City of hundred towers, almost untouched by the destruction of World War II, is a tourists favorite. Baroque and Art Nouveau are its main art-styles. The city features the famous Prague castle overlooking the city, river Moldau that splits the city in two and is crossed by many beautiful bridges, but also narrow streets, pittoresque squares, fine parks, great shopping,.lots of high quality beer, affordable hotels and restaurants, and a friendly population. The city is small enought to be travelled on foot, but public transport is not expensive and deserved to be mentioned with special attention: the metro is fast en efficient, but for those not in a hurry, the many trams that cross even the narrowest of streets largely make up for the fine experience of this city.
the Prague castle towering above the city |
at the grounds of the Prague castle; basically a burrows and Saint Vitus Cathedral |
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Hradčanské náměstí, square ajacent to the castle |
Hradčanské náměstí, square ajacent to the castle |
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Hradčanské náměstí, art-nouveau lantern |
Wenceslas - square, in fact an very wide street |
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Malostranske Namesti with trams arriving
Staroměstské náměstí, square in old city |
Staroměstské náměstí, square in old city |
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Rudolfinum, with the statue of the great composer Dvořák |
wonderfull art nouveau lantern in front of the Rudolfinum |
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Railway station - here is where the great steam trains arrived from legendary cities in Austria-Hungary like Vienna, BudaPest or Krakau, but also from German cities like Dresden, Breslau, Nuremburg, Munich, or Berlin. Some of the former atmosphere and grandeur is still visible, but the station has evolved to modern times with a state-of-the-art modern interior, easy access to the metro, a busy road, a bus station, and a fine city park right out front. A remarkable number of mainly Asian tourists are still travelling by train, and when I asked a Taiwanese tourist about his reasons to travel by train and not airplane, he answered with a great smile "that he wanted to capture the spirit of days gone by". Great tourism!
some juwels of art nouveau . . |
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Prague is not just a beautiful city, it is a also very nioe place to be. Safe, easy, amazing. And it made me wonder how beautiful comparable German cities must heve looked if yet they were not destroyed in World War II.