Insta Friday: Prague Cathedral

For today’s Insta Friday post I have a collection of beautiful St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. It is the most important church in our country, the seat of Archibishop, roman catholic church. It was built from 1344 (first half started) to 1929 (second half finished) with lot of work done in between.
My most favorite part of the cathedral are the stained glass windows at the new part of the Cathedral, works of Czech artists Alfons Mucha and Max Švabinský. And in the gallery you can see why I like it so much.

Vilnius

Please find my photo blog about Vilnius with lots of shots and juste a few words in Czech about Vilnius.

Vilnius, gothic complex of churches so beautiful, that Napoleon wanted to take them home with him

Vilnius is a capital city of Lithuania and it is beautiful baroque city, with cozy atmosphere and nice streets.

Please follow the link here: Vilnius.

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Sign Says

Last weekend I have visited Kutná Hora and there I had found a nice sign that I want to share with you for The Sign Says Weekly Photo Challenge. More about Kutná Hora you can find on this link.

The sign I found in the souvenir shop simply said:

The sign says: 2 + 1 free

A bit strange and scary to find it at the souvenir shop at the bone chapel, which inside looks like this:

Bone chapel

And all the decorations in the chapel are done from the same “material”, the real human bones and human skulls.

Decorations

Therefore it is really strange to find this special offer:

The sign says: 2 + 1 free

Fortunatelly the small sign next to the first one says:

This sign explains what’s on sale – certificate

Still I would feel a bit strange to buy three skulls, despite the fact that one would be for free :-).

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Walks Indoors or Outdoors

Let me show you few shots from brilliant place in Moravia – Kroměříž Gardens. I chose them for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Walks Indoors or Outdoors and I hope you will like them and maybe you will visit the place as well :-).

Balcony above the garden, renaissance passage is bellow.

The first shot is from the view balcony over the gardens.

This gallery are the paths in the garden, passage under the balcony, walks in between flowerbeds.

Walks in the garden

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

What you see when you look up in cathedrals in England? See my shots for Weekly Photo Challenge: Up.

A Word A Week Challenge – Old

What can be older then the eternal city of Rome? Enjoy instagram shots from this city for A Word A Week Challenge – Old.

Piazza Navone, 4 rivers fountain

Collosseum

Lighthouse at Janicolo Hill

Mouth of true, remember Audrey?

Fountain at Piazza si Spagna, water from the source spring for all fountains in Rome

Pantehon in Rome

Prague Towers (10) – St. Henry’s Tower

Top of the spire on the St. Henry tower

St. Henry’s tower is the highest standalone bellfry in Prague. It is 213 ft (65.7 m) high and you don’t have to climb it, as there is a lift inside the tower. The tower was originally built as a bellfry for the church of St. Henry (Jindřich in Czech) and St. Kunhuta in gothic style in 1472-1476.  It was built from sandstone with wooden and shale roof. The tower served as a guarding tower in 1648, when Prague was attacked by Swedish army at the end of 30 years war and it was badly damaged by it, next damage was done in 1757 by Prussian army and in 1801 big storm ruined the narrow spire.

View to Jindřišská (Henry’s) street, direction Wenceslass Square

From top left: National Museum at the horizon, Main Train station, small garden hidden between buildings, Prague roofs

Therefore in 1876-1879 there was a big neogothic reconstruction done by Josef Mocker. Even bigger changes were done at the beginning of the 3rd millenium (around 2001), when challenging project was realised.

View to Prague Castle and the Old Town

Now the tower is used as a multifunctional object, there is a museum, restaurant, bar, whiskeria, small music hall. All the changes had to be done without a harm to the old building. Thus the new tower was built inside the old case, in the space of 22 ft x 28 ft (6.7 m x 8.5 m), with 12 floors (one underground), lift and stairs in the middle.

From top left: Senovážné square, old gutter, pink building, Czech National Bank in the middle, above it is a Powder Tower

The oldest bell in the tower is Maria from 1518, the biggest is Henry from 1680, the newest is Dominik from 1850. New glockenspiel was placed in the tower attic in 2003, done by master Manoušek in cooperation with dutch bell company Royal Eijbouts.

Original roof attic from 19 century, now used as a small concert hall

Next time we won’t climb the stairs again, we will take a lift to the hight TV tower at the horizon, as seen from St. Henry’s Tower:

Direction Žižkov

The whole series to be found here

1 Introduction
2 Bell Tower of St. Vitus Cathedral
3 Petřín Watchtower
4 St. Nicholas Bellfry
5 Little Quarter’s Bridge Tower
6 Old Town’s Bridge Tower
7 Astronomical Klementinum Tower
8 Tower of the Old Town Townhall
9 Powder Tower
10 St. Henry’s Tower

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Squares and Angles

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge was very difficult  for me, I was almost going to skip it. I was going through my archives not being able to find something interesting. But then I did it. I found a nice collection of details of the walls of my beloved renaissance town of Český Krumlov. Look at some of my previous blog about the town, it is really worth seeing: Festival of Five Petalled Rose, Colors of South Bohemia or Roads in South Bohemia.

Decorated renaissance buildings in Český Krumlov

For Squares and Angles I chose the renaissance details of the building walls. Now we call them “envelopes”, but originally they were ment as 2D projection of 3D stone, of which the buildings were built in antique architecture, as you can see at this old original building in Rome at Forum Romanum (left side of the shot).

Rome, Forum Romanum palace

And here is the collection of squares and angles for you.

Details of the renaissance walls at Český Krumlov

One more from Třeboň, combination of curve and square.

Passage ceiling at the square in spa town Třeboň

Prague Towers (9) – Powder Tower

Powder Tower – in Czech we call it Prašná brána (= Powder Gate) – stands at the entrance to the Prague Old Town, next to the famouse Art Nouveau Municipal house.

Powder Tower viewed from the New Town, from the Old Town and the statue of its architect Matěj Rejsek

There also starts so called Royal Road because King’s corronation parade started here. Formerly, the Royal Palace was at the place where you find Municipal House in 14-15 centuries. King preferred to live in the city center more than in the Prague Castle. Therefore, the Old Town Municipality decided to build here a new tower in 1475 to show the safety of the Old Town and to have an opposite to the imposing Old Town Bridge Tower on the other side of the town. They named the tower New, its bases were 30 ft (9 m) bellow the current level of the ground and it was 138 ft (42 m) high. The architect was Matyáš Rejsek, now you can see his status looking at the tower from the corner of Municipal House. Unfortunatelly for the tower, due to the riots on the streets king Vladislaus II Jagiellon found out that it would be much safer to live in Prague Castle and he left the Royal Palace. As a result you can find beautiful Jagiellonian Hall at Prague Castle. The architect left as well, Matyáš Rejsek went to Kutná Hora and he built there a beautiful gothic cathedral of St. Barbora.

Interiers, stairs and stained glass windows, specially impressive when sun shines

Thus, the tower at the Old Town was not finished and it was used as the warehouse of the gun powder and got its current name Powder Gate. In 18th century it was badly destroyed by prussian army and lost its beautiful decorations. Today’s appearance it received in 1878-1886 in pseudogothic puristic recontruction done by Josef Mocker (as St. Vitus Cathedral, Karlštejn and a lot of other gothic buildings in Prague and its surrounding). Old Town Tower bridge was again used as the source for the decoration style and the tower received new “boaster” tower so typical for Mocker’s reconstruction.

Views from the tower, direction Prague Castle, roofs of Celetna street, Golden Eagle roof with pigeons, roofs of Municipal house

Tower is 213 ft (65 m) high, the view platform is in 144 ft (44 m) and you have to climb 186 stairs to reach it. In fact I consider this tower to be the most “difficult” for climbing, specially due to the narrow stairway at the bottom of it. The lowest part is the worst, when you climb up, it gets better and safer.

Details on the roof of Municipal house

Personal note: windows of my first office at the second floor at the top shot, bottom shot street leads to the place where I live

Our next tower is St- Henry’s Tower, highest standalone belltower in Prague, as seen from the Powder Tower:

St. Henry tower dwarfs the roofs of Czech National Bank, out next topic for Prague Towers

The whole series to be found here

1 Introduction
2 Bell Tower of St. Vitus Cathedral
3 Petřín Watchtower
4 St. Nicholas Bellfry
5 Little Quarter’s Bridge Tower
6 Old Town’s Bridge Tower
7 Astronomical Klementinum Tower
8 Tower of the Old Town Townhall
9 Powder Tower

Travel theme: Roads

There were two months without a sign of sun and finally the sun has come to Prague this weekend and now it shines strongly through my window. And I can’t think about any other place but South Bohemia and I hope I will get there asap with my family. Therefore, for Travel Theme: Roads I take you there again, like in my previous post for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Rainbow Colors. South Bohemia has very fresh air, beautiful nature, colorful towns (yes, I wrote about it last time, I am  just full of it…). Look at the roads in woods and fields there.

Roads of South Bohemia

In the Rainbow post I invited you to take a walk around Golden Canal in Třeboň, here you have a picture how it looks there.

Walk around Golden Canal in Třeboň

The orientation in the nature is simple here, you just follow the touristic signs.

Tourist walk signs in Czech Republic

Another nice walk – combination of city and nature walk is around Vltava river in Český Krumlov, you can also go by boat there.

Walk around Vltava river on Český Krunmlov

For another theme Industrial I took you to the tour through breweries, and one of them was Platan (=plane-tree in English) brewery, named after plane-tree alley. This alley leads to the brewery premises, here is the picture of this beautiful place located in town Protivín.

Plane-tree alley, view from the brewery gate