Monday, April 26, 2010

The Churches of Prague - Our Lady of Tyn


Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 4):

Our Lady of Tyn stands to one side of the Old Town Square and truly dominates the Square. It is the tallest structure in the area and is marked by twin towers with multiple spires. It truly looks like something out of a story book.

I am not much of an artist, so I would not attempt a sketch, but I took several photos of this church at different times of the day. The church is also well lit at night and, against a darkening sky, it may be prettiest at that time.

Just as this church is large on the outside, it is equally big, in all respects, on the inside. In particular, the altar and the area before the altar are huge and they are filled with ma
ssively tall statues of various saints. They must be 25 to 30 feet tall -- very impressive.

I should mention that saints are really big here. Over the centuries, the protestant church and the catholic church wages many wars here and fought for control of the city. The catholic church must have been the victor because all of the churches we entered were catholic and were decorated with paintings and sculptures of countless saints. Some of the saints most often portrayed here were St. Wenceslas (of course), St. John Nepomunk, St. Catherine and St. Barbara.

No comments:

Post a Comment