--in fact, in all Bohemia--and Italian architects who
introduced the arcaded house added fresh beauties to the city. To the
earlier period of Italian influence must be attributed a quaint arched
house, the one at the corner of the Tynska Ulice. It seems to block the
west entrance to the Church of Our Lady of Tyn. The old house dates back
to the early days of the fourteenth century, at which period the Tyn
Church, though founded in the eleventh century, was still a-building. I
cannot blame the old houses for having squatted down in front of this
church; they were probably under the impression that it would never be
finished. They have at least left a vaulted alley-way leading to the
somewhat insignificant west entrance. The Tyn Church, though not
completed till fairly recently, has actually served as the principal
church of the Old Town since 1310. Here the reformers, preachers that I
have already mentioned, Conrad Waldhauser and Mili[vc] of
Krom[ve][vr]i[vz]e, drew large congregations by their fiery
denunciations and their call to repentance. Our Lady of Tyn is to Prague
what St. Paul's is to London in a certain degree; many celebrities are
buried here, among them that strange character Tycho de Brahe,
astronomer, logician, drunkard and duellist, the friend of Keppler and
his own worst enemy.

The show-entrance to the Tyn Church is a Gothic porch of rarest beauty;
it is tucked away in the little alley on the north side, and generally
closed. You are expected to enter by the south door.

A word of warning here: never try to be enterprising between midday and
2 p.m. in Prague, or for that matter anywhere else in the country,
unless it be in search of food. At midday everything closes
down--churches, museums, shops; they do not open again till the good
people in charge of them have had sufficient time for an ample meal--two
hours are considered sufficient. You will therefore find the cathedral
closed to you until the vergers have dined. But in the meantime you will
find the quaint conglomeration of buildings at the east end of the
cathedral very attractive. These buildings originally served many
purposes--cathedral close, market and custom house, and even at times as
bear-garden or zoo. To my thinking, the outside of the cathedral is far
more attractive than the inside, which suffers from over-decoration in
the incongruous style peculiar to Continental churches. I shall not
conduct you personally round the Church of Our L