But that comes way towards the end of my day here in Prague. Yes, the first day in the city away from the Institute. I took the bus and metro in from Ondrejov, which was a pleasant trip...Hadrava met me at the Muzeum metro station, which was beneath Wenceslas Square. We walked down to the Stare Mesto (Old Town) to begin an Astronomically themed walking tour of Ancient Prague. It was honestly one of the nicest things anybody has done for me, especially considering that his father-in-law's funeral is tomorrow or something. Very cool, I hope to describe it here in sufficient detail to let others see the same.
1. The Plaque of Jan MarekA little bit of a warm up, if you take the route into Stare Mesto that goes directly from Wenceslas Square, you pass a plaque of a big smiley guy. This is Jan Marek, a physician who also dabbled in physics, who had ideas on a number of things that were on the right track before more famous people clarified them, including work on optics and conservation of momentum before Newton and Galileo. He's not generally important - his ideas were not so clear - but it serves as an interesting start.
2. St. Michel Church
Continuing down the street, there is a left turn onto Michelska (Street), a turn off to a courtyard
where there is a cafe. Next to the cafe patio, there is part of an old church in the wall of a newer yellow building. This Church was run by a priest named Christianus who was the first person ever to print a treatise on the Astrolabe. He is a large bart of the Hadravas' work in the history of astronomy; they proved that it was Christianus the Czech priest and not an Italian named Robertus Anglicus, whom the treatise had previously been attributed to. Christianus had been close with Jan Hess, a protestant martyr and the instigator of the Hussite Revolution, so Christianus had been branded a heretic by the Church. Somehow, scholars knew that the author of the treatises had been a heretic, but had thought it was Anglicus, a heretic in his own right for translating the Qu'aran into Latin. This is an important thing for the Czechs, to show the prominence of one of their own.3. Prague's Astronomical Clock
The heavy hitter, this is a main attraction of Stare Mesto and hard to miss. Fortuitously, we arrived just as it was about to chime the hour. The actual chiming is not that exciting; two doors open and the Apostles rotate around behind the open doors. Also, a few of the ornamental statures move around. But the clock itself is magnificent, the guidebook said Praguers blinded it's craftsman so he couldn't duplicate it for another city. It keeps track of:
I. solar time
II. siderial position in the Zodiac
III. solar position in the Zodiac
IV. phases of the moon
V. old Czech time, which essentially measured the time since the last sunset.
VI. Day of the year
there was something else about how the clockface featured a sterographic projection of the horizon and day and night skies. If you look, you can see blue, orange/brown, and black circles on the clockface. These stand for the sky, the horizon, and the night sky.
Apparently the clock was helpful in proving Christianus had written the treatises.
Note that at the righthand base of the main clockface is a statue of an astronomer, WITH telescope!
4. Old Prague Meridian
Continue to the right of the clock into the old town square. In
the center, there is a metal strip set in the stone accompanied by a plaque. This is the old meridian of Prague. It ran through a statue not far from there, but it was destroyed in a revolt since it was taken as a sign of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. All that remains are some pavement stones that are shaped 
differently.Note: we went to the Kostel Ktky Bozi pred Tynem (Church of our lady before tyn) but couldn't get in to see whatever it was Petr wanted to show me. The guidebook says that Tycho Brahe's gravestone lies here, so I assume that's what we were looking for. Check this out on your way out of the Old Town Square.
5. We continued to the Carolinum, where Tycho Brahe made some observations from one of the towers there. Only one tower remains, but we don't know if that was one of the ones Brahe used. Further on we reached a broad open street, I believe it is Ovocny Trh, and down towards where it narrows there is an entrance way off to the right which features a plaque saying that Johannes Kepler lived here. This is not the main Kepler house, but one where he did stay.
6. Johannes Kepler's House
This is a pretty cool house, it has a plaque on the outside marking it. From the Carolinum, head back towards the Astronomical clock and head towards the Charles Bridge/Klementium via Karlova. Kepler wrote his magnum opus describing his first two laws of planetary motion while living here. On the way to it you pass a church (on your right) with an elliptical design; there is speculation that this church may have provided Kepler with a Eureka! moment. Go into the doorway at the house and take it to the courtyard, where there is a cool fountain comemmorating Kepler. It features the inscription "Ubi matteria ibi geometria," "Where there is matter, there is geometry."
7. The Klementium.
This old Jesuit College features a cool tower that was used for observations (my guidebook says Kepler himself did some work there). Go to the courtyard to see this. You can also climb the tower, but we didn't do that today. It has a tiny window that was part of something called a meridian room. I suppose when the sun passed through the window, it crossed the meridian, signalling noon. When noon struck, the astronomers would put up a flag, which was viewed by soldiers up on Prague Castle. The soldiers would then fire a cannon, signalling to the Praguers that it was noon. A public service announcement, if you will. This was also the original site of the Astronomical Unit of teh Czech Academy of Sciences, which is now located in good ol' Ondrejov. (For meterological dorks the same courtyard features a weather station that has been gather data uninterrupted since the 1700s.)8. Charles Bridge Tower
Head towards the Charles bridge. Note the column to the far right of the plaza featuring St. Wenceslas.
King Charles made his bridge not only functional, but symbolic in many ways. He broke ground for the bridge in the year 1357, on the 9th of July, at 5:31. Or, 1357 9/7 (european dates) 5:31, which is a palindrome. He also moved the bridge about 20 meters from its original spot because now, on the summer solstice the sun sets behind a statue of either St. Vitus or Wenceslas up on the Prague Castle somewhere.
Charles gave the decorations on the tower cosmological significance; it has three tiers symbolizing three spheres of the universe. The first tier is that of the earth and people. There are statue/gargoyles of a knight and a nun on the left, together, and a prostitute and an old man, together, on the right, meaning to show that not all is perfect on Earth. The pointed arch represents the realm of the moon. There are 28 ornaments on the arch, representing the days in a lunar cycle. also, the column with St. Wenceslas used to stand underneath the tower, which would place St. Wenceslas at about this level. Wenceslas had been a duke before being a Saint, and dukes were commonly associated with the moon.
The next tier has Charles and his sone, Wenceslas IV, connected by the bridge. This is the sphere of the Sun, as the King was considered to be equal to the sun.
finally, the top tier is the realm of the stars. We see several religious figures, and the decorations up there are tiny, like the stars.
One might even be able to continue this analogy downwards - the basement was used as a prison, a literal hell.
9. Interlude: St. John de Nepomuk.
Cross the Charles Bridge. Note statues on the right comemmorating St. John de Nepomuk. This man once took confession from the Queen and was killed, according to legend, for not revealing her confession to the King. He was thrown from the bridge and is now the patron saint of bridges. Depictions of him commonly show stars around his head, for legend says that as he hit the water, stars appeared around his head. Petr tells me that his murder was also political - the Catholics needed a martyr to counter Jan (John) Huss the protestant. That this man was also John was an added benefit.10. Wallenstein Castle (Valdstejn) Only open on weekends.
This castle is now the home of the Czech senate, so you can only see it on weekends. An entire chamber devoted to Astro stuff is closed to the public, but there's plenty to see here. Wallenstein was commander in chief of the Austrohungarian army and was deeply into astrology. As a younger officer, he once got a horoscope from Johannes Kepler himself. We suspect that Kepler asked the court about the guy, but apparently Kepler's horoscope was right on; it essentially told Wally that he was a mean and cruel person. Wally appreciated the professionalism and truthfulness to the statement, apparently he wasn't trying to fool himself. When Wally became very powerful, he hired Kepler as his personal astrologer, towards the end of both their lives.
Wally liked to comparehimself to Mars, god of war, so there are several references in frescoes throughout the castle. In the senate chamber, there is a fresco of Wallenstein on a chariot that features a reddish star right above his head. This "star" is the planet Mars, which is reddish. Another hall in the house features frescoes depicting scenes from mythology, mostly from Ovid's metamorphoses. But two concern astronomy, those depicting the creation myths of the constellations of Ursa Major (Big Dipper) and the Peacock, a constellation of the southern hemisphere.
Go to the garden and check out the big frescoes there. the main fresco is a depiction of the Olympic gods; once again, Mars is actually our friend Wally. In this row there are paintings of four birds: the peacock, Aquila the eagle, cygnus the swan and the columba pigeon. All four of these birds are also constellations. Interestingly, the peacock and the pigeon are constellations of the Southern Hemisphere and were only made known a few years before the frescoes were painted, so their inclusion is notable in how up to date Wallenstein was.
Thus ended our tour. i would have liked to see the Einstein plaque where he lived for a while from 1912-1913, but maybe another time.
Also very interesting were the Prague Castle ( make sure you go through the Villa Richter) and Kampa Island. I got ripped off at this one pub (it had tourist trap written all over it, I never should have gone it), but at least the beer was excellent. It was a tankovka, a place that serves unpasteurized beer. Pilsner Urquell in prague is one experience, Pilsner Urquell v Tanku is a completely new experience. It's beer as it was meant to be tasted.
My second best decision (after deciding to try and make the last bus back to Ondrejov) was to seek out the wine bar. To get there, you have to take Vodichkova into Nove mesto (new town). If you're facing the statue of Wenceslas on his horse in his Square it's a right turn. Vodichkova is the street going through the bottom of wenceslas square with all the trams. take it a few blocks until there is a definite fork in the road (past a place called Buffalo Bills). Take the left fork and look for it almost immediately on the left. It's called U Sudu; make sure to explore it! Beer is reasonably priced (37 Kc), and the house wines are pretty cheap (145 Kc, or about $8 for a 1 liter carafe).
That's all. On the way home I fell asleep on the busride home and went all the way to the end of the line. Not a good thing to do when you forgot your phrasebook at the office and don't have a map. These towns just about shut down at 10pm. Luckily my stop was on the way back and not far away and the busdriver was very kind. He drove me to Ondrejov and mimed how to get to the stop I needed, which is two blocks from my apartment. Thank god. Also nobody stole anything of mine while I was sleeping on the bus. Ciao.
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