Devin's Travels: Prague

We arrived in Prague at about noon and set off immediately to find the hostel that we had booked. Once we found our hostel we dumped our bags off and set out to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the city. Our first stop was Wenceslas Square which was really just a really broad avenue with shops along the edge and a statue of St Wenceslas at one end. Once we reached the square we found a cheap place to grab a bite to eat and to plan the rest of the day. From Wenceslas Square we made our way to the Old Town Square passing by the Municipal House and Estates Theatre on the way. At the Old Town Square we wandered around admiring the architecture of Tyn Church, St Nicholas Church and of course the famous Clock Tower which contains the astronomical clock. Unfortunately we arrived just after the hour so we would have to catch the show of clock at a later point. Once we had seen both of the churches we made our way to the tourist information centre where we inquired about possibly going to see a hockey game. We were in luck as there was a game in town that night but it was scheduled to start at 5pm which wasn't very far away at this point so after learning this information we just made our way back to the hostel to get ready to go to the game. We easily navigated the public transport system and found the arena (it wasn't too hard as we just had to follow all of the fans) where we bought a couple of tickets and proceeded to get ready to watch some Czech hockey. The game was lots of fun (especially since I hadn't seen a game in over a year) and although the arena was only maybe a third full (we think it was only an exhibition game) the crowd was really into it making lots of noise and all having fun. After watching the game we made our way back to the tourist area of Prague and decided that we would just have a fairly early night and returned to the hostel.

The next morning we set off in the rain to check out Prague castle. This started with walking over Charles Bridge which was the first bridge built in Prague and is lined with about 30 statues. Today it is purely a tourist bridge and all along it are vendors who set up little stalls selling trinkets but thankfully due to some construction while we were there it didn't seem too bad. From the end of the bridge we started to walk up hill towards the castle but stopped en route at St Nicholas Church (a different one from yesterday) which is one of Prague's most famous churches. We spent some time touring around the interior and admired the frescoes all over the walls and the beautiful alters inside. After seeing St Nicholas Church we continued up to Prague Castle where we entered the grounds to see an enormous lineup for tickets. Thinking it was the only place to purchase entrance tickets we proceeded to stand in line for about an hour in the most unorganized system ever to get our tickets and audio guide. Once we had our tickets we entered to the third courtyard of the castle which was dominated by the impressive St Vitus Cathedral. We started our audio guide tour and entered St Vitus Cathedral which was very absolutely huge and contained about 25 alters on the side in addition to the main chapel. The interior of the church was gorgeous however the audio guide turned out to be very dull and just seemed to go on forever so we ended up skipping most of it while it described every saint that each alter was about. After being bored to death by the audio guide in the church we set off to explore the rest of the castle and to hopefully gain some enjoyment from our visit there. Outside the church we saw the Golden Gate which is a triple arched doorway into the church before we made our way to Vladislav Hall. Vladislav Hall is just a large vaulted hall that used to house everything from some small markets to indoor jousts. In an adjoining room to the hall is the Chancellery where in 1618 2 councilors were thrown out of the window by irate nobles and started the 30 years war. After the Chancellery we went again outside to the Basilica of St George which is a small chapel built in the 12th century. Finally the last part of the castle that we saw was the Golden Lane, a 16th century tradesmen quarters with tiny houses built into the castle walls. Now the houses are all turned into souvenir shops and the lane is packed with tourists trying to jam themselves into the small shops. Leaving the castle we walked down the hill and by the Wallenstein Palace which is home to the Czech Republic's Senate. After admiring the exterior of the Palace we entered the Wallenstein Gardens which is a nice little garden right in the middle of Prague complete with a fake stalactite wall full of hidden animal and monster faces. The last thing that we visited that afternoon was the Strahov Library which is the country's largest monastic library. The halls of the library are beautifully decorated and contain spectacular ceiling frescoes, unfortunately one of the halls was under reparations so we could only see one of the two halls. Along with the beautiful halls the library has some interesting collections including books about trees bound in the bark of the tree they describe and dried specimen of several marine animals including a few dried whales' penises. By this time it was getting late in the afternoon so we returned back to our hostel for a quick break before heading out for dinner and a few drinks.

The following morning we made our way to the train station where we got on a train bound for Kutna Hora where we planned on spending the day. We arrived in Kutna Hora and made our way to the Sedlec Ossuary where in 1870 the Schwarzenberg family allowed a local wood carver to create several sculptures with the bones of 40 000 people. In the ossuary there were 4 giant pyramids of stacked bones in the four corners, a central chandelier that is said to contain every bone in the human body and even a Schwarzenberg coat of arms made from bones. The display was quite unique and very interesting. After exploring the ossuary we made our way into the centre of Kutna Hora where we toured around the Italian Court which contains a mint museum as Kutna Hora was once prosperous for mining silver ore and minting the groschen, the main currency of Central Europe for some time. In Kutna Hora we also visited the Cathedral of St Barbara which rivals Prague's St Vitus in magnificence. Unfortunately we weren't able to tour around the silver mining museum in Kutna Hora and instead just got on a train back to Prague were we spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the small but well done Museum of Communism. That night we enjoyed dinner near our hostel and went out for a few drinks to some bars that we had noticed nearby.

The next morning was our last day in Prague and the Czech Republic so after checking out of our room and storing our bags at the reception we set off to explore some more of the city. We decided to spend the day checking out the Jewish Quarter of Prague, called Josefov, and so we spent a few hours entering different Synagogues in the area. Most of the Synagogues had been turned into museums showing different aspects of Jewish culture which were interesting. We also got to see an old Jewish Cemetery which was a small plot of land just packed with tombstones and apparently with graves layered up to 12 deep. The last synagogue that we entered was the Pinkas Synagogue and its walls were entirely covered in the names of Czech Jews that dies in the holocaust, 77 297 in total, it was quite moving. After checking out the Jewish Quarter we spent our last few hours watching the changing of the guard at the castle and the hourly ringing of the astronomical clock in the old town square. By the time we had done this we had to return to our hostel pick up our bags and make our way to the airport where we eventually boarded a flight to Paris, France our final country on this trip.