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Sunday, August 2, 2015

Prague, Czech - Jewish Quarter Walking Tour (Part 2)

Our walk through Old Town takes us past some very colorful advertisement posters for shows, plays and music clubs.



 This building is Ministerstvo pro Mistni rozvoj (Ministry of Regional Development).

 It is a very fancy building and I wonder what the story is behind all of the ornateness.
The top has statues and gold.
 The entranceway is gated with a balcony above the door.
In the center of the plaza is a large monument.  This is a statue of the religious reformer Jan Hus.  He was burned at the stake in Constance for his beliefs.  The statue was erected in 1915 to mark the 500 anniversary of his death.  

We had a few minutes to take photos while our guides made sure that the group was together.

 And soon we are off again to make our way to the Jewish part of town.
 We walked past the church Chram Svateho Mikulase, (The Church of St Nicholas).  Inside, the decoration has been described as the most impressive example of Prague Baroque. We did not go in to the church, but I wanted to note it here as a good place to stop in.


 I have yet to try these.

After learning about this church, I found a photo of the interior.  WOW.  This is definitely worth a look inside.

These are the wikipedia credits. "Chram sv Mikulase interier oltar od vchodu" by Ludek - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chram_sv_Mikulase_interier_oltar_od_vchodu.jpg#/media/File:Chram_sv_Mikulase_interier_oltar_od_vchodu.jpg


Next to the church is the Franz Kafka restaurant.  It looked beautiful.






Somewhere in here we officially enter the Josefov, the Jewish quarter of Prague.




A few close-ups from the photo above.



A casual shopper...

 ...is Marilyn from our tour group.
 This is the fancy decoration on the upper window.

We stopped in front of the Maisel Synagogue in the Josefov section of Prague. It was paid for by Mordecai Marcus Meisel and named after him.  This synagogue was built in 1590-1592.  It burnt in 1689 and was rebuilt in baroque style. It was rebuilt again in 1893-1905.  It was Hitler's intended "Museum of the Extinct Race" Today it serves as a Jewish museum, part of the collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague.



 After some words from the guide, we moved on.
 The buildings are very ornate and I don't know what the designs or symbols represent.  The next three photos are zoom views from the above street view.






The next three photos are zoom views of the above photo.



I had to get a photo of the trash can!
 The next two photographs are from the same area with a different angle.


This is a very sophisticated entranceway with the gate and sculpture.
 A close up to see what was above the door. Looks like an eagle.

The buildings continue to intrigue me.




I saw a lot of scooters. They are pretty snazzy!
The building across the street.
 A a nice close-up portrait of the scooter.
And on to the next museum.

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