So, again I went to Prague with all of my roommates (Caroline, Kate, Emma, Kelcie, Liz, Kristin, and my other friend Ashley) and it was a great time. Prague is in the Czech Republic, formerly apart of Czechoslovikia (I can't spell), and Prague is the capital city. There are a lot of interesting people there, they claim to be better than the Germans at making beer, and have so much religious/communistic/territorial history I don't even know where to start! Below is where the Czech Republic is on a map (the red area):
After a 12 hour bus ride through the Swiss Alps and Germany, we finally made it! Went with a travel agency/group called Bus2Alps and they take care of all the accommodations. It was nice to have them help with everything for our first trip outside of Italy! Funny though, because most of our rest stops had McDonalds or some form of American fast food. My ears popped so many times I lost track of counting because we went through/over/under so many mountains, but the actual city of Prague is fairly flat and there aren't many mountains to be seen. We stayed in a hostel that had better security than most hotels I've been in, and you can only access your floor with your door key on the elevator. Besides that and the lobby, we didn't spend too much time at our hostel. They did have a wonderful free breakfast buffet every morning with fruit, pancakes, hot dogs (a delicacy in Prague... so healthy) eggs, and cereal.
From breakfast, we took a trolley and then the underground subway to the center of the city. We went on a guided tour for 3 hours. First stop was the oldest part of Prague, called Old Town, where the first church is, the town square, and part of the city hall. Out tour started with explaining how the two towers on the Church of Our Lady Tyn were built to be different sizes, the bigger one representing Adam and the smaller Eve. The church was built in the 14th century (pic below)
In the square, there is also a HUGE statue of Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake after arguing to the church that everyone should be able to attend church for free, and read the Bible in one's own language. Before Jan Hus, people would pay priests in order for their sins to be forgiven; Hus saw how people were abusing the system and sinning all the time, and began an uprising against that idea, saying God doesn't need payment in gold to forgive people. He argued a lot of other things, but this was the main point our guide told us. On the 500th year anniversary of his death, the city of Prague erected a statue (below) in 1915, which reads, "Love each other and wish the truth to everyone". Hus was also great influence on Luther.
Another big part of Old Town was the area the city hall used to be, which actually was burned to the ground during WWII. Today there is a large grass area with trees and a memorial. Next to the city hall is the world's 3rd Astronomical clock and the only one that still works! Operated by a clock man, every hour on the hour there is a mechanical rooster that crows, the 12 disciples rotating through the two windows to say hello, and a trumpeter at the top of the tower. The clock's dial has all of the astrological signs, as well as 366 names around the outer edge. The names were called "day names"one for each day of the year, and if you were given a name that's the same as a day name, you were able to celebrate another birthday on that date. Confusing, but basically it's another way to celebrate oneself if you're from the Czech Republic.
After this, we went to one of the original 7 city gates: again, same bohemian style of architecture as the church, these were put up to help protect the common area's people, as well as they were the only entrances into the city. During WWI, 3 of the gates were used to hold hundreds of barrels of gunpowder. You could probably guess why there are only 4 still standing today, but they are still really cool and quite massive to be "gates".
From here, we went to the Estates Theatre, which was one of the last places Mozart performed. Outside of the theatre, there is a hollow copper/green metal statue that reminds me of a Death Eater from Harry Potter. There is a myth that the hollow face of the demon is a portal straight down to Hell, and if you want to wish something badly on an enemy, you write it on a piece of paper, throw it into the Demon, and Satan himself will get the note and grant your wish if he sees fit. Kind of creepy stuff!
After here, we went to the Jewish Quarters, which not only used to be where Hitler corralled up the Jews during WWII, as well as the peasant area to which they were summoned to during the 17th century, but today is actually one of the richest parts of Prague. We went to the Jewish Synagogue Museum, which has original children's art from during WWII, all of the history of the Prague Jewish population during WWII, as well as a golden wall with the names of over 80,000 jews that died in concentration camps. The interesting/very sad thing about WWII is that there were over 130,000 jews living in Prague during the war: 20,000 immigrated, 80,000 were known to have died in camps, which leaves around 30,000 to be unclaimed for; no one knows what happened to them. A happy part of this story is that there Nicholas Winton, a rich tradesman who traveled around Europe, knew that the Jews were going to be sent out to concentration camps. He was able to put together 9 trains of Jewish children and send them to London for safety. Unfortunately since the trains went through Germany, the last train was overtaken and all of those children were sent straight to Auschwitz, the same place where nearly all of their parents died. But Winton's efforts still saved nearly 700 Jewish children. Google Nicholas Winton to learn more; brought me to tears.
From here was our last stop on our tour: the Prague Castle. Nestled on top of a hill and where the Czech crown jewels are held, this is the oldest bohemian-styled building in Europe. We didn't go inside, but saw it from the distance.
We went back to the bridge at night to see it, and the Rolling Stones donated their stage lights back in the 70's to make it much more visible at night. Here are my two friends, Ashley and Emma with me at the base of the castle.
On saturday, we did a lot more sightseeing! Not even the 10 degree weather could stop us; one thing that we did to keep ourselves warm was got some hot wine. Never had heard of that before but it reminds me of apple cider almost, but was always red wine with a hint of cinnamon. If we ever have a girls weekend up at the cabin, might have to bring this idea with! Started our morning again riding the trolley, then the subway, across the river to the side where the castle is. The famous St. Charles bridge was our first stop, which at one point was the only way to get from the castle to the common area. We went to the bottom of the bridge first, and then went to the top and walked across.
Mom would be proud I'm making so many friends! I tried to take a picture by myself (below), but we had met these guys at The Pub the night before, and decided to photo-bomb my picture. They were from Holland and were very nice!
JESUS!
View of all the statues along the bridge. On both sides, they were the size of the Jesus statue above, and the one below. All dark stone with hints of gold, they were famous leaders, kings, or religious men protecting the people on the bridge.
A statue that if you rub the right side, it brings you 7 years of good luck!
After walking across the big bridge, we also saw a lot of monuments that represented the Czech rule under communism. There was the Franz Kafka Museum that was created in honor of a socialist writer who helped fight communism. In front of the museum is a humorous statue of two men with rotating hips literally peeing on the country of the Czech Republic. It was a way for the Czech to represent how they felt under communistic rule.
There is also a GIANT metronome that can be seen from a mile away on the top of a hill where a giant statue of Joseph Stalin once stood (it was torn down after the fall of communism), and the metronome is a ticking reminder of the time wasted under communistic rule.
On Saturday, we also went and saw the John Lennon wall, a huge wall with graffiti and
was a famous area for teens to protest the war and be artistic. This wall was painted/spray painted on by thousands of people and demanding peace. At first the city kept trying to paint over it, but the teens kept doing it! John Lennon liked it when he visited Prague on tour, so with his support they named it after him. Even today kids can go and paint on it, and there are lots of inspiring quotes, art, and of course art about the Beetles and John Lennon.
small section of the wall
Emma and I posing in front of our favorite part! "All these places have their moments of lovers and friends. I still can recall some are dead and some are alive. All my life I loved you all. Know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before. I know I'll often stop and think about them. In my life I loved you more."
As I mentioned before meeting that huge group of guys, our favorite bar we went to was called The Pub. At the tables there were the beer taps and a touch screen to monitor how much each person has had. There's also a giant screen that they'd play soccer/hocket games, but it would pop up a tally of how many beers each table has had. Our tour guide had done beer races with other tables when he came here, but we went there twice to warm up, eat lunch, and have some world-famous Czech pilsner beer!
Caroline and I standing next to the room with all the beer kegs.
On Saturday night we went to the Beer Museum, another Czech bar that has 30 kinds of Czech beer, all different tastes and flavors. Such as grapefruit, blueberry, chocolate, raspberry, and Demon- a spicy beer. I split a taster platter with Emma and Ashley and was able to try 5.
My favorite was the chocolate kind! We also went out to dinner and had a Czech bratwurst and fries. What a great meal to end the night and weekend. So much fun and learned a LOT! We had a 12 hour bus ride all day on sunday, so that was a nice way to end the weekend. Next stop: Slovenia and Venice!! Much love, AF
No comments:
Post a Comment