in the mid 1300s. So the “new” in New Town denotes that its a few hundred years younger than its counterpart across the river, but hardly new in any sense of the word that means “recent.”
Anyway, both of these adjacent sectors are really the heart of the tourist district. There's a lot to see in these tourist zones, but … it's like they're so full of people, you know, which can mean some awkward and annoying public behaviors and too many lines to wait in. So kind of like when Mary and I lived in New Orleans we seldom went down to the French Quarter, after a few days in Old & New Town we started heading to other parts of Prague with no major tourist sites, no lines, and a lot less hustle from the various tourist-oriented kiosks and stores.
Meanwhile, in the process of evolving into septuagenarians we've turned into stick-in-the-mud old people who have adopted a habit of early bedtimes and a general lack of enthusiasm for nightlife.
As Rick Steeves noted in a short article I recently read, the aversion to nightlife often shortchanges travelers, because there are many things you simply can't see or experience during the day. That resonated with me, because it tends to be the case that when Mary and I travel, we miss an important component of seeing our destinations, because we don't experience them at night. That has happened in Paris, among other places, where we didn't see the “City of Lights” at all, because the sun was shining the entire time we were out and about. And unfortunately, the same was true the last time we were in Prague, a year ago.
But I decided before leaving for our second 2-week period in Prague that this time I was not doing to deprive myself of seeing the city at night. So on March 27, our next to the last evening in Prague, I took the #9 tram from our Lipanská stop in the Žižkov district down to the Národní Divadlo (National Theatre) stop, and from there walked along the Vltava River to the Charles Bridge. It was a cold and occasionally drizzly evening with a sharp wind, but still beautiful with all the old medieval buildings lit up nicely, and renaissance and 18th century churches in New Town standing elegantly and brightly through and above the arch of the New Town gate on the west bank of the river.
After walking across the bridge, I strolled back across the half-kilometer stone structure and down into the Old Town Square, where I spent a little time snapping a few more photos before taking the tram from Wenceslas Square, which if there weren't major renovations being done is also worthy of a photo or two, back to our favorite neighborhood of Žižkov.
Just sharing a few photos here that I think impart a little bit of that Disneyland quality for which tourist-world Prague is justifiably famous. Captions are below photo gallery.
Top left: New Town by night from the east bank of the Vltava River, near the East Gate of the Charles Bridge.
2nd photo down on left: The New Town Gate, on the west side of the Vltava River. Saint Vitus Cathedral is visible in the upper right, and the dome church behind the gate is Saint Nicholas, which was a Jesuit project until the early 1770s, when the Pope shut the Jesuit order down for about 50 years.
Top right: King Charles IV, the first Holy Roman Emperor of Bohemia, was King of Germany and Bohemia from 1546 till his death in 1578, and also Holy Roman Emperor from 1555 till his death. He was responsible for building the 550 meter bridge, “Charles Bridge,” named after him. The statue is labeled as “Karolo.” But the owner of the pastry, wine and beer bar (Kavárnička Biograf) that we patronized most days during our two 2-week stays in Žižkov, told us his own name is 'Karel,' which is Charles in English or French, or 'Karl' in German. But whatever. King Karl, Karel, Karolo, or Charles, this monarch was an ambitious builder, not only getting the bridge built across the river, but also getting credit for building the 'Prague Castle,' which Guinness says is “the largest ancient castle in the world.” Of course construction of the current structures of Prague Castle, along with the glorious St. Vitus Cathedral, required several more centuries to get finished. Still, it can't be denied that Charles was a mover and shaker.
3rd photo down on left: The first glimpse of Old Town Square if you walk from the river
2nd photo down on right: The Charles bridge is famous for stone statues placed at regular intervals on both sides of the bridge. They're of course all religious, and I assumed they were all more or less original to the bridge … until I saw this particular statue, which I first thought was Joseph with Jesus, but on reflection realized was St. Christopher carrying baby Jesus across the river. I was curious about the mythology of St. Christopher being expressed in a 16th century status, so looked it up. And sure enough, it's actually a 19th century sculpture by an artist named Emanuel Max. Probably a very famous fellow, but I'd never heard of him. So now I'm pretty sure that all or most of the statues are later additions.
Bottom left photo: A frontal view of the astronomical clock in the Old Town Hall. Note the two little blue doors above the clock. On the hour, the doors open and a mechanized show of carved wood saints does a little kinetic show that draws a huge crowd of tourists during the day, even in cold weather.
Bottom right photo: Looking up at the clock from the plaza below the Old Town Hall