Olomouc 1 — old city continued

After the markets, I wandered towards an attractive looking park I spotted, Bezručovy sady. This apparently is a green space outside of the old city walls.

Flower bed.

An attractive specimen.

The old walls with what seemed to be stairs to re-enter the city.

And so it was. I found myself in the vicinity of the Church of Saint Michael.

I walked past the church and passed Kaple svatého Jana Sarkandra.

Down some cobbled streets towards the tram tracks and there was the Olomouc Museum of Art.

Opposite is the Church of Our Lady of the Snows.

The History museum in Olomouc.

A used record and book shop around the corner from there. I thumbed through part of the collection hoping I could find a CD or something as a memento of Czechia, but nothing appealed to me.

Going past Mercatino would have taken me to a busy road that seemed to be the boundary of the old city, so I turned around and doubled back past the museum and church along the tram tracks. There were many attractive shops in this part of town.

Tempting cafe.

Tram comes along.

An open-air art installation.

We are back in the Upper Square but approaching from a different direction. So I had come full circle.

This is the City Hall but it was under renovation which is why I didn't see the astronomical clock.

I had spotted this amusing advice at Café La Fée in passing, so I doubled back to be a customer.

Caffeine, chocolate, and sugar hit.

A gap of a few hours to the next photo indicated that I must have gone back to the hotel for a rest before having a late lunch.

Prague 2 afternoon

First some examples of Prague architecture.

Don't ask me to name them, although I could probably locate them on a map.

I also don't know anything about the style or history of the buildings. I just know a pretty building when I see one.

I did look up U Novaku. Seems it's an upmarket restaurant.

My destination was Wenceslas Square. I was expecting crowds and I was not disappointed. At the far end you can see the National Museum.

A bit closer.

The statue of King Wenceslas. Most people have heard of him through the Christmas carol. Vaclav is another form of Wenceslas.

The New Building is next to the National Museum.

Looking back at the square from the entrance of the museum.

My next destination was the astronomical clock. I wanted to be there in time for the next striking at 1400. On the way were these tourist and vendor crowds near the Můstek subway station.

The square was packed with people anticipating. I think my camera clock must have been a bit off as the picture timestamp is about 10 minutes before 2.

A telephoto shot of the clock when it struck. The Wiki link above explains the components.

The crowd dispersed after the show.

Czechia has its version of the Hungarian Kürtőskalács, chimney cake, called trdelnik. I got to try it later.

Prague subway stations are beautifully decorated. Here's the decor at Můstek.

From there it was a direct ride to Anděl which was only a few minutes walk to my lodgings, demonstrating how convenient its location is.

I was going to write a separate post for the evening, but it turns out that there is only one picture after this, which means that I must have napped in the afternoon, and then had a quiet evening after dinner. Perhaps there was some supermarketing in the local shopping centre. This is the Italian spaghetti with mussels I had at a boutique cafe in the Smichov district. Quite decent.