Europe 2016, Day 6: Berlin

While walking past the Brandenburg Gate on the morning of May 23rd, I snapped this picture of a girl chasing soap bubbles.

For much of the day I took in the sights along Unter den Linden, the street that runs from the Brandenburg Gate eastward to Alexanderplatz.  One of my stops was here at the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) which holds the nation's main memorial to all "victims of war and tyranny."

At the center of the memorial is this statue called, "Mother with Her Dead Son."  It marks the tombs of Germany's unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp survivor.

Further along Unter den Linden is the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom).

Another view of the Berlin Cathedral, with the River Spree in the foreground.

Near the Alexanderplatz is the very tall TV tower (Fernsehturm).  It was built in East Berlin in 1969 for the 20th anniversary of the communist government.

Alexanderplatz: This square was the commercial pride and joy of East Berlin and included the once-futuristic, now-retro "World Time Clock", installed in 1969.

One of the first things I did upon arriving in Berlin was secure a ticket for a tour of the Reichstag (German Parliament Building) for my final evening in Berlin. By the time I arrived for my evening tour, the sky was beginning to look menacing.

The highlight of the Reichstag Tour was ascending the spiral staircase within the glass dome that sits atop the building.  I took this photo from the roof of the Reichstag after I had walked to the top of the dome and back down. Note the people inside the dome.

Another photo from the Reichstag's roof. The glass dome is to the right.

Photo taken from within the glass dome, looking inward at the mirrored cone that reflects natural light form the dome into the chamber below.  If you look closely, you can see the purple chairs in the chamber below. That chamber houses the Bundestag, the German equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives.

View of the Bundestag chamber from the ground floor.

One final photo from the roof of the Reichstag.  This is looking south towards the lush green Tiergarten to the right and the Brandenburg Gate (brightly lit structure at center). By the time I finished my tour of the Reichstag, lightning was flashing in the distance.
This was another long day of walking: 13 miles.

Europe 2016, Day 7: Berlin to Prague

The journey to Prague didn't go quite as planned. Thunderstorms rolled through Germany the night before (including a doozy in Berlin late in the evening).  The storms caused a landslide onto the rail tracks in southern Germany, near the Czech border. So my train trip from Berlin ended in Dresden, Germany, instead of Prague.  In Dresden everyone on the train was herded onto buses. We were then bussed about 30 miles into the northern part of the Czech Republic where we caught another train that took us the rest of the way to Prague. The amazing thing was that we ended up arriving in Prague exactly on time!  I was impressed.
The weather in Prague upon my arrival on the afternoon of May 24 was gloomy when I took this panorama shot from my apartment's window.

Prague's Old Town Square: It rained lightly for much of the late afternoon, but by early evening the rain had ended.  I didn't know it at the time, but this was about as empty I would ever see Old Town Square.  For the rest of my time here, Old Time Square was packed with tourists. This panorama shows about half of the square's periphery.

Europe 2016, Day 8: Prague

I started a busy day on May 25 with a visit to the Jewish Quarter in Old Town. This is the exterior of the Maisel Synagogue.

The second synagogue I toured was the Pinkas Synagogue.  The interior walls of the Pinkas are inscribed with the the handwritten names of 77,297 Czech Jews sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other camps.

A close-up of this section of the synagogue's wall reveals the name Korbel, the grandparents of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

At the front of the synagogue (on the ark wall) is a listing of the ghettos and extermination camps that received Czech Jews.

Near the Pinkas Synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery.

 A path meanders through 12,000 closely-spaced tombstones.

From 1439 to 1787, this was the only burial ground allowed for the Jews of Prague. Over time, the graves had to be piled on top of each other, layered seven or eight deep, so there are actually closer to 85,000 dead buried here.

 Graves were never relocated because of the Jewish belief that, once buried, a body should not be moved. Layer by layer, the cemetery grew into a small plateau.

 The Old-New Synagogue. Built in 1270, is the oldest synagogue in Eastern Europe.

Next to the Spanish Synagogue is this crazy statue, meant to depict writer Franz Kafka.

The sumptuous interior of the Spanish Synagogue.

After leaving the Jewish Quarter I crossed the Vltava River on the Manes Bridge. Farther downstream is the famous Charles Bridge, which I would be crossing several times during my stay in Prague.

I climbed the hill through the Little Quarter up to the Castle Quarter at the top of the hill.  The building that dominates the Castle Quarter is the towering St. Vitus Cathedral.

The St. Vitus soaring interior.

By contrast, the interior of the Basilica and Convent of St. George nearby was much more understated. But also beautiful.

 Another exterior shot of St. Vitus, along with an obelisk that was erected in 1928 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia.  The nation of Czechoslovakia would cease to exist 60 years later.

A bit farther up the hill beyond the Castle Complex is the Strahov Monastery.  I didn't walk up here necessarily to see the monastery, but rather to take in the amazing view of Old Town Prague with the castle above.  This is my favorite photo from the trip. The weather had been gloomy all day up until this point. But now, late in the afternoon, the sun broke out and it was beautiful.

I continued walking through a lush green park to the top of Petrin Hill and Petrin Tower, a small replica of the Eiffel Tower. The 200-foot-tall Petrin Tower is only one-fifth the height of the Eiffel Tower. But thanks to the hill it sits upon, the top of the tower is the same height above Prague as the Eiffel Tower is above Paris.

Of course, I paid the small fee to climb the tower and was rewarded with some amazing views of the city below.

After descending Petrin Hill, I walked through the Little Quarter and past the American Embassy here on the left.

There are towers on either end of the Charles Bridge.  I climbed the stairs to the top of the tower on the Little Quarter side of the bridge and enjoyed this amazing view of the bridge stretching out across the Vltava River and into Old Town on the far side.

Me in the bridge tower.

From the bridge tower, looking back west at sunset, across the rooftops of the Little Quarter, past the dome of the Church of Saint Nicholas (on the left) and on up the hill to Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.

 From the bridge tower, looking down as people cross under the tower and onto or off the bridge.

The Charles Bridge at dusk.

After dinner on Old Town Square, I walked back to my rental, past the Powder Tower. This tower served as a guidepost as I navigated the confusing streets of Prague.
This turn out to be yet another big day for walking - 14 miles and slightly more steps than a few days earlier in Berlin.

Europe 2016, Day 9: Prague

On the morning of May 26, my final full day in Prague, I crossed the Vltava River into the northern part of Prague to visit the National Gallery at Veletrzni "Palace", an art museum that houses Slav Epic. In front of the museum was a collection of Chinese zodiac sculptures, including this snake (since I was born in 1965, year of the snake).

Trippy floor in the lobby of the museum.

The museum has a large collection of art, including this Van Gogh painting, "Green Corn"

The highlight of the museum is Czech artist Alfons Mucha's "Slav Epic" - a series of 20 huge paintings that depict the history of the Slav people.  This is a small section of panel 1: "The Slavs in the Original Homeland," painted in 1912.

It was interesting to walk through the neighborhood in which the museum resides. Unlike the central portion of Prague in and around "Old Town," this part of Prague was virtually free of tourists and therefore felt more authentic Czech to me.

In the afternoon I did a walking tour of "New Town" Prague including New Town's centerpiece: Wenceslas Square.

Wenceslas Square was where important political protests occurred, including one that the Soviet Union crushed with military force in 1968.  More recently, this is where the "Velvet Revolution" occurred in 1989, that helped create the modern nation of the Czech Republic.

Back at Old Town Square late in the day.  Soap bubbles float in front of Tyn Church.

Old Town Hall (left) and Tyn Church in the background across Old Town Square.

Just before sunset, I climbed the tower on the Old Town side of the Charles Bridge.  Here's a panorama from the tower looking north and east at the Vltava River and Old Town.

One final panorama from the tower, looking east and southeast across the red-tiled roofs of Old Town.

Sunset from the tower, looking west across the Charles Bridge with the sun setting directly behind Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.  The following morning, May 27, I left for the train station to catch a bus to the Prague Airport for my flight back to San Francisco (via New York's JFK).