| We took Prague
and extracted 12 most interesting things you have to see or know about
it on to Multimedia Postcard® Prague. With a history
as rich as Pragues almost every building and sight has a story to tell.
And we bring you 12 such stories. Each of the sights is presented to you
with a text written by a professional, and accompanied with 10 zoomable
high-quality professional photos. For leisure we've included an additional
quiz so you can test your knowledge.
Here are the featured classics:
- Wenceslas Square/ Václavské námestí
- The Old Town Square / Staromestské námestí
- The Old Town Clock
- Charles bridge / Karluv Most
- Prague's Loretto
- The Municipal House / Obecní dum
- The Prague child Jesus / Pražeské Jesulátko
- St. Nicholas in the Little Quarter
- The Strahov Monastery
- Vyšehrad
- Celetná street
- The Rudolfinum
Here is a sample story about the old
town clock - so that you can get the feel of other 11 storyes that are
on the Multimedia Postcard Prague® CD.
The Old Town Clock
In the Middle Ages the clock was not used for telling
time, but it provided astronomical information for the farmers. Mikuláš
of Kadane started its construction in 1410. The clock is divided into
three basic parts: on the highest there are blue windows behind which
there are figures of the twelve apostles. On every full hour the windows
open and the apostles go around in a circle.
The middle part of the clock has several parts representing
the movements of the Sun, the Moon, the stars and the planets around the
Earth. The earth is represented in a central blue circle with Prague in
the middle. The position of certain parts of the clock would show the
time of day and the season. Next to the dial are four statues representing
four human flaws: vanity, greed, atheism and death. Death is symbolized
in a skeleton figure that rings and announces that the moment of death
is before us all. The third part of the clock is a calendar that was added
last under the dial. Author of the clock is J. Mánes from 1864.
The white part has the names of the saints, numbers of months and days,
once shown by the stick in a hand of an angel, and today by a gold plate
over the circle. Within the central square are twelve little moons representing
the agricultural periods in a year, and the signs of the zodiac.
In the very center is the coat of arms of the Old Town,
and next to the calendar are figures of angels, philosophers, chronologists
and astronomers. Today's visible components are replicas while the originals
are in the Prague Town Museum.
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