Sight Seeing in Prague

Greetings from the rental apartment.  It's just off the Charles Bridge.  The bridge is a major tourist attraction in a city that is positively swamped with tourists.  I have to say, I had read that Prague is a major destination, but I had no idea how crowded it would be.  Never come here later than now, because it just gets worse until the fall.
We saw these two this morning, posing for wedding pictures, I took this from the apartment.  They were fun to watch, she kept looking at her phone, and he didn't look at her at all.  See the colored things on the fence?

They're locks.  People either write their names on them, or have them engraved, and then leave them on the fence.  They make a really pretty decoration.  We just saw on BBC that people also do this in Paris on a bridge there, and the bridge is collapsing under the weight of the locks. So, love can be a problem.

This is Prague as seen from the bridge.

More Prague.  The building in the way back is the Prague Castle.  Something has been on this site since the late 800s.  It is now the official residence of the President of Prague.  It's my understanding, which could be completely wrong, that the office of the president is not as important as that of the Prime Minister.  However, he has a palatial home in which to be unimportant.

There are many Japanese here.  They spend a lot of time photographing each other in front of the various monuments.  We were amused by these two sitting on the bridge.  Their camera was taking its own sweet time in taking the picture, so they were there for awhile, holding their smiles.

This is the Cathedral of St. Vitus at the Prague Castle.  It's another one of those buildings that's too big to photograph from the ground.

We went in to the chapel to decide if we wanted to buy tickets.  We were there at 9:00.  After deciding that we would buy tickets we headed out to the ticket seller.  Between the time we arrived and the time we went out for tickets, three tour buses had landed and the line was enormous.  I got one picture and we headed out elsewhere.

The stained glass is pretty amazing.  I left this one big.

We headed out for the monastery.  On the way we saw this, and headed down to see what it was.  It's the Loreta Praha.  It was amazing.

This is the ceiling in the chapel.  Just gorgeous.

The far end of the chapel.

This is looking towards the organ pipes.  Apparently they have a world famous organ there, and they have frequent concerts.  I like all of the flying cherubs that are on the pipes.

There is a courtyard.  Around the edge of the courtyard there are niches, and each one has some sort of major display in them.  This is one of them.

We went upstairs to see the treasury.  There is more art on the walls of the hall.  This is the martyr, St. Agatha.  Those would be her breasts on a tray.  Apparently she was tortured and martyred, dying in prison.  I'm not sure why this was done.

Then we continued on our way to the Strahov Monastery.  We went there because we wanted to see the libraries.  They are similar to the one in the other monastery we visited on the bike tour.  We did not know that you have to make advance reservations to actually go in to the library.  So, we could only stand at the doorway and take pictures.  I have to say, the REI bike tours are worth it just for the access to castles and monasteries.  The monument access is superb.  There is a theological library and a philosophical library at this monastery.  The ceilings are just amazing. 

I swiped this from the web, it shows more of one of the libraries.

This is the chapel at the monastery.  It's fenced off, so it's difficult to get a picture.

That was today.  We've walked our little feet off again.  We are now back in the apartment waiting for the washing machine to get done.  It's really hot here (90's) and humid.  No clothing will be worn more than once until this heat breaks.