Eurotrip Spring Break - Part 2: Prague, Czech Republic

A rather hectic and uncomfortable train ride from Innsbruck to Prague: The ticket guy came around and checked our tickets and told us we had to get off and get on another train. Luckily he caught it in time and both trains were at the stop at the same time, but NOWHERE on the ticket or schedule did it give a clue that we had to change trains. And then we had to sit a 6-person compartment with 3 drunk American military kids who were belligerent, naïve, and rude.

We finally made it at 4am and our Couch Surfing host, Zdenek, was nice enough to pick us up at the train station. When I had talked to Zdenek, and he said his house was in the city center, I though he meant in the center of the city… silly me… So it was quite the treck of buses and walking at 5am to his house. We got 2 hours of sleep before we got up and Zdenek was ready to head out and show us around Prague. When I heard “show you around” I thought we’d hit some important attractions… not the entire city in two days… silly me… We started our walk in old town prague, saw the Loreto church.

We went to Prague castle which is a massive civic complex which also includes St Vitus’s Cathedral (shown here) in Gothic style (Zdenek was very keen on architectural styles and thought it academically stimulating to test me... including his favorite: Cubism, which I really don’t care for) The cathedral was gorgeous though and had incredibly colorful stained glass mosaic windows inside. Zdenek also knew every architect and year of every building… I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t remember all of that…

We had a beautiful view of Prague from the castle though. Zdenek says that Prague is the city of 100 towers. But I swear, every building and church we saw was the biggest, the tallest, the longest, the oldest… clearly he thought a lot of his city.

We kept walking south, all the while Zdenek pointed out every embassy in Prague and residences of famous Czech writers, poets, painters, composers, musicians, etc and was appalled when we didn’t know every one of them. We did pass Beethoven’s Prague residence though, which was cool, that’s one I know.

And then we went to Charles Bridge and were able to even one-up Zdenek when we could read the Hebrew on a sculpture, translate it, and even know the story of how torah scripture got on a crucifix statue (that’s what reading guide books can do for ya).

We went to the John Lennon wall where there has been a continuous power struggle between police and prague youth as they continue to graffiti lyrics and images of Lennon, one layer on top of another since his assassination.

We arrived in Old Town Square where they were setting up for the easter celebrations. We had a terrific view of the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn (shown here). We went inside the Church of St Nicholas and got a little history of Prague (which we soon realized as a very complicated history full of a lot of turmoil.)

In Old Town Square we watched the famous medieval astronomical clock chime on the hour. Every hour it becomes animated where the saints turn on a turntable and are revealed in windows and corner sculptures move and turn like puppets. The clock not only tells time but relates the movement of the planets, and the signs of the zodiac. Amazing to think that it's been ringing every hour since the 16th century...

And then we had our beer break (it’s customary in Prague to have like 5 beers spread out throughout the day.) Zdenek took us to a good local place away from the tourist mobs, bu gGetting to the bar, I swear was like a scene from Harry Potter, where it's in the courtyard of a building where there are no doors... It was TERRIFIC beer though (I believe I had a Wieselburger Bier).

We walked through Wenceslas Square which is really a big boulevard, but a very cool public space. Apparently all the locals’ meeting place is at “the tail” of the Wenceslas Equestrian statue.

Zdenek took us to his college: Charles University, where he’s a geography major. So of course we had to go into the library of the geography department and get the geographical context of Czech… But seeing the campus was cool. I’m sure it’s like the oldest or the biggest in Europe or the world…


Then, at 4pm, Zdenek finally allowed us to eat for the first time since breakfast. But boy was it worth it! He took us to an awesome local place near the university. And we had awesome beer (I had the Budvar, of no relation to Budweiser, sorry St. Louis-ans.) I had Dumplings filled with ground beef and a heaping pile of fried onions and sourkraut.... I still salivate just thinking about it. Chelsea had a traditional dish with slices of pot-roast in a sweet carrot cream soup, topped with a dollop of whipped cream and doughy dumplings to soak it all up MMMMMMM Czech food is delicious!

Then we walked up to Vysehrad park for a beautiful view over Prague and the Vltava River.

We also went to the Basilica of St Peter and Paul up on the hill and walked through the adjoining cemetery which holds the famous composer Dvorak and some of Zdenek’s family is also there as well.

What time is it? Yup it’s time for our third beer of the day. So we met up with a few of Zdenek’s friends from school, two Christinas, who were very nice and fun and lovely to talk to about something more than architects of cubist buildings… A couple things they wanted us to take away from our conversation though: Czech and Slovak are two very different places and are no longer together (But that Czechs are much better than Slovaks J. Communism was truly a devastating time for our country (throughout our trip I got a better sense of this, Communist memories are still alive and well in Czechia and it was really not all that long ago. Fortunately my generation of Americans never had to live through such terrible times). We also learned about the regions of Bohemia and Moravia. All very interesting, and I’m surprised I never knew some of these things before.

(Prague Castle in the background) Afterwards we thought we’d get to go to bed after a LONG day of touring with Zdenek, but no… We saw the National Theater building, the Dancing House by Frank Ghery, and a very interesting wax heart public art piece made from the memorial candles used to mourn the death of former President Havel. And THEN it was time for another trek back to Zdenek’s house and then to bed! (Sidenote, Zdenek told us that his great grandfather built the house and the whole extended family used to live there. Quite the change from our American lifestyles).

3/22: Happy Birthday to me!!! We started our day off in a traffic jam of lightrails that resulted in us walking and taking several trams and walking some more to get to the old Jewish Quarter. On the way of course Zdenek had to show us more churches, more embassies, and the tallest/longest escalator in the world…

Once we got to the old Jewish Quarter, it was time to part ways and take today and the Jewish museum at Chelsea and my own pace… But we had to hit up lunch first, delicious beef goulash! And I opened my birthday present that Chelsea had brought me from Ghana: a hand-made purse and some shea butter.

Then of course Chelsea needed her daily fix of pastries… birthday pastries!

We then first went to the Pinkas Synagogue whose interior was refurbished and includes every wall FILLED with the lines of hand-written names, dates and places of birth of every Jew from the Czech region killed by the Nazis. This was painted over by the Communist regime, but after the fall of Communism, all 80,000 names were painstakingly rewritten. It’s really something else to see the magnitude of the holocaust in this visual way. The building also holds the exhibit of drawings done by the children of the Terezin concentration camp as part of their psychological group sessions with a known artist of the time also in the camp. It was the only way for the children to cope and try to understand the devastation around them.

We then went to the Ceremonial Hall which is where funerals were held and where the preparing of the body was done by the Prague Jewish Burial Society. There’s an exhibit in there will a bunch of tools and religious pieces used in the funeral process. The Ceremonial Hall sits directly next to the cemetery, which we went to next.

The old Jewish cemetery was an incredibly moving site. The oldest tombstone dates from the 1400s. It contains 12,000 tombstones but the number of people buried here is over 100,000. The tombstones topple over each other because there are so many. They say that the burials are ten-layers deep because the Jews weren't allowed anywhere else.

Then we went to The Old-New Synagogue. This is the oldest existing synagogue in Europe (700 years old). It of course was the new synagogue in the 13th century, but became old once more synagogues were being built. The attic is where the legendary Golem of Rabbi Loew was created. If you don’t know what the Golem is, you should either watch the movie Snow in August, read the book, or ask your nearest rabbi. Or Madonna… she’s into Kabbalah, let’s see if she even knows…

Then we went to the Klausen Synagogue and the Maisel Synagogue which are now both museums of Jewish customs and traditions.

Then arguable our most interesting experience in Prague: we stumbled upon the current Jewish community center, and were curious enough to go in but were stopped by a guard outside and interrogated with Jewish-related questions, identity tests, and showings of passports before we were buzzed in. Thank you Sunday religious school for teaching me something useful! (we were tested on what an etrog was). We only went into the kosher shop (afraid of snooping around anywhere else) and bought some kosher cheese! The shelves were as bare as the Jewish section at Dillon’s right before Passover. How do we get this wrong every year? For 5000 years we’ve been needing Matzah at this exact time of year, we know it’s coming, we know people need Matzah, how have we not figured this out and stocked up enough? Haha.

And finally the Spanish Synagogue, which we got to just in time before it closed. The interior of this was by far the most ornately detail. Very bright and colorful.

We went to meet back up with Zdenek, at the horse’s tail in Wenceslas square (I thought it seemed appropriate). And he showed us the Jerusalem Synangogue, which is hard to miss, being pink and turquoise and all… This synagogue is actually still used though.

Zdenek showed us the train station probably not something we needed to see since we’d been there already… clearly… that’s how we got there. But he did show us this emotional bronze memorial statue. Next to it a plaque read: “For the Child: In deep gratitude to Sir Nicholas Winton and all the compassionate rescuers who saved 669 children from the horrors of World War II on 8 transports to Britain in 1939. And in memory of the 15,131 Czechoslovak children killed in concentration camps."

Zdenek then took us to meet up with some of his friends from school to have beers at a place on campus. I had another terrific Czech beer: Krusovice. So we sat and talked all night with five very interesting, very funny, very cute Czech guys. One of which pulled out some traditional Czech pastries that his mom made; I won’t say no to more birthday pastries. We had more wonderful discussions about Czech history, America, and when one guy mentioned South Park, I had to mention that that show actually takes place in my home state. Of which I followed with, do you know Casa Bonita? Ya that place actually exists… To which they responded with astonished cheers. And each one gave me birthday kisses as they left (on the cheek, Kevin and Kevin’s family who might be reading this lol. Don’t worry it’s their culture). Best birthday ever hands down, and a perfect “golden birthday” to say the least.

We were ready to hit the sack again after another tiring day, but not before Zdenek made us take one final hike up hundreds of stairs to a creepy park with no lights, but we did see a gigantic metronome and a great view of Prague at night. Spent one last night at Zdenek’s house and then were given directions from Zdenek’s house all the way to the train station (ya nothing could possibly go wrong there). And that concludes Prague!