Czeching out Prague

I've honestly just had the best weekend in the Czech Republic! Prague is absolutely fantastic. It's one of the most beautiful and picturesque cities I've ever visited. I don't think I've loved a city this much since London or Vienna. Another thing I realized is that I miss Vienna a lot now that I've left for a while. It feels like I'm traveling away from home! Looks like I'm becoming a local already.

We had our German final exam on Friday morning and it was easy enough. As soon as we'd finished, 45 of us dragged our suitcases from the Palais to the bus outside the Museum Quartier and hopped on, ready to be on our way to Prague! It was quite a long drive -- almost 7 hours -- but we got to take a short rest stop at Excalibur City. It was the strangest place, just inside the border of the Czech Republic. The rest stop was actually built to look like a castle and had large and strange dragon figures and wizards' hats and a Kinderwelt kid's play area as well as the ever-practical restaurant, gift shop, and currency conversion. I changed 50 Euro and ended up getting 1287 Koruna. Needless to say, when I received that 1000 Koruna bill, I felt rich!

This was the strangest rest stop ever. Not only were there dragons and wizards, there was a KFC and an outlet mall, as well as an airplane designed as a restaurant!

We made it to Prague by 7pm that evening and immediately checked into our hotel (I shared a room with Elise, Anna, and Eddye) before heading to dinner. I was so hungry and ready to eat some traditional Czech food, as we were promised. However, I was horrified to find that our dinner was going to be an entire, roasted pig's leg! I forgot that, as someone who doesn't eat pork, Eastern Europe probably wasn't the best place to try traditional food. Being stuck with the kosher option, I had to try and force four rectangular prisms of a fried chickpea mash, slimy mushrooms, and cold poached egg down for dinner. Not only was it disgusting, but what kind of combination was that? The meal didn't seem to be well thought through, but maybe this was a traditional Czech dish? Either way, it wasn't the greatest meal end to a day of traveling. Eddye, Anna, and I suffered through it though.

Elise's portion of pig leg

When the first pig leg came out, we thought it was for the whole table to share. It wasn't.

The rectangular prisms meal :( I don't understand the immense size difference, let alone the concept behind the meal.

After dinner, we got straight back onto the bus. We were taking a nighttime walking tour of Prague Castle (Prazky Hrad) and St. Charles' Bridge. We were dropped off with our tour guide at the top of Prague Castle and walked along the hilly cobbled streets in the chilly evening air. I think it's a bit difficult to tour things in such a large group, especially because we couldn't always hear our tour guide over each other, or over the strong winds, and then it was also really dark. So whatever we were seeing, probably would have looked better in the light! Here are a few photos from the tour:

Eddye, Anna, Elise, Grant, and I

Where the Defenestration throwings happen! (More on that later)

Presidential Palace

Cobbled streets and buildings of Prague

However, the city was very peaceful and even beautiful at night. The architecture was even more ornate than Vienna in some places, and there were statues along the St. Charles Bridge that looked eerie but created gorgeous shadows through the gloom. It was tough to get my bearings in the dark, so I decided to save that for the next day.

View from the St. Charles' Bridge at night

Our early breakfast started the day and straight afterwards we were on the bus again to actually tour the inside of Prague Castle. If I hadn't known that we had toured Prague Castle the night before, I wouldn't have thought the tour today was around the same area! The castle is one of the largest "coherent" castle complexes in the world, dating back to 870. We started in the large courtyards, where we ran into a lot of brides taking photos (seems to be a theme!) and hundreds of tourists, despite it being 9:45 in the morning. But we were again with our tour guide and today, we all had CIA-style earpieces to listen to him talk about our first stop in the Castle grounds, St. Vitus Cathedral. This amazing Gothic-style cathedral was beautiful on the inside and out. For Zaynee and Hanaa, I wanted to tell you that it literally looked like the Lumos challenge, with a beautiful circular stained glass window on one side of the apex. In addition, there were lots of tombs of Holy Roman Emperors and Bohemian kings, as well as the seat of the Archbishop of Prague.

The front of St. Vitus Cathedral

Anna and I in front of the cathedral

The back interior 

The back exterior

Our tour guide took us inside the State Departments and the actual part of the old Prague Castle. We saw some incredibly huge halls, such as Vladislav Hall, which was the largest hall in all of Europe for sixty years when first constructed for a Polish king at the end of the 15th century. It was also an architectural feat because there were no pillars holding it up!

Vladislav Hall

We also got to see the room and the actual window where the Defenstrations of Prague occurred! Click on the link to read more about this important political occurrence. Basically, politicians were thrown from the castle windows! There have been two major incidents, but apparently there was also an incident in the 1940s, although it was officially reported as a suicide. Our tour guide didn't seem convinced of that!

The Defenestration Window!

View from the Defenestration Window

Outside of the castle, we came across another courtyard around the back of St. Vitus Cathedral. There we could see the incredible architecture and age of the surrounding buildings and the Basilica of St. George, the oldest surviving church building dating from 921, which holds the remains of the royal Bohemian family, as well as the priceless Crown Jewels. Unlike in London, the Crown Jewels are not on display, but heavily guarded within the castle walls. They are shown to the public every 4 or 5 years.

Basilica of St. George

From the square, we walked down the hill towards an area called Golden Lane. With all the royal and important government officials living at Prague Castle back in the day, servants were obviously necessary. So they lived in a small cobbled street nicknamed Golden Lane due to the number of blacksmiths living there who worked with gold, leaving gold dust all over the street. It was a very cute street, with eleven squat, historic, colored houses adding to the charm of the cobbled stones.

Golden Lane

Because we were perched on top of a hill at the Castle, we were rewarded with some breathtaking views as we started around the side towards the Presidential Palace (another part of the castle). We got to see the view over Prague the night before, but it had been very dark so it wasn't as amazing. These views, however, were simply stunning. The buildings had terracotta-red tiled roofs, and were jumbled together with green-domed cathedrals and pointed structures, with the river winding through and numerous bridges to take you across. I couldn't get enough of the view.

Grant and I above Prague (with our CIA-style earpieces)

I love this city!

We finished photographing the scenery (and each other!) to climb back up towards the Presidential Palace and arrived at noon, right in time to join the massive crowd formed in the square outside the gates and watch the intense changing of the guards ceremony. It was a lot more elaborate than London's changing of the guards, and these guards were all dressed in powder blue and even smiled for photographs! It was quite an amazing sight seeing all these tourists watch a few guards be officially swapped out, but I was one of them taking photographs, so I'm not complaining.

Changing of the guards

I didn't even recognize this from last night, because of how many people were around!

Once the guards had all been switched out, we walked down to the bottom of the hill where Prague Castle was perched and took a quick look inside the elaborate Senate and around the pretty gardens. Everything seems to be elaborate here.

Senate Interior

Gardens below Prague Castle

It was finally time for lunch. IES has been providing a lot of the meals for us, and while it's a bit annoying that we can't choose our lunch option ourselves, they sometimes aren't terrible. At least we had an apple-strudel-like pastry for dessert at lunch! It was actually quite a fancy restaurant, and the food wasn't bad, like last night!

The walking tour continued around 3pm, and we made our way through the historic city center of Prague. Our tour guide took us past a lot of beautiful streets and even to the Franz Kafka museum and birthplace, because Kafka was a very prominent writer born in Prague. We also passed the narrowest alleyway in Prague, which had a pedestrian walk sign on either side because only one person could fit at a time, hence the one-way traffic scheme. Our guide took us by a tiny version of Paris' love-lock bridge, which sparkled in the warm sunlight. Prague is truly stunning. I love history and cities, and Prague is definitely the epitome of both!

The tiniest alleyway

Prague's Love Lock Bridge!

We walked across the same bridge as last night, St. Charles' Bridge, and I could hardly believe my eyes. Last night, we were some of the only people on the bridge. Today, it was like an anthill had upturned and everyone was swarming all over the place! The whole bridge was so packed that I was literally swept along with the crowd to the other side, not able to take many great photographs of the banks or water we were over.

The crowd didn't stop at the end of the Bridge...we continued to be jostled down the insanely crowded Charles' Street, which was a very touristy area with many shops and cafes, but always in antique buildings and on cobblestones.

We made it to the Old Town Square, the historic center of Prague, after about 15 minutes of weaving through thick crowds. It used to be the place for markets in the past, such as St. Nach's which still exists today in a different, but nearby area. It was a gorgeous square. The architecture and colored buildings really do it for me. One major attraction is the Prague Orloj, or Astronomical Clock. A giant clock is set into a very tall tower, the Old Town City Hall, and was installed in the early 1400s, meaning it's one of the world's oldest astronomical clocks and the oldest one still working! Every hour, there is something called "The Walk of Apostles" where there are moving figures of Apostles and other images, such as Death, through two small windows above the immense clocks. It was very interesting, and we joined the crowd just in time to see the 4pm show!

Astronomical Clock with two Apostles figures in the windows above

Old Town Square

Elise and I in the Old Town Square

After looking around the Old Town Square a bit more, we had an hour and a half of free time, in which Elise and I explored some back streets and shops before I met up with my friend, Mukundha, from Emory! He is studying abroad in Prague this semester, and so I decided to call him up and see if he was free for a little bit. It was so nice of him to come all the way to the most touristy district of Prague just to meet up with me for about an hour or so and catch up and wander through Wenceslas Square and see the gorgeous Natural History Museum. I even took him back to meet the rest of IES at St. Nick's Church in the Old Town Square before we said our goodbyes. It was really fun to see another friend abroad and see how much they love their new city!

Mukundha and I say hi from Prague!

We all had dinner and then walked down to the Vltava River, which has a history of flooding to incredible heights, as marked on various buildings by the banks, to take a boat cruise for three hours. The first two hours were great fun as we chatted, tried to stay warm, and eventually started dancing to the DJ's songs. Then the DJ tried to go all "old-school" on us, which dampened the mood, making the party seem about an hour too long. We did get some incredible views of Prague again though.

Elise, Anna, Grant, and I on the boat cruise

After the boat party cruise ending slightly sadly, most of the IES group decided to go out to a bar called Nabe with Mikael, our young Czech contact, who is friends with an IES faculty member (Tobi). Nabe looked like it was just going to be a hip bar when we got there, but the DJ was playing some great music, so IES basically turned it into a club and got everyone dancing! It was a ton of fun dancing like crazy until 1am when my friends and I decided we'd rather leave now on the last metro than take a taxi back to our hotel in the 6th District of Prague. A hurried and frantic search and roaming of the Czech streets ensued as we tried to make it to the last metro running. We eventually did and collapsed of exhaustion in bed around 2am!

I had awful shin splints after running around Prague all day long, and we had another long day ahead of us. After breakfast, we boarded the bus to the Jewish Quarter of Prague and saw so many interesting things. We were with our tour guide again so we were also learning a lot about the history of the aream. The picturesque Jewish Quarter was once densely populated and space was a big problem. However, all the Jews wanted to be buried in the allocated cemetery in the area. Therefore, the cemetery, which is still there, looks like it has been raised many levels above the street level. There are about 10-12 burial layers because Jews had to bury people on top of others. In about 400 years, over 90,000 Jews were (and still are) buried here!

The Jewish Cemetery

Maisel Synagogue

We also saw the Old-New Synagogue, or Maisel Synagogue, which is the oldest synagogue in Europe! There were a lot of synagogues in the area, as is expected, such as the Spanish Synagogue, the Klausen Synagogue (which is from the late 1600s), and the Pinkas Synagogue, all of which we saw. They were beautiful, inside and out!

The Jewish Quarter was very close to Old Town Square, and I don't think any of us realized, as we burst from the narrow cobbled streets of the Jewish Quarter to St. Nick's Church. From there, our guide took us past Wenceslas Square, the so-called "heart of Prague", past one of Mozart's apartments, to St.  Jacob's Basilica and to St. Martin in the Wall Church. This is one of the oldest churches in Prague, and sermons still happen here! We had explored all of Old Town and New Town! The city looked to me like a beautiful movie set.

The streets just outside the Jewish Quarter. They're all modern while the Jewish Quarter has mostly been preserved in it's original state

Elise, Anna, Grant, and I wandered the streets back towards Palladium Mall to do a bit of shopping during our after-lunch free time. I ended up just calling friends and family from home to catch up while the others browsed. People told us that Prague was ridiculously cheap, so we wanted to find some good bargains, but instead found that it wasn't really true. Maybe it's a sign that I really shouldn't do any shopping. My suitcases are already straining to close. Instead, Grant and I met and walked back to Wenceslas Square to buy a traditional Czech pastry that apparently wasn't traditional according to our tour guide. However, the cinnamon smell lured us in and we spent 50 Korouna (about 2 Euro) buying our rolled Trdelnik. They tasted like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, not that I was complaining. It was a great afternoon snack!

Me with the cinnamon sugar treat!

Though we had just had lunch before our free time and Grant and I had tasted the "traditional" Czech pastry, we had to meet IES for dinner so we could quickly eat and make it to the 7pm Opera, "The Bartered Bride." By this time, everyone was completely wiped out. I couldn't feel my feet and my heels and shins were stinging from walking around so much. It didn't help that, as we left the restaurant, it started to downpour and we all had to sprint to the Czech National Opera around the block. We were all sopping wet by the time we got to our seats in the third balcony and it wasn't great that our seats were so small and tight that you couldn't move unless you wanted to bash your knees into the bar in front of you. I was a bit fidgety and uncomfortable, especially being drenched and sore, and now have large purple bruises all over my knees from shifting in my seat. I didn't enjoy the Opera as much as I enjoyed the Viennese one ("Carmen" from last Tuesday), and I thought it was because I was so tired that I actually fell asleep during one song. But the plot wasn't very engaging, in my opinion, though the singing was pretty good. The whole show and it's outcome could have been presented in about 15-20 minutes instead of dragged through 4 long acts. At least the venue was gorgeous!

The Czech National Opera!

The cast of "The Bartered Bride"

And thus ended my weekend in the magnificent city of Prague! I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the history of the city (and tried not to bore you all with too many details) and seeing all the famous sites, though Elise and I agreed that we felt a bit like cattle or sheep being herded from place to place. I think if our big group had been broken up into smaller tour groups, it would have been a bit more fun and easier to experience the city to it's fullest. However, now I have another reason to come back besides exploring the amazing nightlife again. I really do think Prague has become one of my favorite cities. We'll see if Krakow, Poland is the same, because after a 9 hour bus ride the next morning, I'll be learning about Polish history and using Polish złoty instead of Czech Korouna! "Sbohem" or Goodbye, I'm "Czeching" out (I love that pun, I'm sorry).