(Toby)
Hello All -
Just back from our 4-day venture to Prague. Wow. Everything you all said is true - it is a BEAUTIFUL city with a great feel to it. Everywhere you look is like a different picture postcard. Of course the weather didn't hurt. It was at least 70 everyday with a mix of sun and clouds. There were occasional sun showers but they never lasted more than about 3-5 minutes. May is the perfect time to go.
We got up Saturday morning at 4:15am to make our 7:40 flight - thought we'd fly over early so we'd have more of a day there. I guess we did, but since we spent a couple of hours of it napping when we got there I'm not so sure it was the smart thing to do. Oh well, it was a 7:40 a.m. or 6 p.m flight. Better to nap in Prague than in Oxford.
We started our stay walking around the city and getting our bearings - Tom always with map in hand. We did take an afternoon boat ride in the Vlatava River - complete with a plastic cup of beer and the Prague equivalent of a Scooter Pie (although not as good, if you can imagine that). From the water we saw the Metronome for the first time (picture below). It went up after a statue of Stalin came down and our boat captain said that is represents a wagging finger, symbolising that it should never happen again (communism in Prague). Kinda cool.
We took a leisurely walk across the Charles Bridge (many times over the weekend) just taking in the view, the people (there are always lots of people on the bridge), the statues, the musicians and the craft vendors. The bridge isn't so much to look at from a distance, but being on it is pretty special. Plus it's got lots of history (but we won't bore you with history!).
Prague is a very international city with tourists everywhere. The advantage of that is that we had no trouble getting around with English. The one thing we had trouble with were our food bills. They were itemized in Czech and always seemed to include more items than we ordered. Seems it is not uncommon to have a cover charge at restaurants. Also, there are appetizers on the tables when you arrive (peanuts, potato crisps, bread) and it seems like you get charged for them whether you eat them or not. Pretty good system they've got going!
We took a couple of walking tours - one of the castle (the big, HUGE castle) which Tom will tell you about below. There is a house on the property that is for the president - who can choose whether or not he wants to live there. It's a decent house, nothing particularly spectacular from the outside. The amazing thing is that you can walk right by it. Hardly any security at all. Granted, Vaclav Havel doesn't live there at the moment, but the tour guide said that even if he did, it would be the same. Imagine being able to walk up to the White House. Ha! The other tour we took was of the Jewish quarter.
(Tom)
Our two tours were both walking tours in English. The first was of the Hrad (Castle). We were one of 5 people on the tour, so that was nice. This is really a set of buildings/palaces that make up the castle complex, with an absolutely huge cathedral (St. Vitus Cathedral) in the center. Quite a view from the town below. I won't bore you with the details of the tour - there are some pictures below showing highlights.
The Jewish Quarter (and Franz Kafka) tour was another small group - 4 of us - the other couple was from Boston! We learned about the history of the Jews in Prague, including the construction and destruction of the Jewish ghetto walls and about the Nazis preserving the Jewish Quarter as a museum to an extinct race. We also saw the six synagogues that were preserved, one of which has the names of all 77,000+ people who were deported written on the walls. Very sobering. Again, pictures below (none allowed inside the synagogues). The Jewish Quarter has a lot of art-nouveau style buildings, moreso than other regions of the city.
Shouldn't leave out the Old Town Square with it's Astronomical Clock that tells time in various ways, and also information about the position of the sun and stars, relative to the earth being the center of the universe. It puts on a show every hour when it chimes - like a big cuckoo clock, figures of the apostles come and go, pull strings, and finally a rooster crows. We enjoyed it (although it was kind of hokey) and also enjoyed sitting in the big square having a beer at the café. The new section of town is nothing very interesting - lots of chic shops (Benetton, etc). We didn't spend much time there.
| A few pictures from Prague. Click on one to see a larger version. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
) The castle complex as seen from the water |
) Musicians playing Dixieland on the Charles Bridge |
) Rooftops of Prague, from just below the castle |
) Side canal of the river - the 'Little Venice' of Prague |
) Tram-reminds us of Boston |
) Astonomical Clock in Old Town Square |
) St. Vitus Cathedral in the Castle, and tower (prison) of the castle |
) Huge moving Metronome - replaced the huge statue of Stalin |
) Tom at lunch one day |
) Us, overlooking the Lesser Quarter of Prague |
) The front of the St. Vitus Cathedral. Big! |
) Inside of the St. Vitus Cathedral |
) Golden Lane-where the castle guards lived (and Kafke, for one year) |
) Basilica of St. George, on the side of the St. Vitus Cathedral |
) A little target practice with a crossbow (for both Toby and Tom) |
(Toby)
Prague is a very musical city. Lots of things going on all over the city. Big with the tourists are these short concerts (60-70 minutes) that are basically 'best of' shows. We saw one with a string quartet (which was very good) and another organ concert with vocal soloists (I didn't like that one at all, Tom thought it was okay). They are enjoyable, but because they try to fit so much variety in (about 10 composers), they both felt sort of rushed.
There are people all over the streets with signs and flyers advertising these concerts. We were in the middle of buying tickets to one of them when the Czech police came and basically busted the guy for selling us tickets. We're not really sure what the issue was since the whole conversation was in Czech, but since we hadn't given him any money yet, Tom returned the one ticket we had and we took off. The price seemed ok, so we don't think he was scalping them, but something he was doing was illegal. It was pretty funny.
As for the food, we did get some goulash, some potato pancakes, some potato dumplings and some bread dumplings but weren't overly impressed with any of it. So one night we had Chinese food (make that mediocre Chinese food) and we did resort to pizza for our last lunch there. Pizza is big in Prague.
The have a few big selling beers there - Pilsner Urqell was probably seen most often but we also had Budvar - the original Budweiser. A pint (?) of beer was anywhere from $.30 to $3.00 depending on how close to the main drag the pub/restaurant was.
Ice cream is big in Prague. There are lots of street vendors selling tiny cones for about $.30. It's really not a bad idea - just the right amount for a snack. It's hard to get any ice cream in the States that's not at least 2 huge scoops and $2.50. Of course the ice cream in Prague wasn't as good as it is back home…..
Bohemian crystal is sold EVERYWHERE. Unfortunately, Tom and I weren't really interested in buying any. Amber and garnets are also popular in the stores as are the Russian matrushka dolls (nesting dolls).
We did buy ourselves a refrigerator magnet (we're going to get one from every country we go to) and a few small pictures from a couple of artists on the Charles Bridge. I think I drove Tom crazy trying to choose the right ones. As always, we were overwhelmed by the number of choices, but I think we did well.
| More pictures from Prague. Click on one to see a larger version. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
) A tourist street sign (in Czech) |
) Western end of the Charles Bridge |
) Old Town Square (where the Astronomical Clock is located) |
) Enjoying a Budvar at the cafe |
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) Charles bridge panorama, looking east towards Old Town |
) The Jewish Quarter |
) Spanish Synagogue, beautiful Moorish Style Synagogue |
) Old Jewish Cemetary- so cramped for space they had to layer the caskets |
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We admit to putting the TV on in our hotel room, but with the exception of CNN and the BBC, everything was in German or Czech or French. Even the American movies were dubbed.
The only thing we didn't get to do was take a tour trip to Terezin, a ghetto set up as a stop for the Jews on their way to one of many concentration camps during WWII. It was designed as a ruse to show the press that the Jews were being treated well. It was a 5-hour tour and we found out about it too late. We both also had the want to see it, should see it, don't want to see it thing going - if you know what I mean. Next time we'll do it.
Prague Bits and Bobs:There's the summary. Hope we didn't bore you with too much detail!
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