Breakfast at the hotel was standard mittel European-cum-International. There were a few cereals - fresh fruit - various breads and crispbreads - sliced cheese - sliced meats (ham and salami) - smoked salmon - a few pates and dressings - small crepes (pancakes) and a choice of cooked egg dishes - scrambled or poached or omelettes with herbs, mushrooms and/or ham. And various jams and honey. Fruit juices and tea or coffee. All in all, one could make a substantial breakfast.

Afterwards, we set out for the Castle. We'd decided to take a taxi rather than the metro - largely because it seemed to me that the nearest metro was at the bottom of the hill and the castle was at the top. The weather was already blazing hot ... and every guide said that the Castle could take a day to see. We didn't want to start with a climb ...

Prague Castle, with St Vitus' Cathedral,
seen from across the river

We hoped the taxi would take us through beautiful Prague, but we ended up really going fast through dull bits. Soon enough, though, he dropped us by the Castle gates and we made our wat into the second courtyard - although not until we had spent a little while gazing across the deer moat and marvelling at the beauty of the Cathedral rearing up in front of us.

The exterior of the Cathedral from the Third Courtyard	The South Entrance of the Cathedral

St Vitus was clearly our first main target. We walked into the second courtyard - doing a bit of "wow" style gawping, and then Greg went to get some bottled water, while I queued for tickets. By then I had bought a pictorial map of the castle - which proved very useful. Too big to scan in in its entirety ....

Cover of the Castle map	One of the illustrations of the Castle, showing its extent, taken from the map

I was struck, as I talked to two Israeli women, by the sheer variety of nationalities that one encountered in Prague. All Europe seemed to be there; we heard German, French, Italian, Spanish - as well as English. Presumably there were a range of Slave languages as well - but we couldn't distinguish them from Czech. There were also Americans and Japanese ... as well as Malays. It's rare to find so many European races in agreement on where to holiday ...

The Cathedral was a real surprise. As the Czach Republic is a Catholic country (despite being the home of Jann Huss), I had expected the Cathedral would be pretty ornate inside - like the Cathedrals of Salzburg and Innsbruck. Instead, it was much simpler and plainer ...

The interior of the Cathedral, looking toward the high altar (note the light from the stained glass window in one of the side Chapels)	Another view of the interior, looking towards the altar (note the net vaulting of the roof)

Apart from tomb of St Johnm Nepomuck, all done in silver with flying cherubs holding up a sort of pavilion over the tomb. A trifle OTT.

But ..

... the windows.

Oh my.

Windows in the Chapel of St Sigismund

I have seen Canterbury - which is pretty stunning. I've been to Chartres, which is justly famous. But the windows in St Vitus ... well, they are simply wonderful, from the medieval to the Art Nouveau windows of Mucha (although most are C19 and C20). Some of the side chapels had frescos, but they were nothing compared to the utter glory of those windows. We walked around the entire Cathedral, spellbound - and then went and had lunch to recover.

The Last Judgement	The Hora Chapel Christ blessing the Slav nations designed by Alphons Mucha

After a baguette and LOTS of water, we went on - exploring the old Castle (where the Second Defenestration of Prague occurred - and when we saw the obelisk in the belvedere which marks the dung heap where the envoys landed, we were struck by how far it was from the window; those poor Papal envoys didn't just fall - they were HURLED), the Basilica of St George (the oldest Romanesque Church in Prague) and the pretty Golden Lane, a street of small shops where once favoured artisans had lived (and later Kafka's sister - with whom Kafka stayed). The whole castle was, in fact, a vast complex - still the seat of Czech government.

St George's Basilica	Interior of St George's Basilica

We finished by leaving from the opposite side that we had entered. We climbed down the steps (after admiring the views over the river, Charles Bridge and the Old Town) and found the metro, rather pleased that we hadn't had to climb up ...

Vladislav Hall in the Old Castle	Golden Lane

And so to the hotel to rest for a little before the Black Light Theatre.

We caught the metro out to the station called Mustek. By now we had realised that the long boulevard that had grand buildings to either side - but mostly shops (and a Macdonald's) was, in fact Wencelas Square itself. I had always had visions of it as a rather bare and austere place, surrounded with high and forbidding walls (and probably with thick snow underfoot). To find it was this rather nice, fashionable, tree lined boulevard was a slight shock.

Wencelas Square

We walked towards the theatre (Greg remembering the route better than me) and found a nice little restaurant where we stopped for dinner before the performance. I had traditional Czech food again - roast pork and the famous dumplings - which turned out to be very different from our round English suet dumplings. These were served sliced, and were more like soft bread. They were delicious though ...

Then on to the theatre. It started at 8.30pm, but the doors opened at 8, and the woman who sold us the tickets advised us the get there early. We arrived at five part eight - and the place was packed. We managed to get seats three rows back.

The theatre itself was a conversion, and had a pleasantly amateurish feel, with the seats being arranged in rows of comfortable but stackable chairs. The audience seemed to be composed of a variety of nationalities but - although there had been some talk in guidebooks about a lot of the Black Lights Theatres being primarily for the tourists, the audience did seem predominantly Czech.

There had been a choice of productions. The one we had opted for was Faust.

The stage was actually smaller than I had been expecting, but they did terrific things with stage areas and dropped curtains. The show was a combination of pantomime and puppetry techniques - including wire work from the actors, although limited in such a small space - and - of course - the famous black effects. Performed in front of a black cloth, people dressed in black velvet from head to foot manipulated strange objects and effects. The performance was a combination of English and Czech and kept to the very broad outlines of the story, going so far as to give it a happy ending (Faust, in hell, repented and was lifted into heaven).

Images of Faust

It was an amazing spectacle and one of the real highlights of the holiday.

When we applauded afterwards, the minor actors took their bow, then the main players (Mephistopheles and Faust were both excellent) and then the real stars of the show were revealed, as the manipulators came forward and took their bow, having removed their black hoods.

We could have gone up to the gallery in the interval where there had been a talk on the tricks of the black theatre but actually, we decided we didn't want the mystique spoiled ...

And so home to bed in the hotel via the metro ... and fortified with a drink on the way ...