Idle Strolls

Petrin hill is one of the slightly lesser known spots of Prague, often overshadowed by its more popular touristy sights. It is, however, the perfect place to spend a few hours among greenery, maybe pack a picnic lunch for an afternoon and stroll around, and best of all, take in awesome views of the city and the river.    Petrin hill is by itself 318 metres high, and top of it, has a viewing tower that rises up 63.5 metres, so once you get to the top, there are beautiful unobstructed views of the city all around.  Reaching petrin is very easy - the foot of the hill is located at the tram stop called Ujezd. (Prague trams have a display board which shows the name of the upcoming stop and it is also announced. But if your tram is crowded and you cant see the board, watch out for the announcement - when it is pronounced it sounds like “Uyez” .) Ujezd is only a couple of tram stops of away from the Malastrana Square - in case you are in that area for the  Charles Bridge or...

The Old Town Hall in Prague is one of the two most visited sites in the city, with the other one being Charles Bridge. It is most known for its famous feature, the astronomical clock, but there is so much more to it.  The oldest part of the town hall is the town hall tower, which is also the tallest part, constructed in 1338. The rest of the entire town hall today consists of multiple different houses adjacent to the tower, which were bought over different periods of time and integrated as a single unit. the old town hall tower, to the left and the tyn church behind it, centre. The tower is about 70 metres tall, and the astronomical clock dominates its facade. It was installed in 1410, and has a dial showing the position of the sun, moon and other astronomical objects. Beneath it there is a calendar dial, installed later, showing the months. The clock is most famous however, for the ‘parade of the apostles’ - where the figures of the 12 apostles pass by a small door above the clo...

This is the fourth and final part in the series of posts about my trip to Guruvayur and Thrissur. Click here to read all earlier posts. Our second day in guruvayur began early, in the wee hours of the morning. The temple opens for nirmalyam , which is the darshan of lord krishna in the previous day’s decorations, at 3am. We had hoped to see either the nirmalyam or the vakacharthu that happens right after, but despite reaching the entrance line shortly after 3am, it was 3.30 by the time we entered the passage to the main sanctum and just a few minutes later they closed the shrine. So it happened that around 30-40 mins we had to stand in the narrow passage, being neither inside nor outside, but after the wait we got to see guruvayurappan looking splendidly beautiful in his first alankaram of the day. The early morning hours have the least wait times, except you have to take care not to get caught up roughly in between 330-415. The crowds probably start increasing after 7....

This is part 3 of my guruvayur trip series. Read part 1, about the train journey here and part 2, about the guruvayur temple here . In this part, i continue about the rest of our day in guruvayur after completing the morning darshan. Once outside after our first darshan, we proceed to have lunch, and decide to make use of the afternoon time when all temples are closed, by making another stop nearby. Around 2.5 kms from the temple is the Punnathur Kotta, the camping grounds for the guruvayur temple elephants, and is managed by the guruvayur devaswom (temple administration). Elephants form an important part of kerala temple rituals and festivals, and about 30-40 elephants (i’m not sure of the exact number) belonging to the guruvayur temple are housed, bathed and fed in these extensive grounds and brought to the temple as and when necessary. There is a small admission fee and camera fee, and then you can walk about and see the elephants eating or splashing water around. The local ...