The Cathedral

There are a lot of great buildings to see in and around Prague, and the Cathedral is a must. We set off early, caught the metro into the city, walked through the square and across the bridge, and then caught a tram up the hill. We weren't the only ones. The tram was fairly crowded, and there were crowds already waiting to get into the cathedral. In fact there was a very discouraging queue several hundred long ...


We wandered around outside, looking at the statues and admiring the gargoyles, wondering if it was really worth queuing to get inside.

Finally we went and asked in the tourist office about ticket prices, and were told that of course, being a church, this was free. We watched the queue for a while, and noticed that each time it did move it made excellent progress. So we joined the end, and were quite surprised how soon we were allowed in - there was a man at the church door letting in groups of maybe twenty or so about every ten minutes. Once inside we found the place was huge and not at all crowded.




I haven't seen a lot of cathedrals, really, so I'm definitely not an expert. But this one is magnificent. Even if you are not a stained-glass enthusiast, you have to be impressed by the numerous windows in this church.

There are statues and a massive organ, a great deal of beautiful artwork.




But we wanted to climb the tower. It took us a while to find the staircase, but as soon as we did we started up. After a few steps there was a sign:

Warning: 287 steps

Ah, well. How bad can it be? I set off up the stairs with Peter, Max and friend Richard behind me. The staircase was small and winding in a clockwise direction. Whenever we met people coming the other way we pressed ourselves against the wall, and they had to step down the tiny side of the steps.

I could hear one of the guys had started counting - I was determined not to. Just concentrate on steady step - step - step ... and breathe ...

It was a long way. When we must be nearly there I heard Richard call "That's a quarter of the way!" Ahhh! By the time Richard announced "Half way" the claustrophobia was closing in on me. Just concentrating on the steps, and the way out is up!

We got there. And it was worth it. We have hundreds of beautiful photos. Here's a couple of small ones.

One More Tower

On our last day we checked out of the hotel - but arranged for them to look after our bags and give us a ride to the airport in the afternoon - and set off into the city one last time. We still hadn't been on the Funicular railway (that had to be fun!) and there was a mini-eiffel-like tower at the top of the hill.

After the metro and the walk through the city we got thoroughly lost in the back streets trying to remember where to catch a tram ... but eventually we stumbled across it. We managed to get off again at the right stop, and wandered around a bit until we found the train.



It wasn't very exciting - not like the old funicular railway in the Blue Mountains (Australia) that dives straight down over the cliff ... But it was a whole lot better than walking up the hill.



We were pleased to discover that our travel pass was effective here too. It was the only time anyone actually looked at our pass.

At the top of the hill was a pleasant park. And it was a beautiful Spring day. People were lying around on the grass, playing with kids, walking dogs. We began to wish we had brought a picnic lunch.

We found the tower without too much difficulty.


We were glad that it had a it of a kiosk at the bottom, so we had our lunch, and enjoyed the view from the hill. There was a lift to travel up, for a price, or stairs ... but suddenly we decided we had had enough. So we didn't go up the tower. There was a WC in the basement (we had to pay for that) and then we wandered briefly around the sad little museum that was also down there.

Going Home to Istanbul

Our flight was not until 8.45p, but the hotel man was concerned that we shouldn't be in traffic around 5pm. So we went and had our last meal at our favourite restaurant in Ceskamoravska. and then got back to the hotel for our ride to the airport at 4pm.

Even though it wasn't yet peak hour the traffic was slow and it took a good hour to get to the airport. We had to cross the river, but the bridge our driver had planned to use was closed for repairs, and that slowed us down - and everyone else who obviously wanted to use the bridge. What surprised me about all of this (after our recent experiences in China, especially, as well as Istanbul) was how patiently the traffic (well, the drivers) waited. And the man's mobile phone kept ringing, but he did not seem in the least tempted to answer it - in fact after a few minutes he did reach out to touch it, and turned it off. (I've seen drivers in China managing two phones and sounding their horn and eating and smoking while driving ...)

At the airport we had all the time in the world. And we managed to find the right check-in counter first-up. The young lady asked us whether we would be buying visas when we arrived in Istanbul, and we showed her our residents visas. She frowned and phoned someone, apparently quite puzzled that two people with Australian passports should also be Turkish residents. Finally she nodded and smiled and handed us our papers and we were on our way. A very brief security check let us into the departure area where we sat around and waited for our flight.

We arrived back in Istanbul a few minutes after midnight, showed our passports at the counter, grabbed our bags, and walked out. There were taxis waiting, and we had no trouble telling them where we live. By 1am we were back in our own bed in our apartment in Bakırköy.