Old Town Square

I moved to Prague today so me and Aussie did some neccessary shopping. And because we live in the centre of historic Prague it was a great opportunity to show Aussie Prague's beauty :)

Church of St. Havel between Wenceslas and Old Town square.

Entering the Old Town Square. Together with Wenceslas square (which is the longest square in whole country) this is the most famous square in Prague. The gothic building on right is "Church of Our Lady in front of Týn".  The building on left is one of the most popular touristic places...

...the Prague astronomical clock. We call it orloj and it's much cooler than it looks at the first sight :) It was created in the Middle Ages- 1410- yet it's very complex and more genius than many modern buildings of its kind (and prettier :) ). It's also the oldest astronomical clock that is still working. It shows a few different times, the position of Sun and Moon, astronomical cycles, the state of zodiac, the phase of moon etc. There are numerous wooden figures  like the Death, a philosopher, archangel Michael etc. on orloj. Inside of it there are mechanical figures of 12 Apostles who come from the two windows above the Clock and walk around every hour. There are always hundreds of people in front of Orloj waiting for the figures to come out.

There are many legends about Orloj. It is said that at the times of its creation this building was considered a miracle and the Prague citizens were so afraid that master Hanuš, who designed it, might construct the same clock- or even better- for another city that they came to his house when he was sleeping and pierced his eyes. Master Hanuš couldn't have designed another clock when he was blind. But he decided to take revenge, went inside the Orloj and stopped the mechanism. It took decades until someone repaired it again.

The dominant of the Old Town Square is the statue of Master Jan Hus, the religious reformer (he was a teacher at my university! ^^).

Then we went to the library to register. There is a famous tower of books with mirrors so when you look into it it looks like an endless literary tunnel :)

What I love about these big historical cities is that there is always live music. We listened for example to these guys who played medieval music

Or to these guys with... didgeridoo? (tell me if I'm wrong :))

NP Šumava- Lakes etc. :-)

Here's the rest from Aussies travels in NP Šumava.

One of the best feelings- sitting at river and bathing one's tired feet in cool water after many kilometers of walking :-)

Kofola break!

Yummy coconut cookies.

Aussie gained a lot of knowledge about local geology.

And tried this thing to hear the sounds of water loud..

Some info about the history of the national park.

This river's name is Vydra.

And this is also vydra (otter) :-) They have one in local cottage/pub.

Me and Aussie had this delicious venison goulash in a freshly baked loaf of bread for lunch.

A dragonfly.

Our goal of the following day were local lakes. There are many ponds in the Czech republic but lakes are rare, so these few are very famous touristic attractions for the Czechs. This one is Černé jezero (Black Lake).

And this one is Čertovo jezero (Chort's lake). According to a legend there was first a hole leading to hell. One čert (a type of deamon from Czech mythology) tried to pull a girl down this hole but she tied a large piece of rock to his tail. As the čert was fighting and trying to catch her, the rock created a valley. After years of rains this valley became full of water and that's how Čertovo jezero was created.
It is said the surrounding woods are haunted. The locals for example say that a ghost of an old man can sometimes be seen at the shore of this lake, searching his kidnapped wife. Some other tales speak about goblins coming out from the water.

On our way home we stopped in a café. This one is famous for its cakes, it even won some local award. The cakes are huge and delicious (I don't eat cakes normally but these were yummy!). Me and Aussie had this one with marzipan.

This is how the interier looks like. There is a model of railway at the ceiling with small trains going around the shop :)

Local church.

The following day we visited a village called Dlouhá ves (Long Village) to find a geocache at a Jewish cemetery. The village was truly long- just a long street surrounded with fields. It took us a while but at last we found the cemetery and enjoyed its old mysterious atmosphere.

Na Tokáni

We spent this weekend in the forests of Bohemian Switzerland. There is a historical cottage in which my aunt had her wedding party. It was a lot of fun with great people and loooads of food, especially local venison.

Our lunch- deer in plum sauce.

Oops :)

We spent most of time inside because the weather wasn't really nice. It's a pity because the surrounding forests and rocks were beautiful. Here are the pictures from our little walk.

Rocks are everywhere in Bohemian Switzerland. The green things on them are algae.

This part of forest was strange- so dark and dead..

This is the cottage we lived in.

We loved this tree!

Mushroom picking is sometimes said to be "Czech national sport" :D At this time of year you can meet loads of people hunting for mushrooms and almost every Czech is a mushroom specialist :D I love mushroom hunting although I don't eat them.