Yesterday my friend Tomas (pronounced Tomash) took me on a tour of Prague Castle. He is a professional tour guide and this is the third tour he's given me. The first two lasted an hour each, but yesterday we were out for about 3 or 4. He enjoys it because it's his hobby, and also because he's trying to practice giving tours in English. His pronunciation needs a lot of work, but he usually knows all the right words. When he doesn't we go through all kinds of unlikely and circuitous routes to come up with them, which is a fun little game. While we were waiting in line to get in he told me and my friend Hunter an interesting story about a time when he'd been in the main cathedral some years back. Apparently a woman ran in, pursued by two large men, and literally nudged Tomas out of the way on her sprint down the main aisle, where she dropped on her knees and began to pray. Tomas thought she was a pickpocket, but as the men led her out of the cathedral, some tourists saw her and ran over to talk to her. Afterwards, Tomas asked the people who she was. Princess Diana, and the men were her bodyguards, trying to keep her on schedule.
We didn't see any famous people yesterday, but the cathedral was fascinating, illuminated by knowledgable light that Tomas was able to shed on it's various wonders. There was a missing chunk from a marble stair where a crude bomb had landed a few hundred years ago. When it went off, all the windows in the cathedral (about 50 huge stained-glass ones) all shattered. Thus all the windows there today are from the 20th century. One was done by Alfonso Mucha, and it's really beautiful.
The statue-fountain is of St. George and the dragon, one of my favorite characters. The square is named after him as well as a convent right next to the main cathedral.
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