Katie and Tommy: Around the World

We arrived in Prague in the Czech Republic around 9 pm on Thursday. I was excited to venture into eastern Europe for a change of pace from Italy and Switzerland. Besides being much more affordable, Prague has a very different cultural feel to it, as well as an interesting and tragic history. And, I might add, some very excellent beer.

Finding some was basically our first order of business after checking into our hostel. We had to hunt for a restaurant still serving dinner, but by 11 o’clock we were seated in a warm restaurant eating some hearty Czech meals and drinking two immense glasses of Pilsner Urquell.

Friday morning dawned to gray skies, but we didn’t let another cloudy day deter us. We set about exploring the winding cobblestone streets of Prague. I was shocked by the number of tourists and students we came across, far more than had been noticeable in Italy or Switzerland. It’s a popular destination. We stumbled upon the Dancing House, by the same architect who designed the Guggenheim. Then we went up to the main square to watch the chime of the astronomical clock there. While the clock itself is very impressive (its movements chart the position of the sun and moon as well as the date and much more), the chimes that the crowd had gathered to witness were a bit anticlimatic. A skeleton on the side representing death pulled a bell cord as statues of the twelve apostles rolled by two by two in a pair of small windows at the top. The entire procession ended in a flat trumpet blast. Several of the students in the audience broke into wild applause.

We wandered from there to Charles’ Bridge, a structure we didn’t know the history of but quickly became curious. It is lined with several interesting religious statues, such as one of a saint which people had touched so frequently as they passed that they were rubbing away the metal, or another of Jesus on the cross, but with Hebrew writing all around it. We began to acutely miss our PDA with Wikipedia on it (our charger was blown when our last transformer broke), but we looked them all up later. So can you, if you’re interested. We ventured across the river to locate the church of the Infant Jesus of Prague, which has English masses on Sundays. And we finished the day by doing something we’d been missing, going to see a movie. We watched Charlie Wilson’s War (subtitled in Czech, of course) and really enjoyed it–highly recommend it once it comes out in the States.

Saturday we ventured to the small town of Kutna Hora about an hour’s train ride from Prague to see the famous Sedlec Ossuary there. I’d had many people who visited Prague tell me this was not to be missed, and it certainly is something to see. Its interior has been grusomely decorated with the bones of roughly 40,000 plague victims. There are four immense bone pyramids as well as a chandelier, coat of arms, two large chalices, and a great many trimmings and decorations. We only spent about 20 minutes touring it, and about three hours getting there and back, but it was well worth it. Never have I seen something so eerie and bizarre.

Upon our return to Prague, we got lunch at one of many stands on Wenceslas Square selling artery-clogging street food. Sausages are most popular, and the only vegetarian option is a fried cheese sandwich (with tartar sauce). If you don’t think about it too hard, it’s actually pretty good. We wandered around a bit more as evening fell, making our way to Prague Castle, from which we got a spectacular night view of the city. The castle itself is also pretty magnificent, and well-lit at night. We had some more beer and Czech food for dinner.

Our final day in the city, we attended English mass and then returned to the castle for a daytime view. We didn’t tour the palace itself, but we did go in the immense Gothic cathedral, which might have been even more spectacular than the Duomo in Milan. It was just as high, and much brighter. Colored light streamed in through the stained glass windows, and a row of windows near the roof illuminated the entire church. There were many chapels and tombs.

We bought some crepes at a street stand, explored a little more around the main square, and then visited the Museum of Communism. It basically gave a history of communism in the Czech Republic, and how it eventually fell. It was really enlightening for me, as much of this trip has been so far. I’ve never known much about history, and I’m learning more and more each place we visit. The museum had a sense of humor as well, and sold postcards of Soviet propaganda posters with the text replaced (i.e. a happy woman with a piece of clothing: “There wasn’t any laundry detergent in the stores, but you could always get your brain washed!”) .

After a dinner of more street food, we boarded a night train to Krakow, Poland. We had a sleeping compartment where the seats could become beds. There was actually room for six people in the compartment… or, rather, there was supposed to be. I don’t think it would have been possible to fit six people and their luggage in that compartment, and climbing up to the third bunk on the very top would have been a real challenge. Luckily the train was practically empty and we had the compartment to ourselves, which was comfortable enough. We woke up at 6 am in the Krakow station.

Completed pictures from Lauterbrunnen

Pictures from Geneva

Pictures from Prague

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Czech Republic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.