Dancing house – Originally named Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - the house resembles a pair of dancers . It was built in 1996.
Charles Bridge - is a famous historic bridge that crosses the Vltava river. Its construction started in 1357 and finished in the beginning of the 15th century. The bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter (where the castle is) side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, originally erected around 1700 but now all replaced by replicas. At night Charles Bridge is a quiet place, but during the day it changes its face into a very busy venue with painters, owners of kiosks, and vendors alongside numerous tourists crossing the bridge.
Prague Castle is the biggest castle in the world at about 570 metres in length and an average of about 130 metres wide. It is actually made up of many building, churches, gardens, and museuems. It is still used today as the offices of the government. The start of the castle started in 870 and wasn’t really completed with all the buildings until 1920. The say it wasn’t the whole time they were working on it. As an example the St. Wenceslas Chapel was started in 1344 and finished in 1929. They said there would sometimes be 40 years that they wouldn’t work on it because they didn’t have any money. Makes some of my renovations seem pretty quick. If you look at the pictures you can see one side of church is darker or black and the other is lighter. This is due from the aging of the sandstone that was used to construct it.
Entrance to the Castle. They have the changing of the guards every hour.
St. Wenceslas Chapel
Inside of St. Wenceslas Chapel
The front of St. Wenceslas Chapel at night all light up.
The old town square is where a lot of people hung out and had some interesting buildings and sights. One such site was the astronomical clock. At the hour it rang and had a skeleton ringing the bells to remind you that your one hour closer to death. The clock was constructed in 1490 by a clockmaster and ledged has it that the clockmaker was blinded on the order of the Prague Councillors so that he could not repeat his work; in turn, he broke down the clock by throwing himself in it and dying, and no one was able to repair it for the next hundred years.
The National museum was founded 1818 at present the National Museum houses almost 14 million items from the area of natural history, history, arts, music and librarianship, located in tens of buildings. This was closed due to renovation….for the next 5 years… Looks like nothing gets complete fast in this country. The tour guide said it will really be closer to 10 years before it’s completed.
In front of the National museum is the Wenceslas Square one of the main city squares and the center of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings.
Television Tower is a unique transmitter tower built between 1985 and 1992 it was originally built to block the free Europe television from the communist but it wasn’t finished in time and the collapse of communism happened before it was done. In 2000 an artist added some crawling babies on it to help it look better. It is currently listed as #2 on the World's Ugliest Buildings list.
