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Published: February 26th 2008
And now for Prague…Once we arrived at the train station, we took the metro to the center of town to look for our hostel. We got there…it was on a very interesting street…lots of Cabaret places…good pick Becca. The hostel was packed by the director made deals with us so we were able to stay there all four nights. The first night the five of us were in an 8-bed room by ourselves, the second night we were divided into a 3-bed room and a 2-bed room, and the last two nights we were in a 4-bed room with an extra cot. We had to move a lot, but it was better than changing hostels…and it was cheaper. Like I said before, the hostel wasn’t on the greatest street in Prague, but it was just off a big shopping street. After settling into the hostel on the first day, we went in search of food. We found a pizza place to eat at. Afterwards, we found a delicious ice cream place that was still open. All the shops were Italian ice cream…and very, very delicious. We turned in early this night too.
Thursday morning we switched rooms. I was in
Einstein's Hangout
The white and bluish building in the middle was Einstein's hangoutthe 3-bed room with Libby and Ashley (are you seeing a trend here?). Our room overlooked the city (lots and lots of rooftops) towards the Vltava (not the Danube…haha). It was amazing…we took many pictures. After settling in to that room, we had decided to go on a walking tour of the city, so we made our way to the meeting point in Old Town Square. We eventually found the right corner and our tour guide. There were quite a few people from the US. The tour was around 3 hours long…it was a lot of walking. Our guide took us pretty much everywhere in the city: Old Town Square, the Jewish Quarter, the Charles Bridge, and Lesser Town. She also knew a lot of facts, history, legends of the city which interested me a lot. In Old Town Square we saw a building where Albert Einstein used to hang out when he lived in Prague. Here’s a good story:
A long time ago, in the Church of St. James in OTS, there was a stone statue of Mary. People used to bring jewels and other precious items to Mary as thanks for miracles she bestowed on them. One
Pinnochio
the cool Pinnochio store night a thief went in to the church to steal the jewels. The statue of Mary came to life, grabbed his hand to stop him from stealing and turned back to stone. The thief was stuck there until morning when other people found him. The only way they could figure out how to free him was to cut his hand off, which they did. The severed hand fell, by itself, from the hand of Mary. The hand is still hanging on the back wall of the church to remind people to not steal from churches. The Statue of Mary is no longer in the church though, they don’t know what happened to it.
The Jewish Quarter was beautiful too (who am I kidding, ALL of Prague was beautiful). There were about four synagogues with a block of each other. One of them is the oldest synagogue in Europe. It’s one of the traditional synagogue which means that women are not allowed to attend the service…they have to watch from a little window in the back of the church. Next to some of the synagogues is a very large, old Jewish cemetery. In the 18th and 19th centuries the rights
Stairs
the big stairs we had to climb of Jews were restricted by the monarchy. They were given this plot of land for a cemetery, but were not granted more land when the cemetery filled up. Thus, the put more dirt on top of the graves and layered the bodies. In some places, there are as many as 12 bodies on top of one another. There are supposed to be around 100,000 Jews buried in the cemetery. After finishing in the Jewish Quarter we had a 30 minute break for lunch. After we met up again we went to Charles Bridge. It was built in 1357…crazy old. Thirty statues along the bridge were erected in the 18th century (I think). Some tour guides way back when made up that one if you touch one of the statues something will happen. For example…your husband will stay with you forever…you will become pregnant. Tourists still touch the statue, it’s really funny, the plaques are worn clean where people keep touching them. Our tour guide told us that its all made up while we were watching other tourists touch the statue. The bridge is also lined with people selling paintings, jewelry, and other little things. After we crossed the bridge, our
next destination was Prague Castle. To get to Prague Castle we had to climb about a million stairs. NOT COOL. I was practically dead when we reached the top. Apparently though, in one of the Bourne movies (Ultimatum I think the guide said), a car came flying down those same stairs. The outside of Prague Castle was kind of boring though because in the 18th or 19th century Maria Theresa made all the facades of the castle the same (there will be pictures somewhere). After the Castle she showed us St. George’s Basilica and finally Golden Road. I’ll explain more about these things shortly (the next day Ashley, Libby, and I explored these things on our own). After walking/standing/climbing for three straight hours I know that I was practically a zombie, but we did a little souvenir shopping and again, turned in early. We actually played cards for a while and made friends with some of the Polish girls on our floor. I know how to play euchre now! Pretty fantabulous.
We got up the next day (Friday) and something had happened that made the other two girls upset with the three of us. We still don’t know what was
Cemetery
I tried to pick a picture that showed the biggest number of graves going on. Wait, I think I know. That morning, we all had to switch into the last room. The hostel director told us he would come get us around 10:30 or so to change rooms. Ashley, Libby, and I were ready so we moved into the room. It wasn’t that big, so we automatically put our stuff on three beds. Apparently the problem was that “we chose for that she got the cot.” Something to that effect. This was probably the most drama filled day because the three of us were upset that we had to wait forever for the other two to get ready and they were mad that we took beds. Oh well. There was also the little problem that two girls didn’t want to spend any money, ever. So we separated and planned to meet at the Golden Road at 4, when its free. Ashley, Libby, and I headed off to do our things. We first went back to the Jewish Quarter. One of the synagogues has an exhibit of drawings done by children in Terezin, during the Holocaust. We had to pay to get in. The exhibit was moving. It was interesting
Charles Bridge
haha, our hair cracks me up....me, Libby, and Ashley in front of one of the towers of Charles Bridge to see the progression in the morale of the children during their stay. At the beginning of the exhibit, pictures were about home, family, and school. At the end the children were drawing death. The gift shop had a little book with the drawings and some poetry…we all bought one, so you all can see what I’m talking about. The same ticket to get us in the exhibit got us into the cemetery I talked about earlier. The cemetery was intense too…again, pictures will explain it better than I can. After eating lunch, we went back to Prague Castle…yes, we climbed those nasty stairs again. We wanted to do a tour of the Castle because we had been told that there was a free part, but when we got to the Castle there wasn’t any free part, so we decided not to do the tour. Instead we went in St. George’s Basilica (I could take pictures!). After wandering the church, it was about time to meet the other two at the Golden Road. Its story time again.
Golden Lane is a road lined with tiny (like 6 ft. houses). Its next to a fortification wall, and at the time
they were built, they obviously couldn’t be taller than the wall. They’re all really cute…I have pictures. Legend has it that King Rudolf put all of his alchemists in the little dwellings. One particular alchemist was trying to turn stone into gold. One day, his neighbors heard a big explosion from his house and went to see what happened. They found his body on the ground and in his hand was a piece of gold. Thus, the name Golden Lane. Another tidbit of information: Franz Kafka rented one of the little homes as a workshop.
I think after this we went back to the hostel again.
Saturday was another drama filled day…I won’t bore you with its stupidness. We separated again. This was pretty much my day…everyone else saw what they wanted to see so it was my turn to drag people around the city. First, we went back to Old Town Square. I wanted to stand in the middle and turn around slowly while taking a video. On the tour we had passed by this wonderful store, called Pinnochio, with all kinds of wood things, so I dragged the girls back there again (got some cool souvenirs/presents 😉
Prague Castle
Maria Theresa's boring facade ). It was about 2:00 and we hadn’t yet seen the astronomical clock do its little thing every hour. It was kind of disappointing…figures passed by two windows and a skeleton pulled the bell…but I got a video of that too. We got lunch at a little hot dog/fried American food stand before heading back across the Charles Bridge for the big attraction: the Church of Our Lady Victorious, which houses the Little Infant of Prague (this was for you Grams). It was cool, I couldn’t take pictures, but I knelt and said some prayers…I actually almost started crying, hmm. After that we were done for the day. We went to bed early because we had to get up at 3 am to catch our 5 am train to Bratislava, Slovakia. While we were in the Prague train station a fight broke out between two men. They were near the stairs and one of the guys pushed the other one down them. We could hear him thump thumping all the way down. I was shocked and stared open-mouthed. Two seconds later two police officers came running and all was good. But it was still freaky.
Well, that’s about it
for the vacation! Pretty cool I know. I know I had a wonderful time and pretty much want to live in Prague forever. Even with all the side drama going on, we had fun. Needless to say, the five of us can/will never go on vacation together again.
Love, Freya
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Amanda
non-member comment
I’ve been to Prague many times and I never get sick of it. Last time I was there for 15days. I found the city beautiful, like a fairytale land, the towers, the castles and the cathedral gives the city that mystic ambient that I love. I love Czech people they are very nice and friendly and also a literate society, as you can see here in this government document. Besides the small streets I loved the place we slept in I’ll leave you here a very good site about Prague hotels, they are cheap and very pleasant. Incase you decide to come back.