A large Apartment in Prague

We got up at 7 and had breakfast at the hotel - ham, cheese, breads - before walking around Nuremberg. We toured the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg, but I didn't take pictures because Randy was filming it for us. Inside the rooms were mostly bare, which was OK with me - if it's not original, we don't need it. Each room had a large (sometimes floor to ceiling) ceramic furnace/heater, which looked more like a work of art than a functional piece. There are several paintings of the two-headed imperial eagle, including a very large on painted the gate door. Courtesy of Wikipedia:

In the Emperor's Green Chamber (named, I think, for it's gorgeous ceramic heater), the entire ceiling is painted with a huge 2-headed eagle, although the colors were reversed, so the eagle is yellow and the background is black. It's pretty impressive.  

Next we walked through Nuremberg. The Old Gate still stands, although it's more of a building than a gate.

The Frauenkircke church, standing in the marketplace, was built in the mid 1350s. It's still used and although we didn't go inside, it's supposed to be quite beautiful.

We stood outside, waiting for it's most famous feature to show off - a mechanical clock from 1506. The seated figure represents the Holy Roman Emperor, a position which I think basically meant "King of Germany". At noon the clock chimes and a row of figures representing electors march around him. 

And we found an odd statue of The Hare (Der Hase). It was created as a monument to Albrecht Durer, a native son of Nuremberg. It's supposed to represent one of his best works, a watercolor of a young hare. I have always loved that perfectly detailed watercolor. I think they lost something in translation when they made the statue. But I like it anyway!

We didn't go into the City Museum,  which is housed in a late Renaissance merchant's house, but we did admire the sun dial painted on it's exterior.

And we went through the Toy Museum, before getting lunch at a restaurant overlooking the plaza; I had soup with liver balls. I probably won't order that again. 

We drove on into Prague, where we had arranged to rent the 2-bedroom apartment of a short, dark haired Czechoslovakian lady named Ruth. Ruth was very proud of her large apartment, which she regularly rented to American visitors like us; in fact, we got her number from someone working at Metallo who had stayed there. When we arrived we found that Ruth had fixed dinner for us, with rice and chicken, a good homemade bread spread, and a not very good red wine. Then Ruth left with her friend Evan and we settled into the apartment. 

The apartment had a living room, a dining room, a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchen. The living room was the largest room; it just held 2 twin mattresses on the floor (more on that later) and had bookcases lining two walls, filled with bric-a-brac and useful items. The dining room was just large enough for a half table, two chairs, and a small sofa which provided any extra seating needed for meals. The kitchen, off the dining room, was so small that we could stand in one place and reach everything! One wall had very shallow bookcases, more like shadowboxes, which held most of the spices. The small water heater, about the size of a toilet tank, hung above the little cabinet top that held a small wooden drain rack, next to the very small round sink. The bathroom was a bit larger, but only because it had a shower. You could still stand (or sit) in one place and reach everything! And the two bedrooms turned out to be small loft areas, over the doorway between the living room and dining room. One was in the living room and the other one was on the other side of the wall, in the dining room. They were just big enough to hold a single narrow mattress. There was no way we could sleep there so we brought the mattresses down and slept on the living room floor. It was tiny but fun, and we loved it!