W-wa Jeziorki: Prague, Central Europe (2)

Two days and three nights in Prague, so many photos; here's the next batch. I'll start with a view that is most associated with the city; Hradčany castle, as seen from across the Vltava river. The scale, the magnificence of this complex of castle, palace and cathedral, is hard to match.

Below: rather like London's Routemaster bus, Prague's Tatra T3 trams (built by ČKD Tatra between 1960 and 1989) are kept running because tourists love them. And they are reliable. Their one drawback is lack of low-floor access, though modernised three-unit versions have a new low-floor centre section. Warsaw retired its fleet of Konstal 13N trams of similar vintage at the end of 2012.

Below: a better form of transport for the well-heeled tourist, certainly one up on a horse-drawn carriage – a Škoda Felicia Super (1962-65). The 'Super' differed from the Škoda Felicia (1959-1962) by the bolt-on tailfins and a more powerful 1.2-litre engine. Although designed for five, actually carrying such a load is exerting undue pressure on the rear suspension!

Below: an even more unusual form of transportation that's largely disappeared from the world's cities is the paternoster lift. Named after the movement of rosary beads, this type of elevator moves non-stop, and careless users may suffer a gruesome fate. The accident rate for these is 30 times higher than with normal lifts. Carrying only two persons per platform, the wait for the next one is never long, but you need to judge getting on and getting off – timing is all. After Germany, Czechia is home to the largest number of paternosters in the world. Prague alone has four. (4. patro = IV piętro = 4th floor)

Below: view of the Prague suburb of Žižkov and its TV tower, as seen from Vitkov hill. Note the complete lack of high-rise blocks of flats; as far as the eye can see, the architecture is mainly 19th and early 20th century. This makes the boulevards, streets and squares of Prague's inner suburbs most attractive; and tourists tend not to stray out that far.

Below: statue of Jan Žižka, leader of the Hussite army (proto-Protestants) who defeated a Catholic crusade against them in 1420. The equestrian statue, one of the largest in the world, is central to the National Monument on Vitkov Hill, an inter-war complex celebrating the rebirth of Czechoslovak statehood.

Left: the Žižkov TV tower, like any newcomer to a city's skyline, it is becoming increasingly accepted as decades pass. Work started in 1985 and was completed in 1992. It stands 216m (709ft) tall, so not quite as high as Warsaw's Palace of Culture (231m), but being on top of a hill it is just as prominent. An artefact of the late-communist era, this example of high-tech architecture has become the more iconic since the ten crawling babies (with barcodes for faces) by Czech artist David Černý were added in 2000. The current ones date from 2017 and weigh quarter of a tonne a piece.

Below: atop Hradčany castle, one of several epicentres of tourist magnetism. The monument is to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850 –1937) progressive political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. The Žižkov TV tower once again dominates the skyline.