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Published: March 25th 2015
We arrived in Prague 6 days ago after a long but uneventful flight from Melbourne via Dubai. We left home at about 6:30 pm after depositing our dogs with friends David and Alena, drove to the airport and then spent ages waiting in various queues to check-in our luggage, go through immigration, get a refund at the TRS. Eventually we had time for a beer before boarding our flight at 11:30 pm. We flew out on a Qantas A380 and after a pretty mediocre meal managed to get some sleep. Next stop was Dubai where we had a 2.5 hour turn-around. I had thought that would give us enough time for a coffee and visit to the duty free stores before our next flight but that was not to be. On arrival we were bussed to another terminal at what must have been the far end of the airport, had just enough time to go through security and walk from the security screening to the departure gate at the far end of this terminal. When we got to the departure gate they were boarding and put us back onto busses that transported us to our aircraft that was parked on the
Astronomical Clock
Figurines doing their thing on the hour.tarmac close to where our first aircraft had stopped.
After going through immigration and customs in Prague we caught the bus-train combination that took us into the Nove Mesto (New Town) area of Prague and our home for the next 5 nights. For this trip we have done most of our accommodation bookings through Airbnb and in Prague we are staying in a large bedroom of a lovely old apartment with a lady called Sabina. Sabina is an older woman, probably in her 60s, and of Croatian origin. She and her late husband ended up in Prague as they were lucky enough to escape Serbian-held Sarajevo during the Balkans War in 1992. We found our way from the station to the apartment without problems and on arrival Sabina provided us with keys and gave us an orientation tour of her apartment - it was probably about 2:30 pm when we finally made it to the apartment. After a quick wash etc we went out for a walk around the local neighbourhood, found a shop that sold a vast array of cheeses, sausages and hams before commencing our walk back to the apartment via a local bar for our first
View from Old Town Hall Tower
Church of Our Lady Before Tyn and Old Town Square sample of Czech Beer. Dinner that night was crusty fresh bread, cheese, salami and prosciutto and Terry was asleep by about 6:30 I reckon.
On our first full day (a Saturday) we spent most of our time in Stare Mesto (Old Town) and visited the sights that line the Old Town Square. We joined the hordes stopped to watch the Astronomical Clock do its thing (a couple of little doors open and some figures appear and twirl around) at 11:00 am. The Astronomical Clock itself is a lovely ornate piece of workmanship but it's very difficult to tell the actual time from it. From there we went into the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn. The very ornate Gothic Spires of this church loom over the Old Town Square and from the outside give the impression that they must be associated with a dark, sombre medieval church. Nothing could be further from the truth however. The church is a lovely light-filled space with quite a lot of windows, white-painted walls and more gilt and gold-leaf in one place than I've seen in a long time. The tomb of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe sits in front of the alter. My
Lonely Planet Guide suggests that he carked it from a "burst bladder following a royal piss-up" - note to self - don't drink with Royalty .
At present the Old Town Square is full of stalls which I think are part of an Easter Market. A few of them are selling Czech souvenirs but most are devoted to food and drink. We've enjoyed a couple of sausages in bread from there (think Vic Market bratwurst sausages) and the pleasurable experience was further heightened by the very professional buskers playing in the square.
After lunch on that first day we went up the tower of the Astronomical Clock for some lovely views over Prague and then followed that with tours of the hall of the Old Town Hall and the Prague Underground. The underground is the original street level of Prague but due to frequent flooding from the nearby Vltava River they decided to raise the street level 8 metres to today's level. This was done over a number of stages and we walked through rooms with vaulted ceilings and saw the old prison (once you went down you never came back) complete with prisoner graffiti. Over the rest
of the afternoon we walked through various picturesque streets, along the river bank and across the incredibly crowded Charles Bridge. We've been surprised by the crowds here in March so I hate to imagine what it must be like here during the northern summer. Dinner that night was in a quiet back street on our way home. We both enjoyed our meal of roast duck but it was huge and neither of us could finish it. The food here is meat-heavy with little in the way of fresh vegetables on offer - so far we've had potato (dumplings and roasted slices), creamed spinach with lots of garlic and pickled cabbage (both red and white).
Day 2 in Prague was very cold. The early morning was below zero and the temperature never climbed above 6C. On that day we crossed the river to visit Prague Castle complex which includes the Old Royal Palace, St Vitus Cathedral and the Basilica of St George. We were so cold after crossing the river that we stopped for a hot chocolate before reaching our destination and had the peculiar experience of hearing a "jazz" version of Waltzing Matilda playing as background music in the
restaurant. For me, the most impressive part of Prague Castle was St Vitus Cathedral. It's named after the Italian St Vitus as King Wenceslas had acquired a holy relic (the arm of St V.) The cathedral itself was built over numerous centuries and was only completed in 1929. The Gothic part of the cathedral dates from the mid-14th Century and includes the chapel of St Wenceslas as well as tombs of various other Czech saints. The modern part of the cathedral is also designed and built in the Gothic tradition and has beautiful stained glass windows designed by the Czech painter Mucha - I like his stained glass windows much more than his paintings of women.
On Day 3 we explored the Jewish Quarter. We had walked through this area on Saturday but obviously none of the synagogues were open. At the beginning of WW2 there were almost 120,000 Jews living in Moravia and Bohemia with only 30,000 surviving the Nazi occupation of the region. Our walking tour of the old Jewish Ghetto started at the Pinkus Synagogue. This is now a memorial to the almost 80,000 Jews that perished in Nazi concentration camps and its walls are covered
with the names of those victims. During the communist era those names were erased but have since been repainted. Also in that synagogue is a display of artwork from children who, at the time, were living in the Therezen Concentration Camp north of Prague. On leaving the Pinkus we walked through the Old Jewish Cemetery. Within a very small area there are 12000 gravestones but beneath them there are 7-8 times as many graves as the Jewish community was not permitted to bury its dead elsewhere. On a bright note, Spring is definitely on the way and I enjoyed seeing crocus flowering amongst the tombstones. Other synagogues had displays explaining Jewish tradition from birth, through childhood and marriage, to illness and death. The highlight of the tour was the ornately decorated Spanish Synagogue. We spent the following couple of hours enjoying the sun whilst walking along the riverside and taking in the magnificent homes that look out over the Vltava River.
We spent much our last day in Prague in Kutna Hora some 80 km NE of the city - we travelled out there by train. Kutna Horan is a town of about 22000 and was a silver mining
town until the end of the 18th Century. It's claim to fame however is that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The main site is St Barbara's Church. St Barbara is the patron saint of miners and many of the frescoes inside the church depict mining activities. It is a Jesuit church and adjacent to the church is a large Jesuit college. The church is located on a steep-sided hill with great views over the surrounding countryside and down to a small river. Our final stop for the day was the Ossuary, otherwise known as the Bone Church, at Sedlec. In 1870 the Schwarzenberg family purchased Sedlec monastery and allowed a local woodcarver to be creative with the pile of bones in the crypt - they were the remains of some 40,000 people. The result of his creativity is the "Bone Church", decorated with garlands of skulls and femurs strung from the ceiling, the centrepiece being a chandelier made from bones.
Today we caught the InterCity fast train to Ceske Budejovice where we collected a hire car. I hadn't realized that there were multiple train stations in the town and so my printed out maps showing the way
from the station to the Hertz depot were incorrect. After a 1 hour walk dragging our luggage we eventually found the Hertz Depot, picked up the car and embarked on our trip (driving on the "other" side of the road) to Cesky Krumlov with inadequate maps, one GPS app on the iPad that wasn't working properly and a second GPS that didn't indicate the direction of any of the one-way streets in Cesky Krumlov. Blood wasn't drawn but it was a close thing. We eventually found the place that we were meant to meet our new "land-lady" and followed her to our "home" for the next 4 nights. We are staying in a 2-year old, pleasant self-contained apartment with lovely views over the town centre; although we can't see the historic features for which the town is renowned. Tomorrow we will start our exploration of this part of the Czech Rep.
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Karen
non-member comment
Beautiful city
Prague looks to be a beautiful city although that cold weather would be a shock to the system. Our stopover in Dubai was similar. We were in line for ages and then sat in the old part of the airport before our flight. Good luck with the car. I can feel your pain! Sounds like Karen and Cathy in Sicily. Keep enjoying yourselves. Happy travels! Karen