Easter Break Continued: Prague!

After our whirlwind weekend in Vienna we boarded a cheap yet very very pimped out bus to Prague!! We stayed there for about 3 and a half days, and with the help of the ever-trusty Rick Steves we did a ton of stuff. Here's a (not-so-brief) recap:

Day 1: We decided to begin our Prague experience with a Rick Steves self-guided tour on the #22 Tram, the tram that leads to many of the major tourist sites in the Old Town Quarter, Little Quarter, and Castle Quarter (for navigation purposes, the touristy part of Prague is divided into three "quarters"--the last of which is the New Town Quarter). However we didn't last long on the tram because we kept seeing things we wanted to look at up close so we quickly abandoned the tour and instead used it as only a rough guide. One of the first things we saw was the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. This moving memorial is made up of decaying bronze bodies standing on steps on the hillside. Along the steps are numbers, reminding viewers just how devastating communism was to the population: 205,468 arrested, 170,938 forced into exile, 4500 died in prison, 327 shot trying to escape, and 248 executed. 

Since we were already partway up the hill we decided to take the funicular to the very top and visit the Petrin Tower, a replica of the Eiffel Tower built for an exposition in 1891. When I say "replica" though, I really mean "kind of lame and underwhelming copy of the top third" of the tower. Since it stands on a hill, though, the tip of the tower is actually the same height as the real Eiffel Tower. So that's a fun fact, I guess. Apparently the view from the top of the tower is incredible, but since it was super foggy, we decided it wouldn't be worth it to pay for a ticket just to see clouds. We didn't get as good a view of the city from the platform of the tower as we had hoped because there were trees blocking it. Luckily for us, though, we made a mistake during the funicular ride coming up--the funicular stopped so we assumed it was the end and we got out, looking at the view and not paying attention to the other people inside, thus not realizing that no one else had gotten out with us. By the time we turned around and realized it, the doors had closed already and we were left waving and staring pathetically through the windows like lost puppies as the funicular drove away. The part that makes us lucky, though, is that the view from this platform was not obstructed by trees and thus WAY better than the view from the top! So yay us for being stupid!

I will say this a million times throughout this post: Prague is a gorgeous city. It's called the city of 100 spires and when you look at it from above, you can see why. It looks like this beautifully chaotic mishmash of green domes, gold domes, red brick roofs, silver baroque roofs, and gray gothic spires. I only wish we had had clearer skies and less fog so that our pictures could actually convey the beauty of the place!!

We next headed back down the hill (using the funicular correctly this time), crossed the river, and walked along the bank to the Charles Bridge, the oldest and most famous bridge in Prague. Named for Charles IV, this bridge was built in the 16th century and there are lots of fun stories surrounding it (which Rick gladly shared with us). The bridge is lined with statues, some more impressive than others and it was fun to see which statues drew a lot of attention from tourists and which went completely unnoticed. The bridge was packed with tourists, locals (I assume), artists (lots of caricature artists with comical samples), kiosks selling stuff, street performers, and people begging. As we got to the far side of the bridge we heard some fun accordion-y music coming from somewhere under the bridge, so we looked down and discovered a little market with live music! We headed down onto Kampa Island, a little area on the west side of the river, to see it up close, and it was absolutely adorable!! Even though it was late in the day it was so festive, with food stands and craft stands and this great great music! I was so glad we stumbled upon it.

Bridge and castle from the riverbank

If you touch this shrine to St. John of Nepomuk, the
patron saint of Prague, you will have good luck(?)
or something like that... 

Gateway to the bridge

Kampa Island market

By the time we got back across the bridge it was getting late and we were cold and tired, so we headed back to our apartment, but via the Old Town Square, the main, big, beautiful, perfect square in the middle of the Old Town Quarter. There was also an Easter Market happening there, and this one was HUGE and in full force. I like that Prague keeps its markets going even after Easter is over!

Day 2: Our first stop this day was the castle and all of its various parts. I think this may have been one of my favorite days of the whole trip, because I thought the whole castle complex was really really cool. We entered through the wrong gate, and were therefore a little disoriented at first, but luckily we figured everything out and headed to our first stop: St. Vitus Cathedral. This huge, beautiful, gothic cathedral has without a doubt the most stunning stained glass windows I've ever seen. They were incredibly detailed, so vibrant, and truly a wonder to look at. One was designed by Alfonso Mucha, the famed Czech Art Nouveau artist, and that one was indeed spectacular. After seeing so many cathedrals, they all kind of blend together in my mind, but this one stands out because of these remarkable windows and the fact that it contains remains of King Wenceslas of Christmas carol fame! (more on him later)

Main gate to the castle--you can see the twin spires
of the cathedral behind the first building

Mucha window

Our next stop was the Old Royal Palace, where various Bohemian Kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and other royalty lived when they were in Prague. Prague was, for a time, the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. Prague and Vienna actually had a bit of a rivalry over which city would be more powerful in the empire, but since the Austrian Hapsburgs won out in the end, Vienna became the city most associated with the Empire. Oh well. Sorry, Prague. The Prague Castle is, however, the largest ancient castle in the world (because its complex is so huge), so that's something!! The main hall in this palace was huge, and Rick says it's because they used to hold jousts there! Crazy. My favorite part of this Royal Palace was the upstairs offices. Why? Because the windows to this one particular office are the very windows where the Defenestration of Prague took place!!!! In 1618 a group of Protestants came into these offices and threw the Catholic officials working there out of the windows (a practice not uncommon at the time) because they objected to the fact that Bohemia was Catholic because their rulers were Catholic. This event is said to have been one of the causes of the Thirty Years War, the fighting between Catholics and Protestants which terrorized Europe from 1618-1648 and ultimately changed nothing. The true story is a little more complicated than that, but the basic facts are true, and as a religious history geek, seeing the windows where this all happened was pretty darn exciting :) Another cool part of the palace was a set of side rooms that had coats of arms painted on the ceiling. These coats of arms represented the officials who worked there, and there was a nice little plaque describing which belonged to which. Takeaway from that: there were a LOT of different kinds of scribes...

HUGE entrance hall

Standing in front of the Defenestration windows!

There were a few other smaller parts of the castle, including little chapels and monuments, but the last major part was the Golden Lane, a portion of the castle complex where people actually lived. The little houses were homes to tons of different kinds of people over the years, including the cooks and seamstresses who worked in the castle while it was still functioning, and writers and artists who moved in after. The most famous resident of the Golden Lane was Franz Kafka, who worked on some of his writing there during WWI era. Now the street is kind of museumy. Some of the houses are shops or art studios, but most have become little portals to the past, with furniture and artifacts from different historical periods, and stories about the people who lived there. Above the houses, built into the castle wall, was a sort of hallway with a lot of suits of armor, helmets, shields, weapons, and timely costumes. There was also a room of torture devices, a place you could test out your crossbow skills, and a lot of cheesy medieval music that made me feel like I had walked into the set of A Knights Tale (minus Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany, sadly). While admittedly very cheesy, I thought it was pretty fun!

Pretty comical helmets...not very practical though

We finished the castle stuff by wandering out the proper gate which led to a plaza filled with other gorgeous buildings and offered another spectacular yet foggy view of the rest of the city. We made our way down the hill through the Little Quarter, where we found the John Lennon wall, a piece of wall that has become the graffiti capital of the city.

One of the many beautiful buildings just outside the castle gate

We then wandered back across the Charles Bridge to the Old Town Square, in time to see the famous Astronomical Clock hourly "show". Note the use of the quotes around the word show. It was probably the lamest glockenspiel I've ever seen, complete with a pathetic rooster crow to end it all. The clock itself, however is anything but disappointing. It shows the actual time, the time of sunrise and sunset, the position of the sun and moon, and day of the year and which saint the day commemorates. I tried to hard to figure out how it works, but just couldn't do it. To think that this was created 600 years ago when technology was no where near where it is today is SO impressive. Also, the Town Square itself is just beautiful. Each and every building lining it is bright and colorful and ornate and lovely. I don't think I've ever seen a more picturesque market square!!

That night we came back out to the downtown area to view the city at night. It may even be MORE beautiful with everything lit up!!!

Day 4: Our last day began at Wenceslas Square. King Wenceslas is beloved by the Czechs, so much so that he was canonized after his death in the 10th Century. He was known as a great benevolent king but he was tragically killed (allegedly by a plot created by his own brother) and thus a myth has surrounded him, with all kinds of stories of heroism. Wenceslas Square is kind of an underwhelming area in the New Town part of Prague, flanked by buildings from many different architectural periods, including baroque, Art Nouveau, communist, and modern. The important part of this place is that it was the site of many of the anti-communist protests that led to the fall of communism there in 1989. Despite its vibrant history, this place isn't much to look at, frankly. But that's just how I felt.

the king himself

Our main event of the day was the Jewish Quarter. Prague has a remarkably well-preserved Jewish Quarter and many of its synagogues have been turned into a fabulous multi-part museum about Jewish history and culture. Each synagogue had its own theme, and they tie together really nicely. I really really loved it, but the chilling fact that Rick told us before we went inside definitely cast an interesting shadow on the experience: the reason the Nazis never destroyed these synagogues was because Hitler intended to use them as part of his "Museum of the Exterminated Jewish Race". He needed at least some synagogues and Jewish artifacts left intact so he could show the world what he had "accomplished" with his mass genocide. With that in mind, let's look at the synagogues!

The first was the Pinkas synagogue. Definitely the simplest, this was also the most powerful for me, because the walls were covered with the names, birthdays, and death dates of every Holocaust victim from Prague and the surrounding areas. The writing was quite small but the walls were still completely covered. It really gave you an idea of the magnitude of the killing, when you see it written out like that. There was no furniture in the synagogue and the simplicity made the names even more powerful. Upstairs there was an exhibit of children's art from Terezin, the camp closest to Prague, which was used as a sort of "model camp" for when red cross and other international inspectors came.

Just outside the Pinkas Synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery. This place is NOT big, but there are an estimated 12,000 grave markers with over 150,000 people buried there. For hundreds of years this was the only plot of land in which the huge Jewish population could bury the dead, and because of the Jewish belief that once a body is buried it cannot be moved, bodies were just buried one on top of the other, and as a result, the ground is very uneven, tombstones are falling over, and it's all very unorganized. But that just makes the place that much more beautiful! I already have a huge love for cemeteries, and this one had its own rustic charm. I thought it was fantastic.

On the other side of the cemetery was the Ceremonial Burial House. This building had a whole exhibit about the Burial Society, the people who were responsible for meticulously preparing a body for burial. There are a lot of steps to go through and apparently these people had a very high status in Jewish society. I knew absolutely nothing about this whole idea, so I thought it was interesting!

The next synagogue was the Klaus Synagogue, decorated in a baroque style. It held lots of artifacts and information about Jewish traditions, including the bar/bat mitzvah process, circumcision, weddings and marriage contracts, and all the festivals and holidays. Although I already knew most of the information the synagogue was beautiful and the artifacts they had were pretty cool too!

Site number four was the Old-New Synagogue, remarkable mostly for its age. Originally built in 1270, this synagogue is still in use!! There was no special museum in this one--just the synagogue itself. There were adorable old ladies standing around offering to answer questions about the building or Judaism. One of them told us some scattered but interesting stories about her experience during the Holocaust. She was very cute.

The last two synagogues, the Maisel Synagogue and the Spanish Synagogue, held a very detailed and fascinating history of the Jewish community in Prague, from the earliest settlers to the present. Prague had a huge, thriving Jewish community for most of its history, and it was one of the centers of haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment. Another interesting part of Jewish/Czech history is that the pilots who flew in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 flew Czech airplanes, and trained in Czechoslovakia! The Jewish people have certainly had lots of ups and downs, and this exhibit examined all of them. Again, all of it was really interesting, but a TON of information to absorb so, naturally, I've forgotten a lot of it. What I have not forgotten though, is the inside of the last synagogue. The Spanish Synagogue is sometimes called the most beautiful synagogue in Europe and I can certainly understand why. I think my jaw literally dropped when I entered. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

I was glad the Spanish Synagogue was our last major site in Prague. It was perfectly representative of the great great physical beauty of the city, as well as the vibrance of its character. I really loved Prague, and I would love to go back again (preferably when it's sunnier).