Prague

On Friday morning, August 22 we awoke at 1:30 am, after about 3 hours of sleep, to begin our first visa trip. We were picked up at our apartment by a cab containing two of the elders that would be traveling with us -- our traveling companions consisted of 4 elders and 1 sister. We waited at the airport for 2 hours and then boarded our plan for a 4 1/2 hour flight to the Czech Republic. You might think this is a great way to sightsee, but think of the disruption to mission work, and what it costs the church to send missionaries every 3 months to get new visas - a huge problem for all the missions in Russia. The mission presidents also have concerns about their missionaires who have to travel so far unsupervised, not to mention the extra office staff it takes to plan and make the travel arrangements. We made the trip in one very long day. One of the elders who traveled with us, Elder Sorenson, made a 20 hour train ride, prior to taking the plane -- and he would have to take the 20 hour train ride home afterward. Not all fun and games.

Prague is amazing! We loved everything about the city -- except possibly, the prices. The first impressive building we saw was the opera house -- at least that is what we thought it was. It was a great morning for a brisk walk and a tour of historic Prague.

We decided we would travel together -- first we would head towards the St Charles bridge, cross it, then climb the hill to the Prague Castle.

The sun was shining, the air was clear, we were with good companions, the surroundings were amazing -- we didn't care that we had only a few hours of sleep. We wound our way through the city.

To get onto the bridge we entered through the Old Town Bridge Tower -- built in Gothic Style and quite impressive.

We arrived at the bridge early enough that it had not yet become congested with tourist, painters, or those selling their wares. The bridge is decorated by a continuous ally of 30 statues and statuaries, most in the baroque style and erected around 1700.

Elders Magleby, Jensen, and Pulsipher stop to pose.

I took this picture from the bridge, showing the old town upstream.

After leaving the bridge, we began our trip to the castle. We knew it was a top the hill, so we began our assent across the cobblestone roads and walks -- everything was clean and beautiful.

Up, up we went climbing many stairs.

Finding a few surprises along the way --Elder Sorenson clowns around. Could it be a former missionary who didn't make it to the airport on time for their return from a Visa trip??? High on the hill we could look across the city below, and on the hill adjacent to ours, the Petrin, I saw Petrinska Rozhledna. This is a tourist attaction we didn't have the time to visit. It is often described as a small Eiffel tower. It was built in 1891 and was used as an observation tower/transmission tower.

I don't know what this building was, but I loved seeing 'Old Glory' waving in the breeze.

The Prague castle is one of the biggest castles in the world (according to the Guiness Book of WR), at about 570 meters in length and an average of 130 meters wide. Included on the grounds are three courtyards, the St Vitus Cathedral, Romanesque Basilica of St George, a monastery and several palaces, gardens, and a defense tower. The various rulers who occupied the palace made their own additions and changes, so there are a mixture of styles.

Elder Nuzman tried to look as stoic as the guards.

We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guards -- pretty impressive.
Inside the second courtyard we stopped at a lovely fountain to take pictures.















Imagine our surprise when we climbed up and looked over the bowl to see a man collecting the money inside it. Not sure if it was his job, or if he was just in need of a little cash.

St Vitus's Cathedral took 600 years to build and is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague. It contains the tombs of many Bohemian kings. The cathedral is an excellent example of Gothic architecture and is the biggest and most important church in the country. They are in the process of cleaning and fixing the outer structure. The Cathedral sits in the middle of the third palace courtyard. The front view with the Rose window above the portal depicts scenes from the bibical story of the creation.

The walls of the cathedral have many colorful stained glass (mosaic) windows depicting various historic or bibical stories. The most famous is the Mucha window depicting scenes from the life of SS Cyril the Methodius, who brought Christianity to the Slavic area. It also shows St Wenceslas kneeling next to his grandmother St Ludmila. The organ loft was massive.





The zigzag pattern of Net Vaults from crossing down towards the choir. This vaulting of the ceiling was unique and became a famous part of architecture.

The third courtyard was huge and was surrounded by extensive palaces.

When we left the castle we stopped on top of the hill overlooking the city. I have always loved the red tile roofs and clean, well manicured gardens. Then we began our descent.

Going down the walkway we could see the Monestery of St. George below.

As we walked back across the other bridge into the city, I was able to get a nice shot of the St. Charles Bridge from down river.

In Old Town Square we stopped to watch the hour change on the Astronomical Clock. This clock dates back to 1410 and has three components: The astronomical dial, representing the sun and moon; the 'Walk of the Apostles' and other moving sculptures; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months. It was very nice -- but did not compare to the the Glockinspeel in Munich.

Ron and I decided to let the 'young people' take off on their own and we would find a place to rest. After all that walking we were tired. We found a bench under a tree and were thrilled to watch a dance festival being performed in the town square. Some of the dances reminded me of the Western Square dance -- but of course, the music was much different. Every band had an accordion.

Wonderful costumes from native lands, and we heard many, many languages, Danish, Dutch, German, and some we didn't recognize. Happy, fun-loving people. It was so much fun to sit and watch and listen to the music.

This costume comes from Wales. The story of the hat is quite interesting. The stove pipe black hats are traditional in Wales, but in the Southern part of Wales the people are closer to the England, and they speak English. They wanted to distinguish themselves from the English and let others know they are true Welshmen, so they exaggerated the tradtional stove pipe hat and made it taller. I think it looks a little like the Puritan hats in early America.

Carriages took people for rides -- the horses look quite stylish, don't you think?

As we were about to leave the city, we had a group of young people stop us and asked the Elders, "You look like missionaries, are you?" We were told not to wear our tags, but even then, the missionaires stood out. Elder Nuzman and I were told to dress 'casual' so we were comfortable, but we didn't 'look the part', (in fact they wondered if we were the parents of one of the missionaries). The youth were on an excursion from Germany, a 2 hour drive from Prague. We had a good time chatting and getting to know each other, and even found some common acquaintances -- isn't it wonderful to be a world-wide-church! A chilly, rainy morning welcomed us at the Yekaterinburg Airport (Elder & Sister Nuzman, Elder Magleby, Elder Jensen, Elder Pulsipher, Elder Sorenson and Sister Borchardt). We experienced a few delays, so we arrived at 8:30 am on Saturday, August 23rd. We couldn't couldn't get a cab to take us back to the city for the price we asked, so we opted for a bus ride. It took longer, but was less expensive. Walking back to city center, I stopped a passerby to get one last photo of our 'gang'. We were tired and anxious to find our beds, but we had a terrific trip -- a wonderful day in Prague!