The next day we launch ourselves into the city with a vengeance. We are a bus and a metro ride away from the city, but we speed eagerly in after a wonderful breakfast, and explore first Prague Castle. It is a palace, utterly splendid and totally different from the stark militarism of Xativa in Spain or the grand intimidation of Edinburgh castle. It is a palace, a place of beauty and grandeur, echoing the city of Prague itself. We watch the changing of the guard, a melodramatic process involving a lot of foot-stomping and rifle maneuvering. Then we wander through the dramatic plaza, where we can almost visualize various princes and fair ladies and soldier and horses rushing too and fro (I see it like a scene from Anna Karenina, wrong country I know). There is of course, a dramatic cathedral, but it is rendered very unpleasant by large loud crowds within. We emerge from the courtyard onto an overlook, where a dramatic tree stands, poised against the vast backdrop. It is old, and gnarled, and beautiful, calling to mind immediately the white tree of Gondor. We gape at views of the city, resplendent with tons of green copper and bright colors (but more of that later). We descend from the castle down a long staircase into the town. We cross the Charles Bridge, one of the city's most famous sights. It is a long work of arm, a massive bridge of stone that gracefully spans the Vltava River. It is lined with statues, over 40 of them, massive beautifully depicted biblical characters, carved from rough stone and ornamented with golden crosses and swords. They gaze down on the dozens of street musicians and look out across the river to the main city, and down the river into the mist. The bridge, a huge, unified work of art, feels immortal, timeless, and as we look down the stretch of the river we can sense the great expanse of history. This bridge, this city pulsates with it (the bridge doesn't actually pulsate, don't worry, it is too stable). This is Europe, ancient and full of stories. Stories like the Velvet Revolution and the multiple Defenestration's of Prague, and mysterious stories too small but equally significant, like who else crossed this bridge, who built it, who planted that beautiful tree up at the castle, what did the defenestrated guy land on? (I like to imagine on the jagged wooden fence in a swamp full of brambles. Poor bastard).

Anyway, we are onward, across the bridge, under the tower that rises majestically at it's end, black and proud. We head into the center of the town, marvelling at the city, it's life, and especially the architecture. The architecture, which we have seen several times since our arrival, but which we can only fully appreciate now, is splendid. There is no other word for it. Huge buildings, beautifully constructed, with excessive, Baroque curls and flowers. But the best part is the colors. Soft, elegant pastel shades, greens and pinks and blues, all somehow walking the thin line between cheerful and guady. They are tasteful, but brilliant. And the crowning aspect of the ubiquitous copper makes the whole thing sublime.

The main square is crowded with lovely buildings, arching majestically over the wide open space which has a central statue hugely different from the faux Greek Adonis in the Valencian plaza. A dark figure cast in copper looms up in a flowing black cloak, glaring menacingly down on a crowd of cheerful folk musicians. A church stands regally in the center of the square, adorned on one tower by the famous Astrological Clock. A fascinating creation with an unknown purpose that looks not unlike the Alethiometer in The Northern Lights, but on a grand scale, colorfully adorned and crafted from beautiful metal. When the clock strikes the hour a procession of little wooden characters march out of the wall in a surreal procession, and a trumpeter emerges from the top of the tower to play a dramatic fanfare. It is wonderfully archaic.

We march up the main drag, a wide avenue refreshingly different from the narrow winding alleys of Amsterdam. We grab Czech sausages and breadrolls from a little stand and walk to the top of the hill, to the statue of King Wenceslas (didn't know he actually existed), and the astonishing National Museum, a vast creation of glass and brilliant metal, halfway between a palace and a train station, perched in the finest location possible, on top of the hill, looking down on the city with it's sparkling lights and wild flurries of snow. We explore the museum, with it's vast collection of`zoological research (including wooly mammoth skulls!) and an incredible mineral collection (Geologist Peter Tatum PhD would have cried at the site of all this rock), as well as the archeological history and a series of dramatic busts of Czech heroes. It was an impressive museum, beautifully laid out, designed to awe and impress with sweeping halls and high ceilings, incredible murals and vast marble columns. It is awe-inspiring. As is all of Prague.