After arriving in Prague we took the underground to our hotel. The underground in Prague is very confusing. There are several different types of tickets: 20 minutes, 75 minutes, 24 hours, 3 days…and heavy luggage needed its own ticket! The system also relied on the honor system and involved validating your ticket. However, our plain-clothed cops were often in stations and would randomly stop people and ask to see their validated ticket.
The money in Prague is also weird like in Hungary. 18 Prague coins = 1 US so we had to do a lot of dividing to figure out how much things cost.
After settling into our hotel we went up to the Prague castle right away to see the big cathedrale, St. Vitus’s, before it closed. Prague was so crowded! The women on the train warned me that the first weekend in May was a big travel weekend, AND the weather was gorgeous so everyone was out and about.
We power walked all the way up to Prague castle, found the church, and waited in line to get in. The cathedral was very gothic and beautiful. Prague castle is huge and most buildings have been converted into different museums and galleries. But it was already 5 pm so many of them were closing.
Prague castle has amazing views of the city so on the way down we took an excessive amount of photos of the city.
That night we had dinner at an Italian restaurant right next to our hotel and turned in early.
Saturday, May 2 we went on our favorite NewEurope free walking tours. The tour meet in Old Town Square at 10:30 and our tour guides name was Per (Swedish name).
We saw what is left of the old town hall and the famous astronomical clock. The clock is pretty politically incorrect has figures showing death, vanity (maybe a homosexual) a man with a Turban (Turk), greed (Jewish money lender) and the 12 apostles. The clock tells normal time, old Bohemian time, Babylonian time, and the current phase of the moon. Every hour a “show” happens and hundreds of people stand around to watch. All the figures move a little bit, but its pretty anti-climatic, even more anti-climatic than the clock in Munich.
The tour guide pointed out famous buildings around the square such as the Jan Hus monument and his followers church. He told us about the multiple famous defenestration of Prague, in particular the one that started the 30 years war. Next we walked over into New Town to look at the architecture. Prague has almost every type of architecture the world. Even cubism buildings exist in Prague! Cubism was mostly popular as a painting style, not an architecture one.
The city is known as the “The city of 100/1000 towers”, depending on who you talk to…
We saw powder gate, which is an old Prague city gate that was eventually turned into a gun powder storage.
Prague is also full of creepy statues. We saw a few of them, in particular a statue of Franz Kafka in the Jewish district. Per told us that Franz Kafka wrote that he had a dream in which he rode on an invisible man’s shoulder, so they built that statue for him. For hundreds of years the Jews could only leave in that one small area of town. Most of the Jews spoke German and not Chez, because the Hapsburgs made a deal with them that if they spoke German and not Chez, they would be given more rights.
I was disappointed that the Jewish cemetery was closed due to their sabeth. It was the only place Jews in Prague could be buried for over 300 years. There are 12,000 gravestones, but an estimated 100,000 people are buried there. Because it was so small, bodies had to buried on top of each other, and extra soil and to be brought in from time to time to help. In some spots there are 12 layers of bodies. Per told us that the graveyard was an inspiration for the Holocaust memorial in Berlin I saw. I wish I could have seen it!
Next Per shows us a famous concert hall and brought us to a park with amazing views of the castle. He also talked to us about the famous Charles bridge.
Per also brought us to the John Lenon wall which was a priority for Hillary and I to find. It is a just a wall in a tucked away part of the city center with lots of graffiti demonstrating peace and understanding. It is called the John Lenon wall because it started when people were inspired by “imagine”.
Per’s stories and history about Prague really demonstrated the oppression the Chez people have suffered over hundreds of years. They were usually controlled by someone else, typically Austria, Germany, or the Russians. Their culture has gone through ups and downs to as their oppressors sometimes forced other cultures on them. But luckily, the culture has also gone through revivals and since 1989 there has been a huge revival of the Chez culture.
When the tour was over Hillary and I walked across the Charles bridge which is closed off to traffic. Venders have stands there and people play music.
Then we went back up to the Prague Castle to look around some more. I paid to walk down “Golden Lane”, a cute little street with houses and shops.
That night we had dinner at a café near our hotel and packed up to go back to London.
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