Prague Part 2

We woke up early to catch the bus into the city to see the big tourist sights of the castle and cathedral before the huge crowds of people arrived. Unfortunately the night before we could not communicate “bus schedule” to the woman working the front desk. While waiting for the bus the next morning we realized it was Saturday and probably a different schedule so we ended up getting there much later than we planned.

Thankfully there were minor, or no lines for getting into all of the castle exhibits. Apparently Prague Castle is the biggest in the world because all of the buildings connect to one another. It was OK, but after seeing a few buildings and the castle church I was not too impressed—particularly after seeing the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

After the castle we waited in a long line to get into St. Vitus’s Cathedral which was well worth the wait. The outside of the Cathedral is quite daunting, built in Gothic Style being started in the 1300s but only just finished in the 20^th Century. The outside also features tons of little spires on the exterior of the church which is why I am assuming one of Prague’s nicknames is “city of 100 spires”.

The inside of the church did not disappoint either with amazing stained-windows illuminating the otherwise cold and dark interior. There was also an elaborate silver memorial to John of Nepomuk who I mentioned before as well as the grave of Good King Wenceslas, a famous Czech King who is known in English through the famous Christmas Carol.

We climbed up a narrow passageway to the top of the cathedral for some good views. Unfortunately the crypt area was closed, but Maddie snapped a picture of the sign which we though was quite funny “crypt closed due to technical difficulties”

We had a good lunch of non-Czech food but we each ordered a side. Note: Czech dumplings (which I ordered) are apparently bread…while the potato pancakes are delicious, basically like latkes.

We then headed back to the bus stop as we were determined to explore the small town we were staying in, but ended up waiting over an hour and half, although there was some entertainment. While waiting at the bus stop I saw the most police ever in my life pull up—around 15 cars with vans, dogs, full riot gear, etc. Around 15 minutes later a bunch of what seemed to be protestors walked out of the metro. We didn’t really know what was going on, but one of them came up to me yelling in my face and handing me a little sticker. After I got back to Copenhagen I asked my friend what it was and she said it was from a rival soccer team that was in town…

By the time we got back to the town it was unfortunately closed down except for 2 bars/restaurants and a soccer game that was going on. After walking around for ½ hour we realized that there really wasn’t anything special to be discovered about the town and there was not much more than we had already seen.

We had dinner at a bar right next to the hotel with only locals. We couldn’t read much of the menu but I recognized Mushroom soup and a Greek salad which I opted for. Maddie figured that French fries would be safe, so she ordered Pommes Frites and the woman responded with “with steak”. Maddie said sure. I ended up with two bowls of instant mushroom soup (the woman thought we both wanted one and Maddie doesn’t really like mushroom) which was essentially mushroom broth, while Maddie sat next to me eating one of the most delicious steaks ever… Fortunately she was merciful and let me have a little, before the Greek salad came which was good. After a long dinner of 2 soups, a salad, a nice steak and fries plate, and 8 beers between us the bill came… $15!!!!

We woke up and there were so few people staying in the hotel they abandoned the usual buffet. When the woman working the front desk saw us coming she walked by us into the kitchen and just brought out some tea, bread, and cheese for us. One of the good English speakers was working the previous night so with a printed bus schedule our waits were reduced drastically.

Our plan was to go to the Jewish Quarter, but we had time to wait because RS suggested going after 1pm and the tour groups left. We headed to the Church of St. James just off of Old Town Square. By glancing through the windows we could see the church was absolutely amazing, extravagantly decorated with huge paintings and everything gilded in gold. They were also having a service, but some people that were clearly tourists were just standing in the back.

We went in and stood in the back, noticing the signs of no talking, no walking around, etc. one would expect while a service is going on. We stood a few minutes gawking before more and more tourists started coming in behind us. Except these tourists couldn’t care less there was a service going on! They walked around the edges of the church. They took pictures with flash, which was extremely obvious and against the sign, and you could here there cameras snapping in the otherwise silent church. It was pretty sickening so we just left…

Next we went back to Old Town Square and saw the famous Astronomical Clock do its show when it strikes the hour. There were hundreds of people crammed in waiting for it—and later we saw a couple getting married under it! At the top of every hour death (a skeleton) pulls a cord and 12 saints appear in two windows of the clock—not too impressive after seeing it, particularly for how many people were waiting for it.

We then headed to the Jewish Quarter, Pinka's Synagogue first. This Synagogue had thousands of names written on the white walls inside—all Jews from the Prague area that were killed during the Holocaust. Upstairs was an exhibit of artwork that was done by children inside the Ghetto of Terezin which was a gateway to Concentration Camps of the east. The children ranged from 8 – 13 with drawings on many topics—mostly seemingly not related to the terrible things surrounding them. The labels next to them listed when they drew the picture, and when they died—I only saw one out of dozens of drawings which was labeled “survived”.

After the moving, and reflective first church we saw a few Synagogues converted to museums that were basically about Jewish culture and Jews in Prague particularly. We then saw the Jewish Cemetery which was the most packed cemetery I have ever seen. The headstones are literally touching one another as the Jews were contained to their ghetto and their beliefs make it impossible for them to move bodies once buried.

Finally we ended at the Spanish Synagogue which looked amazing on the inside with intricate patterns of shapes and bright colors (unfortunately no pictures allowed).

We felt like we had done Prague justice and with nothing major left to see we decided to try Absinthe, which is legal in Prague. I was quite skeptical of buying it as it was featured as the big tourist thing in almost half of the shops but we went for it anyway. Final result—it tastes like licorice, is very sweet, very strong, and did not lead to any hallucinations…

I finished uploading the pictures and added some captions:

Prague

Wish everyone well,

Jeff