Saint John of Nepomuk in Prague

I went to Prague last weekend with my family and took the opportunity to walk across the Charles Bridge where St. John of Nepomuk was martyred. There are two shrines to St. John on the bridge and both are crowded.   I took some photos while I was there and they are blow with description sin the captions.   It was interesting to walk across the Charles Bridge because it is full of statuary and shrines along its entire 520m length.   Man are difficult to interpret and the inscriptions are so worn that it is difficult to make out what they say.   Well, the pictures are below.   … More after the Jump…

UPDATE: Saint John of Nepomuk

I wrote a post about Saint John of Nepomuk a week or so ago and at the time I wanted to post a picture of the statue near my house but had been too lazy to stop on my way to work and take picture. I fixed that yesterday and here are the photos. The first one is a full-length photo of the statue and the second is a close-up of the inscription. The statue stands on the bridge over one branch of the creek that flows behind my house. The stream’s name is the Flötbach (Flute Stream), but of course it is the Shrierbach where it is adjacent to … More after the Jump…

Saint John of Nepomuk

The region of Germany where I live in northeastern Bavaria is locally known as the Oberpfalz or in English the Upper Palatinate. Traditionally, this area was not part of Bavaria but was made up of numerous small separate sovereignties with a regional identity.   This was a relic of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thrity-Years War. That all changed in 1805 when Napoleon overran Germany and reduced the 350+ sovereign entities in Germany to 39, this is when the Oberpfalz became part of Bavaria. Of note is that the vast majority of the people in the region are Roman Catholic, my town is 95% Catholic for example. The … More after the Jump…