Friday 29th May 2009

Today started off slow. We awoke to bright sun, but before breakfast was over, it was dark, and the rain fell heavily. We bided our time, and soon the rain started to let up, and the skies brigthened. A couple of days ago it was 26 degrees celcius and we sweltered in our shorts, today it was 10. We were so happy that we brought our polars and rain jackets with us.



We headed toward the Old Town Square. A place we had been countless times already, and will continue to visit over and over. The Old Town Hall that holds the Astronomical Clock is actually composed of 5 Medieval homes of the 12th and 13th century. As Prague flooded frequently, earth was mounded around the homes, raising the street level, and the original ground floors became the cellars, as the homes were built up.

Some of the rooms that make up the Old Town Hall includes a chapel dedicated in 1381, Cross Hall with Gothic ribbed vaulting, the Council Hall and the Mayor Hall. Some of the rooms show some original wall frescos, and one room still had lovely ceiling painted decorations.

The Astronomical Clock itself is a wonderful piece of craftmanship. Four statues show the prejudices of the time. Who today would have thought that Hedonism would be represented by a Turk. But then again, North America was yet to be discovered. Greed is represented by a Jewish money lender, while vanity is a statue admiring themself in a mirror, but all these earthly vanities mean nothing to Death, who counts the time.

At each hour, Death tilts his hour glass, and rings his bell to mark time, at which point two small windows open up, and two by two the twelve apostles appear and bless the crowd, followed by the crow of a rooster, and then the hour is rung.



To show time, the clock is a real marvel. Both modern time in Roman numerals (12 noon at the top, and 12 midnight at the bottom), as well as Bohemian time counted from sunset are shown on two outer rings. With the earth in the center, the hour hand holds the sun that orbits around the center. While another hand holds the moon, that is a sphere, and as it moves around, it revolves around itself, showing the phases of the moon. A zodiac disc lies behind this, that lets one see at a glance what sign the sun and the moon are in at the moment. Another hand holds a Star, but when I ask, no one seems to know which star it represents.



Sunrise and sunset are also shown by the blue zone and black zones respectively, as the hour hand intersects moving arcs on the clock. In effect, the astronomical clock is a sort of computer, that gave the people very important information to base their day. In addition below the clock itself, is another large circle that points to the name of the saint for the particular day.

Throughout the day, it alternated between cool and pleasant, to heavy rain. But that all adds to the experience of a city.

We had planned on visiting the Church of St. Nicholas bordering the square, but a concert was being held. (Prague has two churches to St. Nicholas, one in the Old Town, and another in the Little Quarter.) So we walked across the Square hoping to visit Tyn Church, but it too was closed until mid afternoon. So we headed out of the square, and did some window shopping of the many crystal shops of Prague.

Nearer home, we walked into the Franciscan Gardens that we see out our windows each day, with its quiet walkways and tall rose bushes. A tea house in the center seems a world away from the bustle of near by Wenceslas Square. Finally we entered the church that dominates our view from our apartment, St. Mary of the Snows. A very tall romanesque style church that is narrow, but very high, with long tall windows letting in the light.

It had been a little while since we last visited Albert's, so we ended our day with some grocery shopping and then headed home with our latest cultural acquisition, a selection of Czech beer. Most bottles sold here are 0,5 L (a bit more than a pint), and we look forward to our beer tasting.

Cheers,

Hera & Anthony