Because the castle is so large and there are so many buildings we only visited St. Vitus' Cathedral, St. George's courtyard, the current main presidential offices, and the gold lane.
The cathedral was absolutely beautiful and my favorite part had to be the stained glass windows, which were so detailed and colorful that I wanted to just stand and examine them for ages.
There were also a lot of amazing decorations in the cathedral, but I unfortunately didn't have the time to get pictures of even half of them. I actually almost got left by my tour group because I was late to the meeting point outside the cathedral after getting stuck behind another tour group and being unable to get by them for a little bit. When I finally got out the tour guide was trying to figure out where the last person was and it was a bit funny.
Just outside of the cathedral was the presidential building with offices and living quarters (but the living areas are no longer used, the building is only used as an office building). It was a large yellow building and very simple compared to the large gothic church that stands next to it. Our guide also pointed out as we were heading to St. George's courtyard that there were 2 clocks on the side of the cathedral; one for the hour and one for the minute because the cathedral was built before the technology existed to have both the hour and minute hands on the same clock. We also learned that the cathedral is only recently finished, it was completed in the early 1900's and had been worked on since about the 800's, but due to wars and fires and deaths of head architects, it's building process took a bit longer than expected (by many hundreds of years).
Next we went to St. George's courtyard, which is the 4th and last courtyard in the Prague Castle.
The red building wasn't actually originally red, when Prague was invaded a few hundred years ago the invaders changed the front of the building (which is St. George's Cathedral) and added an extra door on the side of the building, which actually covers some of the original windows.
After the courtyard we went to the gold lane, which was actually called that because originally the houses were for the king's alchemists. Now it is just a collection of shops and mini museums. And I mean mini, the doors are very small.
After the palace we went to the John Lennon wall which started as a way for people to promote peace (illegally) during the communist regime that lasted until the 1980's. It still remains as a wall to promote peace and unity, but it is always changing as people continue to paint, carve, and write messages and names on the wall.
After the wall we went to the Charles' Bridge, which is named after King Charles IV (the name came much longer after the king had died, originally it was called the stone bridge, but was renamed to honor one of the people of Prague's favorite kings).
Unfortunately I took all of my pictures of the bridge on my camera so I don't have any to post.
The bridge marked the end of our tour and we went to find lunch. We ate at a small pub where I tried 3 different beers and didn't like any of them, but I did have a very good strawberry lemonade that was very fresh and definitely homemade.
After lunch we went to find dessert and when in Prague you have to try some of their traditional desserts, one of which is ice cream served with Nutella in a cone made out of a donut. It was soooo good!
(I took these photos after eating half of it, whoops)
After dessert we wandered around for a bit and then took the metro back to the hotel where I am now just relaxing and enjoying some down time.
Tomorrow is the first completely free day with no plans for me all trip and I'm really excited to have a relaxing day and get to sleep in! (We get up between 6 and 7 everyday and then do so many things and don't get back until late, I definitely need a day to relax).
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