Prague

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As mentioned in my last entry, I really loved Prague! It wins the award of "cities that I knew nothing about beforehand but fell in love with immediately upon arrival" category. We arrived there in the late afternoon and were given a walking tour. The city has so many cool quirks. For example, on the hour, the figures of the clock tower move. There are also interesting statues such as two men peeing into a tub of water, and there is a super narrow alleyway that requires a traffic light for one-way-at-a-time walking.

On the most famous bridge of the city, there is an engraving of a knight (or soldier?) petting a dog. It goes along with a story that is at least partially true. I have forgotten the names of the characters so I will have to make do with their titles. The Queen of Prague confessed to the Priest that she had cheated on the King. The Priest of course was not allowed to share her confession with anyone but when the King caught on that she had cheated and had confessed to the Priest, he demanded that the Priest tell him who the man was. The Priest kept refusing despite being harasssed by the King until one day he said "okay, I will tell one living soul but you have to figure out who I told. After I tell once, you have to stop bothering me about it." The King agreed, figuring he could intimidate anyone into telling him the secret since they would not be protected by the Church. So the Priest bent down and told a dog, keeping his promise to the king while not betraying his vows. Out of anger, the King ordered that the Priest be killed and thrown over the side of the river. So at the base of this statue are two engravings that depict the story. The myth is that if you pet the dog, you will have good luck. Just like Juliet's breast, the dog has been rubbed into a different color. The other engraving is of the priest being thrown into the river with a woman looking on. Humorously, students had painted the woman gold to match the color the dog had been rubbed into. People then started rubbing the woman, believing that this too would bring them good luck. The part of the story that is definitely true is the fact that the king ordered the priest be killed and thrown into the river. This actually happened but it is assumed that it was because the priest was gaining too much power. The rest of the legend may be possible but it has not been proven true.

The city itself is medieval looking with lots of spires (nicknamed the "city of spires"), bridges over the water connecting the different sections, and a castle. A lot of the buildings are also painted in pretty bright colors with red rooftops.

For dinner, we had a traditional dish of beef with creme and strawberries (don't knock till you try, it was actually pretty tasty) and Prague beer. That night, a bunch of us went to a 5-story night club! It's the biggest music club in Central Europe. Each floor has a different theme and style music. There was "new music," "oldies" (which was really like 80s music) "black music" (yeah, wouldn't see a sign like that in the US), "techno," and unfortunately the last floor was closed 😞. We went to each floor and each one even had a different set up with different effects. One had a fog machine, some had strobe lights and projections of pictures or movies such as bands singing (in fact I think there was a projection of a band onto the fog machine which was pretty cool). It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. We had a great time dancing at each section and we definitely never got bored!

The next day, I headed to the Jewish Quarters which were impressively extensive. I bought a ticket to cover every part, the Jewish cemetery as well as numerous synagogues that housed different collections of Jewish objects. Each told a different story of the Jews of Prague over the centuries, from the accusations during the Black Death (actually, I think some parts went back earlier than that) to the Holocaust and so on. One of the synagogues was Europe's oldest active synogogue, dating back to 1270. There is a legend that in the 16th century, a rabbi built a golem out of clay to protect the Jewish community from anti-semitic attacks. It is rumored that the golem resides in the attic of this old synagogue. And apparently parents of Prague tell their kids that if they don't go to bed soon, the golem is going to come after them.

Many of the synagogues were used to keep Jewish objects in safekeeping during the Nazis era. An interesting fact that Dan told us about the Jewish quarters is that Hitler ordered that they not be destroyed because he wanted to use them as a musuem of "An Extinct Race" to show everyone the consequences of not being Aryan. At least one good thing came out of the fact that he was so twisted because Jewish artifacts dating back for centuries were saved. The Jewish cemetery is another interesting part of the quarters. Jews were forbidden to bury their dead outside their own district and according to Jewish law, they cannot remove the dead or their tombstones. As a result, coffins were buried on top of each other separated by 6 feet and the ground was built up to contain everyone. Apparently more and more people actually WANTED to be buried in the Jewish cemetery. There is an estimation of 12,000 tombstones but 100,000 burials. And it is a pretty small space to cram all those burials.

I got lunch from a street vendor that was selling smoked ham products, which are popular in Prague (and the rest of Central Europe). Then I crossed the bridge to the castle. You have to climb up a winding hill to get to the castle and there was a spectacular view from the top. I went into the different sections of the castle, seeing cathedrals, artwork, and state rooms, and learning about the history of the castle and the royal families, as well as the guards. Walking back, I took my time crossing the bridge which was lined with art vendors and offered a great view of both sides of the city. I then wandered the streets some more before eating dinner at a Jewish restaurant where I had hummus with bread that if not exactly challah, was close enough, and chocolate cake. I took my time walking back to the hostel, enjoying my last view of Prague lit up at night.

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