PRAGUE

Our final - and main - stop on our week-long trip was Prague.  We had taken out a guide book (Sadakat Kadri's Prague from Cadogan City Guides) from the library in Heidelberg and it proved to be fantastic, despite being about 15 years old.  It had lots of history and myths and took us to hidden treasures that we would probably have missed if we were using one of the "standard" books.  We followed the author's walks through different parts of the city and felt like we were being led around by a very witty, knowledgeable friend.  It added a lot to the experience.

Gerald's host, Pavel picked us up at the train station and took us to the pension where we would be staying.  It was a bit out of the center of the city (close to the workshop at which Gerald would be speaking on Tuesday), but close to a metro and tram stop, so it was easy to come and go. We went to dinner together and were introduced to the fantastic Czech beer, especially the dark ones (it may sound like we've been doing an alcohol-tour of Europe, but that's not the case).  We were in an area with lots of embassies, so that might explain the number of folks speaking English in the restaurant.  Ends up most of the locals spoke at least some English; Pavel said they don't really expect visitors to speak Czech. English and German have alternated as the 2nd language taught in schools over the years.  We heard many different languages during our three days in the city, especially Russian, Spanish, French and Italian.  There were Australians everywhere too! We weren't up to venturing into town that evening, so relaxed in the pension and got to bed early.

Gerald was meeting Pavel in town mid-morning, so we went in early so that we could find the tourist information office and get some maps.  It took some doing to find the office, but they were helpful when we got there and it felt good to be able to get our bearings.  The Physics Institute is right near the river behind the Rudolfinum, a renaissance-style music hall that was our introduction to the scale and beauty of many of the buildings in Prague.  We were early enough to sneak a peak over the river up to the castle complex - quite an imposing view. While Gerald and Pavel were working, Elyse headed up to the castle.  This was one of many walks when she/we were continuously awed by the colors, shapes and sizes of the buildings.  The city is overflowing with homes and buildings decorated with statues and painting on their facades, so much so that one can hardly walk two steps without being amazed by yet another architectural treat.

The castle dates from about 900 and has had parts added on by the various leaders who lived there (on and off) until 1848.  It is now the seat of the president.  The castle's façade had a major facelift in the late 1700s when the queen of the time decided to redecorate (even though at that point the royal family was officially based in Vienna). The first courtyards and buildings were nice enough, but it was the Gothic church of St. Vitus, sitting in the middle of the 3rd courtyard, that stops one cold.  It was founded by Prince Wenceslas (the "Good King" of Christmas caroling fame) in 929 after he had received the saint's arm as a token of friendship from the Saxon King Henry I (don't you think a nice bottle of wine would have been nicer?).  Wenceslas established the church in honor of the saint hoping that he could persuade the locals to give up their pagan ways.  It was helpful for him that St. Vitus and the local fertility god both had cocks as their symbol (see an example from the church tower, below, left).  The church was enlarged at the end of the 11th century, but really grew and reached its current grandeur in the 14th century.  The first façade Elyse saw was not finished until 1929!  The view from the tower (below left and right) was a nice way to get an overview of Prague.

The cathedral itself was filled with typical features (stained glass, tall Gothic arches) and strange sights (e.g., a tomb that is made from 3700 pounds of silver, including silver angels holding a red velvet canopy - below, left), but the Chapel of St. Wenceslas was the most beautiful (below, right).  Ends up Wenceslas was actually murdered by his brother (one of many fatal plays for power in Bohemian history) who then thought the dead prince would be useful as a martyr, so he moved the remains here.  A later leader (Charles) thought Wenceslas could serve as a useful national/unifying force so he turned the grave into a shrine.  Seems like Wenceslas was better off in death than he was in life!

Elyse continued her tour of the castle grounds, including the grand, Gothic Vladislav Hall, the Diet (equivalent of the Supreme Court of the time), the land registry building (whose walls and ceilings were covered with colorful coats-of-arms), and St George's Basilica (photos below are of the Basilica from outside and inside; the right one is a set of bones and skull are apparently from one of the former abbesses.  Soothing, ay?).

There is a narrow street, called Golden Lane (pictured below left), lined with tiny cottages (now serving as shops) that date from the 16th century. The lane's name might originate from the goldsmiths who lived here in the 17th century or from the overflowing pee of the castle's sharpshooters who lived here before the goldsmiths.  You choose.  In any event, one wouldn't expect that such a charming street would end in the dark "Black Tower "  This served as a debtors' prison and now exhibits various methods of torture used in the Middle Ages.  The one pictured below was one of the most disturbing - the prisoner would be put in this "armor", lowered into the hole and left to starve to death. These were not gentle times.

Elyse visited two of the art galleries on the castle grounds, as well as the collection of castle artifacts.  She was impressed with Wenceslas's gold crown that was studded with very large precious gems and with some of the paintings by Petr Brandl.  But she found she was a bit "museumed" out and also knew that she needed to head down to meet Gerald at the institute, so she went through the exhibits quickly.

The Institute is not far from the Charles Bridge (below, left), so we started our late afternoon tour by crossing the bridge.  It was built by Charles IV in the mid 1300's, and is partly a gallery (with 30 sculptures lining its walls) and partly a shopping mall.  The sculptures date from the late 17th/ early 18th centuries and are all large, ornate and religious.  The bridge is also lined with artists selling photographs and paintings of the city (some were beautiful) or offering to make portraits, while others were selling goods (jewelry, wood work, ceramics, etc.) of varying levels of quality. About halfway across is a bronze cross in the wall (below, right).  Legend is that the Dalai Lama recognized this point as the center of the universe when he visited Prague in 1990.  So, if you're ever lost, keep an eye out for it. Gerlad found it a bit ironic that the center of the universe was in the city of Kelper !!!
  
We spent the next few hours just wandering the streets of the Malá Strana ("Little Side") on the left bank of the river.  It is a charming area with narrow, winding lanes, beautiful houses, and nice views of the river and castle (below is a view of Charles Bridge from the river bank).  The late-evening light made everything that much more magical. Our guidebook led us into the Waldstein Gardens (below, right) that are hidden behind a large wall and contain a peaceful, but elaborately designed hideaway. Except for the hideous grotto, it was beautiful and fun to walk around.  We were surprised to find four Great-horned owls in an aviary there too.  They are huge!

We stopped for a quick dinner and then continued our walk up toward the castle so that we could have a view of the city in the evening light.  It felt like a different place without the hoards of tourists and was that much more beautiful in the evening.  We walked through the castle gardens before heading back to take a tram to the pension.  It had been a full first day and we knew our legs were in for a lot of walking over the next few days!
  
Gerald's workshop didn't start until lunch, so we took the tram into the city and continued on another tram that wanders over the river (fantastically beautiful view of the castle and multiple bridges) through the old sections of town (the "new" town is over 600 years old!).  It was a relaxing and fun way to see a bit more of the area.  We turned around when it became a "regular" city and headed to the Old Town Hall (from the 1300s) and its famous Astronomical Clock.  The clock was installed in 1410 and, in addition to telling the time, it shows the phases of the moon, the length of the day, the equinoxes, Babylonian time, and many feast dates.  It has a painted calendar on the bottom half that shows monthly farming duties.  Every hour windows open and statues of the 12 apostles slide past while a skeleton rings its bell (below, right - you can see Death in the bottom right corner of the photo). At the end the cock crows.  It is a true gem!
  
We had stayed in town a little longer than we should have, so we had to rush back to get Gerald to the workshop (sort of) on time.  Elyse went on a (successful) reconnaissance mission for luggage lockers at the train station from which we would be leaving the next night. Then she went into town and headed toward the Jewish quarter.  Being navigationally-challenged, this took a little longer than she had hoped, but she was able to find it (and some lunch) eventually.  There are claims that Jews have been in Prague since about 135 AD; historical sources would place it around the 10th century.  In any case, Jews were a part of the community for a long time and many prospered.  A walled ghetto around the Jewish community was formed in the 12th century and every evening a portcullis would be lowered.  Although the walls were built to keep Christians "safe from touching Jew", they proved a useful defense for the Jews, especially around Easter-Passover when Christians feared that Jews would steal Christian babies to use as their Passover lamb.  However, the walls did not stop the pogroms (3000 were massacred during one in 1389 - over half of the inhabitants at the time), accusations of ritual murders or the occasional banishments that would be a part of the Jewish history in Prague.  In 1784 Emperor Joseph II "opened the gates" hoping to destroy the community by banning the use of Hebrew or Yiddish in business and abolishing separate schools.  Eventually rich Jews moved out of the ghetto and poor Christians moved in.  By the end of the 19th century it was mostly slums and the government destroyed most of the buildings. Only six synagogues, the old town hall and the cemetery survived.  As for the community itself, there had been about 120,000 before 1939.  Of the 90,000 or so who stayed in the area, only 10,000 survived WWII.

The old cemetery is estimated to have about 20,000 people buried in up to 12 subterranean levels.  It is a jumble of tombstones and the oldest known plot dates from 1439.  There are two different groups of synagogues/institutions that one can visit.  Knowing she only had time for one group, Elyse started at the Old-New Synagogue, one of the oldest synagogues in Europe (from 1270) and one that is still used today by the Orthodox community here.  It is a relatively small, Gothic building with six vaults that have a five ribs each (versus four that some say might have resembled a cross too much after the 14th century pogrom).  It is simple and elegant, with abbreviated biblical versus painted on the walls serving as the only "decoration" other than a red cloth banner.  The banner has a Jewish star on it surrounding the Jewish hat that served as a symbol of the community in the 15th century.  It was an eerie feeling to sit in a place that has been used for so long and that has seen so much sadness.   Photos were not allowed, but there are pictures online if you're curious.

The second synagogue in this "group", the Jerusalem Synagogue, was actually located in another part of town, so Elyse headed over there.  This building dates from 1899 and the final renovations were completed in 1905.  It is very colorful and was a bit of a shock to the system after the austere interior of the Old-New Synagogue.  But it was easier to imagine the sabbath services and holiday celebrations taking place here. There was an exhibit at the synagogue of a private collection of postcards that depicted Jewish buildings (mostly synagogues in central and eastern Europe) and people since the 17th century or so.  It showed a fascinating mix of architectural styles for the synagogues and a glimpse of the vibrant Jewish life in this area of the world before WWII destroyed so much of it.
  
We met back at the pension, rested for a little while and then headed into town for dinner.  We had read about a place called Cafe Savoy and it ended up being as beautiful (art deco decorations) and good as we'd hoped.  After dinner, we decided to take the funicular up to the top of Petrin Hill.  There weren't the panoramic views we had hoped for (those were at the restaurant located at the first stop on the funicular), but there were beautiful rose gardens, so we walked around them (and walked a labyrinth painted onto the ground) for a while before heading back down.  The stop for the funicular was right near the river, so went over there to watch the sun set behind the castle.  As you can see below, it was beautiful. The Old Town Hall area also looked even more amazing at night (below, right).


We had booked tickets on an overnight train from Prague to Heidelberg so that we could have a full day exploring the city together.  So we took our luggage to the train station and put it in a locker for the day.  We decided to spend the day wandering around town rather than going into museums and galleries.  We headed first to the Jewish quarter and explored what little is left as evidence of the ghetto that had been there.  We noticed that the Jewish town hall has a clock with Hebrew letters that runs backwards (photo right) - wild!  The streets in the area have been altered over the years so that now they are wide and lined with beautiful, large buildings.  There is clearly a lot of wealth in the area too.  The guidebook led us to a nearby area around the convent of St. Agnes (the oldest Gothic building in Prague; the convent was founded in 1233) that had more of the narrow alleys that would have been the norm in the ghetto.  We skipped the gallery there, but enjoyed the ambiance of the area (and the lack of crowds!).

The book's walk guided next to the Church of St. James, founded in 1374.  It had a few surprises in it.  The first was that the interior (below, left) included 21 huge Baroque altars running along the center aisle and all facing the door (rather than in niches/chapels facing the center as we're used to).  They were imposing, but somehow manageable given the scale of the place.  But that was nothing relative to the "decoration" just to the left of the main doors: a human forearm dangling from a chain. Why is there a human forearm dangling from a chain in a church, one might ask?  The story is that a thief tried to steal the jewels of the Madonna on the high altar of the church, but she would have none of that and hung on until someone cut off the thief's arm and hung it up as a reminder of religious justice.  It's pretty disgusting, and we didn't want you to miss out (or think we were lying), so look at the photo below, right.
 
We continued our meanderings through the Ungelt - or Tyn Court - area that dates from the 11th century and was one of the first settlements along the right bank of the river.  Traders used the area and it has a long history "written" in the various styles of architecture contained in it.  We got a sandwich and sat near an old water pump in a beautiful little courtyard enjoying the sights and sounds.  We then moved to a little coffee shop we had noticed and had a superb coffee and hot chocolate (one each) before wandering around the streets some more.

One sight that we wanted to see before we left was the Strahov Monastery.  It's on the hill near the castle, so we took the tram up there (all-day transport passes are a wonderful thing) and found ourselves free from the tourist crowds again - a wonderful feeling. There was a statue of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler at the tram stop. Apparently they looked calmer there than they ever would have during their interactions in their lifetimes, but it was a nice statue anyway!  The monastery was founded in 1140 and the monks there put together a library that has survived despite attacks from various groups (including the Communists who, in 1950, sent the remaining canons to concentration camps).  Eight of the monks returned after the 1989 revolution and the monastery is back in business today (with some capitalist endeavors like an Italian restaurant to raise some money for restoration, etc.).  

The library was built in the 1780s. The anteroom has some examples of charters, illuminated manuscripts, old maps and books with "doodles" made by the monks.  The next room is filled with cabinets full of dried fish, beetles, butterflies, snakes (and snake skins), coral and some special attractions: a crocodile, hammer-head shark, and the tooth of a sawtooth shark.  Bizarre. The book collection was impressive though.  The rooms were lines with beautiful walnut bookcases that hold over 40,000 books.  The ceilings were painted with religious scenes and there were Rococo decorations all around.  In the back of the Theological Hall (built in 1671), there was a special cabinet above the door that had  "prohibited" books in it.  If a canon wanted to read one of Galileo's tracts for example, he had to explain his reasons to the abbot who might grant permission. This probably means the boss kept all the interesting books for himself!

We wanted to be able to have a relaxed dinner before we had to catch our train and there was more exploring we wanted to do, so we caught the tram back down to where it crosses the bridge (see sunset photo above).  We had passed an "Antiquarium" shop the night before and we went in for a quick look.  We found some collection books filled with old stamps.  We purchased one that has stamps from countries that don't exist anymore - Czechoslovakia,  the area that Hitler "annexed" before WWII, the DDR (East Germany) - as well as old ones from the U.S., Australia, Argentina and many other places.  It also has some stamps that cost millions of Deutchmarks back in the 1930s.  It's a fun collection - even if it goes against Gerald's plan to only collect stamps sent to him - and is a nice reminder of our visit to Prague.

We walked along the river and onto a small island (Kampa island) formed by a canal that runs parallel to the river for a while.  One of the sights on this island is the John Lennon Wall (photo left).  Apparently Lennon became a symbol of protest in Prague after he was killed, and during the 1980s students would regularly cover the wall with political statements that the police would then whitewash regularly.  It is now covered with graffiti imploring people to "give peace a chance" etc.  Pretty neat, actually. [Bizarre side note: as I'm writing this, the party outside our place in Heidelberg has the song "Imagine" blasting.  Doo-doo-doo-doo (Twilight Zone music).]

We continued on over the Charles Bridge one last time and went to a cute little restaurant we had noticed (mostly by the delicious smells coming from it) on our earlier meanderings.  After a great meal, we watched the Astronomical Clock do its thing again and then wandered back toward the metro stop to get to the train station. We left more time than we needed (better than too little time, we suppose), so we were sitting there for a while.  Although a plaque stated that it was voted "Outstanding Concrete Structure" in 2002, we didn't find it very inspiring.  


The overnight train back to Heidelberg was remarkably comfortable and very convenient.  Our compartment had a set of bunk beds and a sink. The "steward" was very helpful and even brought us breakfast [coffee and chocolate croissants] as part of the wake-up routine when we were about 30 minutes from Frankfurt (where we changed trains).  There was a shower next to our compartment, so we even felt somewhat human by the time we left the train.  A great end to a wonderful trip.

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