Chapter #3 – A Day in Prague Castle!

Well folks. I’ve been here a week already.

Hard to believe that I could become a Lord of Supreme Laziness in only 7 days, but I have.

I tried to get out of bed early this morning.

And by early, I mean 8 o’clock.

So not at all early by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.

Unless of course, you’ve been sleeping until noon everyday. Like me for the last week.

Anyway, I fought viciously against the Pillow Master and that devious tyrant Really Soft Comforter. And after only 15 minutes of battling, I vanquished my foes and managed to get out of bed.

Quite groggy. Needing caffeine.

And, with a breakfast of champions — Coffee and a Apple — I headed off to visit the sight of more truly epic battles than my one from this morning: The Prague Castle.

Now here’s the thing about Prague Castle. It doesn’t so much look like your typical high walled stone castle. Personally, I was expecting ramparts and turrets and really solid stone walls. Because, you know, castles are designed to withstand battles and armies charging and hordes of goblins and orcs.

Prague Castle?

Not so much.

Most of it looks more like a bunch of really amazing and huge government offices. Either that or the coolest apartment building/condo complex around.

Now when I say huge, I should say HUGE.

Because what this castle doesn’t have in ramparts, it makes up for in size. The place is BIG. With tons of huge, open squares. And massive buildings all around.

This is the entrance through the main gate.

Once you get past that building, you go through a second entrance (pic on the left), and that leads into one of many massive squares (pic on the right). In the background, you can see the cathedral of St. Vitus. Which is in another massive square. The cathedral is the most impressive sight in the castle.

I spent about 2 hours wandering around the cathedral, checking out the many tombs and attractions.

I also bought the audio guide so I learned a few interesting stories. See this tomb?

It’s the tomb of St. John of Nepomuc. A high priest who was tortured by King Wencesles IV because he wouldn’t tell Wencesles the sins that his queen was confessing to old Johnie during the confessionals. Old John was thrown off the Charles Bridge because he kept his lips shut. The Czechs liked him a lot and they were none too pleased about the incident.

The tomb was made with 3,700 pounds of silver.

And this is the tomb of Good King Wencesles. Not to be confused with King Wenceles IV, above. What with the tossing of Old Nepomuc off the bridge, you could hardly consider Wencesles IV a ‘Good King’. And we definitely wouldn’t want to sing Christmas carols about him. But this guy in here? He’s the guy who looked out on the feast of Stephen when the snow lay round about deep and crisp and even. And he’s like a rock-star in the Czech Republic.

To the right of his tomb is the entrance to the chamber where the Czech crown jewels are kept. The door needs 7 keys to open it. The keys are held by seven different, important Czech officials, like the President. The door hasn’t been opened since the early 80s because each of the officials uses a different sort of scheduling system (Day Runner, iCal, Outlook, Quo Vadis, etc) and it’s so damned hard to coordinate all 7 schedules to be in the same place that they’ve now just given up. The put a sign on the door similar to this one I found in the Royal Crypt: