Prague Castle Part Dva!

For my Architecture History course, the professor shows us all around Prague. After all, what's the point of a Czech architecture class in Prague if you're not actually going to see it?

On Monday we went to the Prague Castle for the second time. My professor has a funny habit of just leaving us after our tours are done, which is interesting, because we're about 15 Americans in Prague who speak very, very little Czech. But we figured that that would be the worst case scenario, and we'd all find our way back to our dorms.

Turns out we were wrong.

Our tour took us into the Cathedral through an extremely small and well hidden door. I arrived late, but was spotted by some of my classmates, thanks to my extremely conspicuous giant red coat. We climbed up a ridiculously tall and narrow spiral staircase, and then walked around the entirety of the Cathedral on the balcony.

 

Inside of St. Vitus

Rose Window

  

Flying Buttresses

Rose Window from the opposite side

It's an extremely Gothic building with some Renaissance and Neo-Gothic touches. Some of the building was destroyed, either in bombings or fires or various upheavals/revolutions, and the Neo-Gothic parts were usually reconstructions done in the early 1900s.

We finished our tour, and went back down the ridiculous staircase. Our professor went to unlock the door....and couldn't.

He wound up calling at least three different numbers before he finally reached someone. We definitely heard the word Polizie thrown in there. Instead of waiting in the cramped staircase, our professor took us into a small chamber between the staircase and the cathedral.

And then he took us into the Cathedral.

The thing about Prague Castle is that it's a complex built on top of a hill, so at night, it gets cold. Prague is cold to begin with, so being in a big stone building in winter in a cold city is rather extremely cold, especially at 6:30 at night.

It was really cold, dark, and therefore rather creepy, but it was also kind of totally awesome. How many times do you get to be in a huge famous cathedral in a small tour with a well respected art historian as your guide?

Not many.

 

Chapel on the main floor

Altar in a chapel

There were three doors, one of which can't be seen in this picture. We had to leave through one. It was sort of like a game show, but colder, and I don't think there were any goats or refrigerators behind the doors.

Eventually, the polizie and a guard showed up and let us out. Which was nice, because it was pretty cold. Then, about two seconds after we got into the main courtyard, our professor left us, and we found our way back.