Tuesday, April 6, 2010 (Part 3):As you may recall, we were frustrated in our efforts on Monday to see inside any of the great churches in Prague, and so it became a primary goal on Tuesday to do so. This time, we were successful. On this day, we saw St. James and Our Lady of Tyn (both in the Old Town section of the city) and St. Nicholas (in the Little Quarter).
St. James Church: This was the most notable of the churches we saw, due primarily to three (3) specific things we saw there. First, there is a really beautiful wooden pieta. It is many hundreds of years old (maybe 600 - 700 years old). Much of the statuary that we saw in Prague was wooden and dated back to the 13th thru 15th centuries. This pieta was quite striking. Also in this church we saw one particular tomb/altar that was called out as uniquely well done and well known. It had several statues that adorned it.
And third, there hangs on one wall of this church a mummified hand. The story goes that this was the hand of a beggar who tried to steal the jewels off of a madonna statue and the statue grabbed his hand and held on so tightly that the only way to release him from her grip was to cut off his forearm. The hand (shriveled up beyond recognition) remains on display as a warning to would-be thieves. [Prague is full of ghoulish stories like this one!]
As in so many of the places we visited in Prague, pictures were not allowed to be taken in this church. Boo hoo! So, I've included here another photo that we took from the top of the Town Hall.
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