Last day...Graveyard at Flora

The day before I flew home the family left for their Christmas trip to Austria. More on that later. After they headed off, I went into Prague to meet Julie. She had been talking about going to a shopping mall next to a beautiful cemetery...weird, yes, awesome, yes...so we met on the metro and headed to Flora and the Olšany Cemetery. The cemetery dates from the 17th century; an outbreak of plague forced its founding. Yuck.

It was freezing cold, about 15 degrees below zero in Celsius, which is very approximately 5 degrees Fahrenheit. That is really cold for me. Really cold.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful cold day with fat, perfect snowflakes spiraling gently down. Excellent weather for a contemplative visit to a cemetery in Prague.

I shan't add much more commentary; I will let the pictures of the snow and the stones stand alone. Let me just say that the graveyard was big. In fact, it is the largest cemetery in the city. These avenues led off in several directions from one central snowy circle.

All the headstones are different, and most are massive, like the Vysehrad cemetery that Julie and I visited back in July. It was much warmer then.

Headstone break. Hi, Julie!

Headstone break. Julie found some cute bird tracks in the snow.

Lovely and decaying chapel. Like a prompt for a creative writing class. Or the setting or conclusion of a Poe story. Or it is just a hauntingly derelict chapel in a cemetery in Prague next to a shopping mall.

This little blue beamed house was at the entrance to the cemetery. We don't know why.

Here I am, all bundled and yet still very chilly.

After this somber visit we headed directly next door into a shopping mall for a cheerful lunch and coffee/tea break. There is a Costa Coffee on the side of the mall with the cemetery, which is where we had our hot beverages. There is a huge window so you can sip your latte while looking at the graveyard. After we warmed up and recharged we hopped back on the metro (Flora is relatively far east in Prague.) Our next stop was Malostranska. Stay tuned for that adventure.