We spent four days in Prague and I wanted to move there. I have not been to a city I loved as much aside from maybe Venice and they are so close I can”t say which I liked more.
The first thing you notice when you arrive in Prague is the palace on the hill in the distance. It dominates the horizon and it is undeniably beautiful. To me, it is much like the Nicholaikirche here in Quedlinburg, it’s overwhelming and still comforting; so beautiful, yet ominous in an odd archaic way. I loved it from the first glimpse.
The Czech Republic is not a part of the European Union and as such, they have a different monetary system. They use the Czech Krono. One Krono is worth around 0,25 Euro. It took a little bit to get used to the idea that a Coke Light cost 33,00 CK. I bought a t-shirt that cost 149,00 CK. A cone of gelato cost 70,00 CK. It sure made souvenir shopping uncomfortable. The spoons I buy for my mom and my friend’s mom cost 200,00 CK for two. I spent 290,00 CZ on a dinner of spitted pork and potatoes. (It was pricey market food, but SOOOOO good.)
We got into Prague around 4PM and got situated in our hostel. We stayed at the Mosaic House. This hostel is incredible. According to Frau Merchant it’s about twice as expensive as the hostels we usually use, but to my way of thinking, it was worth the expenditure. The entire first floor of the hostel was a bar/lounge. It was comfortable and modern. Every evening there was some form of entertainment from a break dance competition to a sports night. The beer was good, the food delicious, and the environment was incredibly comfortable. Our rooms were nice. I liked the decorating and the efficient use of resources was commendable. Like the Hotel we stayed at in Berlin, Mosaic House is an up and coming concept in resource management and “green-ness” in Europe. I really enjoyed our stay there.
After getting situated, we did a “quick” impromptu tour of the city with Frau Merchant. We walked through the old town and basically got our bearings on our hostel in relation to the rest of the city. Prague is huge (1.2 million people) so we only saw a miniscule portion of it in the entire time we were there, but we got our bearings just the same.
Every step we took put me deeper and deeper in love with the city. Prague is one city in Europe that I could move to and live happily. I would never get tired of the beauty. The architecture it stunning. It literally captured my breath at times. The buildings are all embellished with Art Nouveau patterns and figures, and they are beautiful. Like any European city, the combination of old and new makes for a very dynamic visual experience. For example:
It’s almost sensory overload but in such a good way. These buildings are all within walking distance of each other. Such good memories.
The second day we were there, we took a four and a half hour walking tour of the bigger area around us. Our tour guide was incredible and she knew so much. The first place she took us was up the mountain to the palace. She took us through the palatial gardens and up through a rear gate into the palace proper. I want to mention here that the entire way up the mountain, through the gardens and onto the palace grounds we were getting closer and closer to the St. Vitus cathedral. I have never seen anything like this cathedral. The only thing I can compare it to is the white marble mosque I visited in Cairo. They are radically different but so stunningly beautiful, completely overwhelming, and architecturally impressive beyond comprehension.
St. Vitus cathedral isn’t as old as it looks, it was finished much later than the St. Georg basilica, but it is still noteworthy. St. Vitus is buried underneath this cathedral. The story goes that King Wenceslas's wife went to her confessor and told him her secret (who knows what secret just a secret) and King Wenceslas wanted to know what it was so he brought the priest (Vitus) to him and told him to spill it. Vitus told him no because confession is a sacred and confidential rite. Priests were not to reveal the confessions of their parishioners. So, Wenceslas had him tortured and then brought him back and asked again and again Vitus denied the king the answers he sought. Not wanting to cause problems between himself and the Church, Wenceslas let Vitus go. Mysteriously, his body was discovered floating in the Vltava river with knife wounds. He had been killed and thrown off the Charles Bridge to cover up the fact that he had been murdered… Fail. Just to spite the king, the bishop at the time ordered Vitus buried within the palace compound. It infuriated Wenceslas but he couldn’t do anything about it. The location of Vitus’s body became a pilgrimage destination so he was exhumed and reburied in a corner of the cathedral in a massive silver coffin embellished with silver statuary and set off by crimson drapery. Prague houses one of the largest, if not the largest collection of relics in the world.
Also during this tour, we crossed Charles Bridge, which was an adventure in statuary and mass tourism. There were several vendors with “handmade” leather, glass, enamel, and wooden jewelry; caricature artists, and painters, whose paintings all look exactly the same,(which begs the question; are they watercolor by number?) The bridge was lovely though. There is very beautiful sculpture and an unbeatable view.
The following day was a bit saddening. Flor and I went to the Jewish history museum. I must admit, I almost cried several times. Prague had one of the largest Jewish ghettos during the time of the Final Solution. The first area of the museum you see is room upon room upon room with writing on the walls; the names of all the victims of the holocaust just from Prague. All arranged by district and last name. It was agonizingly sad. One woman found the name of a relative and lost it in the oppressive silence. All you could hear were choking sobs echoing off the walls of the dead.
Another section immediately following the list of the dead, was the artwork of the children of Terezin. This was art done by Jewish children while they were living in the ghetto. 90% of these children were transported to Auschwitz and killed during the Final Solution. The art is a window through which we can see their day to day existence and the simple view of the world through the eyes of children experiencing it.
It was also incredibly saddening. I saw there, for the first time one of the actual stars of David that the Jews were forced to wear. Even the children wore them. It sickens me that this was imposed upon children, innocents.
Another interesting thing about this museum is the old Jewish cemetery. During the times of the ghettos and the Holocaust, the Jews had many restrictions placed on them; places they could shop, food they could buy, places they could sit, and many other things. One of those things was that they had extremely miniscule space to bury their dead. Jewish burial customs are in depth and the restriction caused many issues, not the least of which was lack of space. Graves were stacked on top of graves. Cairns similar to those found in New Orleans were built and packed full of the dead in an effort to make space for the dead to be placed to rest. The cemetery was a wide eyed view of how impossible their circumstances really were.
After such a sad experience, Flor and I wanted something to remind us of just being alive. It wasn’t said out loud, but it was very much there. We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. That’s right, Prague has its own version of the Eiffel Tower and they won’t hesitate to tell you that it’s taller than the one in Paris,(because it is located on the highest mountain/hill in Prague.)
Getting there is a trick if you don’t know what you are doing and after much confusion about the route we wanted to take and going a little too far on the tram, we got to the monastery that we were going to climb up through to get to the tower. I am so glad we went that way. It was beautiful. The day was so sunny and there was a park (for lack of a better word) of evenly planted young trees, some in bloom, with soft green grass and beyond it was a drop off lined with large adult trees and a jaw-dropping view of the city. We took the opportunity to take some fun pictures and to just breathe. It was amazing. If I lived in Prague, I would spend copious amounts of time there just reading and lying back on the grass.
We went though the monastery and down a hiking trail that looped down and then up to some stairs that took us the rest of the way to the tower. I must say, it is a very impressive piece of work and it does indeed resemble the Eiffel Tower. After climbing the mountain, I wasn’t up to ascending the heights manually, so I paid for the elevator and went to the top. I can’t explain in words what it was like. It was so high up that it swayed in the breeze. I could look down on St. Vitus cathedral. It was a view that can’t be captured by a camera and even a memory can pale against the reality. I felt alive up there with the window open and the air in my face. I was at the highest attainable point in Prague and it was amazing.
We took the tram down the side of the mountain/hill and traipsed across the Charles Bridge, shopping as we went, back to the hostel. Day three was drawing to a close. We had one more thing we wanted to do, a 290,00 CK 50 minute boat ride on the Vltava. We bundled up at the hostel, grabbed Stephen and headed back to the river only to find out that the last rides had left. So we went in search of Gelato instead. Flor has a passion for gelato that is unmatched. 
It was an incredible trip and none of us was ready for it to be over. Of all the trips we had taken, it was the one in which we had the most time to make our own decisions regarding the things it was important to see and do. It also gave us time to breath and just enjoy the experience. I feel that it was one of the best experiences I have had since I have been abroad and much to my chagrin, we left the next morning.
Regardless of how sad I was to leave, being home again was good too. I miss the tall steeples of the Nicholaikirche standing guard over me.
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