Out with the Old

Day 31

New Years Eve in Prague started in a fairly quiet & relaxed manner.  Breakfast was included at our hotel and then we headed out on tram #9 for Wenceslas Square.  Two small Xmas markets were still running so we had a quick wander, surprised at the people chugging back the Czech version of mulled wine at 10am..  Its a fairly unremarkable square, rectangular in reality and split in half by a tram line.  The National Museum at the top of the square is under scaffolding while it undergoes a front facelift and the King Wenceslas himself sits atop his steed out the front. 

From here we wound our way through the heart of the Old Town to the Old Town Square, the famed Astronomical Clock and another Christmas Market. 

Dating from 1410, the Astrological Clock has three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; "The Walk of the Apostles", a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months.  The clock itself has recently undergone some restoration work and the tower it is housed in is also currently covered in scaffolding and sarlon.

The architecture round this part of town is gorgeous. Till now the streets had been relatively quiet and we actually remarked on how ‘un-crowded’ it was….. oh boy!

Ready for a coffee we headed away from the Old Town Square and explored some really sweet little back alleys – each more surprising than the previous one.  We found the Powder Gate, build in 1475 it was one of the 13 original gates that allowed entrance to the Old town of Prague in the middle ages.  It’s name is derived from the gunpowder stored there during the 17^th century.

Aware the crowds were growing, we made our way back towards the famed St Nicholas Church.  By this stage the crowds were growing and the tour groups dutifully trotted along behind their respective coloured flags/umbrellas/dolls on sticks. 

The beautiful St. Nicholas Church at the Old Town Square has had a varied and somewhat fascinating history.  Completed in 1735, it replaced a parish church mentioned in records dating back to 1273. The stunning Baroque interior was supposedly inspired by the chapel of St. Louis-des-Invalides in Paris. In 1781 all interior decoration was removed on the orders of Emperor Joseph II and  in 1870, St. Nicholas then became Russian Orthodox.  During WW2 Czech army units began reinstating the decorations, working with local professional artists – boy they did a great job. After the war, St. Nicholas was handed over to the Czech Hussite movement. 

I’ve always been fascinated by religious architecture and we’ve visited temples, churches (all denominations) and mosques but I’ve never visited a synagogue.  Today that changed when I visited the tiny, very simple but old Old-New Synagogue.  Built during the late 1200’s it is the oldest Jewish building in Prague. 

The Jewish Quarter was really quite crowded so we headed for the Danube … to escape the crowds we thought ….. wrong!  The views across the Danube to the Castle side of the city are lovely – and everyone else visiting Prague for New Year obviously thought the same.  He crowds on th famous Charles Bridge were so thick human traffic appeared to be almost at a standstill.  Yikes .. we took a few photos and scarpered out of there as quickly as possible.

Manes Bridge 

Gate on Charles Bridge - jammed with people

We’ve been hearing fireworks (mostly bungers) going off all afternoon and having checked out the comments on the Trip Advisor forum about where to see in the New Year we decided dinner and watching other cities fireworks on TV was the go.  Prague does their big municipal display a 6pm on New Years Day (so families can enjoy them) and places like Wenceslas Square are variously described as everything from madness to ‘the wild west on steroids’ as the locals set off their own fireworks.  Having experienced DIY fireworks in Munich with Lauren in 2012/13 we really have no desire to do it again.

Gorgeous Buda

Day 29

First order of business today was to confirm our seats for tomorrow’s train to Prague.  It’s a 7hr trip and we did not want to find ourselves sitting one behind the other.  We caught the metro to the main Keleti station and found ourselves at a very different part of the station from where we’d first seen on arrival on Wednesday.  While still in need of ongoing TLC – the main entrance is actually gorgeous and the metro platforms are all modern and very clean.

Seats sorted we took the metro back to the last station before the Danube so we could visit St Stephens Basillica.  It had been on yesterday’s Pest itinerary but we spent so much time at the National Museum that we ran out of time. 

Named in honour of Stephen, the first King of Hungary (c 975–1038), whose supposed right hand is housed in the reliquary, it was consecrated in 1905 having taken 54 years to build.  Having seen the interior I am not surprised.  Opulent doesn’t come close – coloured marble, gold leaf, a gorgeous painted domed ceiling and an utterly spectacular portrait of the Black Madonna.

We had a quick look through the Christmas Market setup in the forecourt but the howling wind made it a less than pleasant time so we headed for the Chain Bridge and our way across the Danube.  Well rugged up against a really feral wind, we walked across the bridge stopping in he middle for the fantastic views back to the Pest side.

The line for the funicular up to the castle was long and slow moving but we had no desire to trudge up the hill so we sucked it up and shuffled along till it was our turn.  Built in 1870, destroyed during WW2 and re-built between 1975 – 85 it takes 24 passengers at a time up a 30deg hill in just over 90 seconds.    

The views were fantastic despite the wind.  Once we got out into the castle grounds, the sound of drumming caught our attention.  The changing of the guard outside the Sandor Palace (the official residence of the President of Hungary) was pretty cool.

It was pointless trying to find somewhere out of the wind so we tightened our scarves and headed out along the terrace for more incredible views across the Danube. 

At the end of the end of the terrace we went down the stairs and had a look round some of the old parts of the original castle area.  

Like so many other European castles, Buda Castle was always a work in progress.  The oldest parts date from around 1300 but in the intervening years every king, queen, emperor and invader has added bits, destroyed bits, rebuilt bits – its impossible to describe all the building and rennos in a few lines.  It has been home to Ottomans, Austrians, Hungarians but the massive Baroque palace we can see today was built between 1749 and 1769.

The latest destructions happened during the Seige of Budapest in 1945.  Work is ongoing and we saw current reconstruction of the stables which when finished may well look like its been there for 300 years.  The castle houses the National Library, the Budapest History Museum and a swathe of government offices.

Out of the castle confines and into the ‘town’ part of Castle Hill (hehe) through some really lovely pretty streets (there you go with the two faces thing again) and a lunch stop before heading towards St Matthias Church and the gorgeous Fishermans Bastion which sits atop the steep hill down to the Danube and provides mazing views of the Parliament building across the river. 

We wanted to see Parliament House lit up at night, and with sunset just after 4pm we didn’t have long to wait.  We took a walk round the top of the castle walls past City Hall, the Mary Magdalene Tower (all that remains of a 14^th century church bombed in 1945) and back to the Fishermans Bastion to find a falconer waiting to part tourists from their forints.  

We stopped for some afternoon tea and headed towards the Bastion. The early evening views are spectacular.

Back to the Pest side by #16 bus and a beer (and a meat & cheese platter for dinner) at the Longford Irish Pub and we headed home.  Weary and a bit footsore but delighted with todays touristing.  Those damn two faces again – gorgeous Buda, grubby Pest (except for the areas right close to the Danube) but acknowledging that Hungary has only been a democracy since 1990 and their financial pie has a lot to go round.… Budapest you’ve surprised us.