Our first day in Prague. We spent the afternoon exploring the beautiful old town square. Stunning architecture.

Christmas Market

The huge Christmas Market in the Square is very atmospheric and the lights everywhere so pretty. As our hotel was close to the square, we spent time each evening exploring the markets, people watching and soaking up the vibes. It was crowded (more so in the evening), but not unbearably so. The large tree is 31 metres tall, and very sparkly. It regularly played various carols and put on a light show. This was our first Christmas market of the trip, so we didn’t do any shopping (apart from some hot roasted chestnuts). The elegant architecture surrounding the square was the perfect backdrop.

It was cold – even the polar bears came out to play!

The famous astrological clock

The 15th century Astronomical Clock on the Town Hall features two large dials. The top one tells the time using a complex series of revolving wheels within wheels. The two big, outer dials tell the time in a 24-hour circle. Of these, the inner dial is stationary and is marked with the Roman numerals I-XII twice. The colorful background of this dial indicates the amount of daylight at different times of day: The black circle surrounded by orange at the bottom half is nighttime, while the blue top half is daytime, and the shades between them represent dawn and dusk. The outer dial lists the numbers 1 through 24, in a Bohemian script. But because this uses the medieval Italian method of telling time, where the day resets at sunset, the 1 is not at the top, but somewhere in the lower-right quadrant of the Roman dial. The Roman numeral that the Bohemian 1 lines up with tells you the time of last night’s sunset. The “big hand” (with the golden sun on it) does one slow sweep each 24-hour period, marking the time on both dials. The offset inner ring, marked with the zodiac signs rotates on its own, and also moves around the outer dial, so the sunny “big hand” also lands on today’s zodiac sign. And the “little hand” (with a blue moon) appears in this month’s zodiac. Four statues flanking the upper clock evoke a 15th-century outlook.

The Astronomical Clock

Next to the calendar dial stands a philosopher, archangel Michael …

… an astronomer & a chronicler.

The figure staring into a mirror stands for vanity, a Jewish moneylender holding a bag of coins is greed

a Turk with a mandolin symbolizes hedonism, and Death, whose hourglass reminds us that our time is unavoidably running out

Around the wheel are grape leaves, and above the wheel are a monkey, a phoenix, and a tangle of plants with hidden figures. These all are part of a hidden masons’ code of plant and animal symbolism