Prague

We are on the train leaving Prague, on the way to Budapest. We had a lot of fun in Prague, going on two walking tours and leaving the city to see an attraction about an hour away by train. We also went out and saw an interesting slice of Prague’s nightlife.

Our hostel in Prague ended up being more of a hotel. We booked a private room which had it’s own bathroom and small kitchen, nearly as big as our apartment at home. It was a relief to have some space of our own. The hostel had a restaurant downstairs where we had a few dinners. We had one funny thing happen in the restaurant when I tried to order a coleslaw and the waitress came back with a half litre of beer. The beer was a Kozel, I guess she misheard me. Despite nursing a hangover I drank about half of it, it was good beer.

One of the first things we did in Prague is was find a clinic. Morgan had been getting sick, what had started as a bit of a cold had turned in a nasty cough and a fever. We found a place named, funnily enough, “Canadian Medical Care”. It is a clinic started by some private institutions in Ontario. The doctor told Morgan that she had Bronchitis, as she had predicted. We ended up having a pretty relaxed time in Prague to make sure Morgan started recovering well.

That little adventure was a crash course in Prague’s convenient public transport system. There are trams running all over the city streets and underground metro trains running to the outskirts of the city. The trams are quick, easy, and leave you within a short walk of anywhere in the city. We made good use of the system throughout our stay.

Our first tour was the standard free walking tour of the city. The guide took us through the old town and Jewish sector. The old town felt like our first classic old European city, it is all winding streets and alleyways. We saw the Charles bridge, a huge old bridge spanning the Prague river. The bridge and the view from it are both beautiful. The street vendors in the Old Town have this almost predatory air. If there shop doesn’t have customers they will stand outside, trying to get people to come in. Restaurants almost always outside, trying to lure in tourists.

• 

• 

• 

Next to Old Town Square there is the Astronomical Clock, known as the most disappointing attraction in Europe. It was built in medieval times and features a little mechanical show that plays every hour. There are four figures representing vantiy, greed, death, and lust standing on a ledge. The show starts with Death ringing a bell. The other figures shake their heads, meaning they will not go away with Death. Then some doors open and the Apostles can be seen dancing around inside the tower. While it is nothing special for our day and age, the fact that it was built 600 years ago makes it significant. Apparently people came from all over to see it when it was originally built. This tourism money was supposedly so important to the leaders of the town they removed the original creator’s eyes to prevent from building another clock elsewhere. After that happened he threw himself into the inner workings of the clock, breaking it and killing himself. It has since been repaired and disappoints thousands of tourists every day.

Our guide gave a good good tour of the Jewish sector. The whole area is built up about 3 meters higher than the actual ground. Some of the older buildings are still sitting at the original level so you can see the difference. We saw a synagogue where the Prague Golem myth originated. Nearby there is a cemetery that sits a couple of meters above the current “ground” level. This is because the cemetery has been stacked in layers. This was done when the Jews of Prague were constrained to the Jewish sector and had to bury their dead in the same, small plot of land. Apparently there are 1000’s of people buried in a plot of land smaller than my parent’s house.

Our next tour was of the Prague castle. It doesn’t really “feel” like a castle since most of the buildings have actually been built very recently for the Czech government. The biggest old building is a cathedral who’s construction started around the 14^th century and did not finish until the 20^th. The various kingdoms and governments suffered from war and bankruptcy, stopping construction of the cathedral for decades and even centuries at a time. Our guide told us the builders used some sort of spray on the newer portions of the building to blacken it, making it look as old as the rest. The cathedral mostly sticks to the original, centuries old theme and design but our tour guide pointed out a funny detail. At the front of the building you can see four men wearing 20^th century clothing, carved in rock. Apparently the four architects who finished the building wanted to make sure they were remembered so they had themselves put into the cathedral. The view from the castle is absolutely incredible, you can see the river and the whole city stretching out before you.

On our last full day we made a trip to Kutna Hora to see the Bone Chapel. It is a small church which has been decorated with tens of thousands of human bones. They ran out of room to bury bodies during the black plague and had to start removing previously buried bodies. A person would be buried for a set period of time before their bones were uncovered and a new body buried. The inside of the church is bizarre. The walls are covered in bones, arranged in little designs, there is a chandelier decorated with bones, and in each corner there are massive “bone pyramids”. Each pyramid is at least 10ft tall with a base of similar dimensions. After seeing the church we walked around Kutna Hora for a while, it seemed like a regular, sleepy Czech town. Kutna Hora is about an hour away from Prague by train, an easy cheap day trip.

On Thursday night we went out. Morgan found a bar in the old town that seemed interesting. It is a multi-story bar, most of which is underground. It is like someone built a bar in some medieval tunnels, which may very well be what happened. I feel like in Canada or the States the place would have been gimmicky, and probably fake, but here it seemed totally authentic. Inside the bar we met a couple from Winnipeg, and went with them to Prague’s biggest tourist night club. The club is five stories tall, each story has a different theme and genre of music. We stayed until close at 5:00am. We ended up spending a lot of time talking to a bored club employee in the Oxygen bar in the basement. It was cool talking to a Czech native who wasn’t being paid just to hangout with us.

Even though we spent almost as much time in Prague re-watching Game of Thrones in our hotel as we did touring, I think we got through most of the main attractions and definitely had a good time. The food and beer is cheap and come in large portions. I ate meat and potatoes with many of my meals and always had a half litre of beer. We had a great time here and are looking forward to exploring Budapest.