The Golden City

My train for Prague left early Saturday morning. Despite how large and spread out Berlin is, it didn't take very long for the train to leave the city behind and begin to breeze through the German countryside, which--at least in this part of the country--looks pretty much the same as southern Ontario countryside, except the houses are cute little European things with red-tiled roofs.

The train was ultimately destined for Vienna, but I was just on it for the first four hours until Prague. I was paranoid that there would be some problem with my ticket and they'd start yelling at me in German and kick me off the train in the middle of who knows where. Of course, in the end no one even checked my ticket at all. I thought it was because Europeans in general are really big on the honesty system when it comes to public transportation, but on the way back they did check--three times!--and of course all was fine.

The train was busy--possibly it always is, but it was a long weekend in Germany so I suspect it may have been more crowded than usual. I was glad I reserved my seat for the extra four Euros, as people were wandering around looking for free seats. One woman even sat down on the floor, which doesn't seem like a fun way to spend four hours. 

Lunch on the train, from my favourite German pretzel chain, Ditsch!

BREZELN COUNT: 6

The landscape changed outside of Dresden. It became all these great big hills and cliffs and picturesque rivers. Too bad it was all grey and rainy. The train emptied out quite a bit at Dresden and  not as many new people boarded. Although, there was a cute German family sitting in front of me, with their three cute little blond German children. They drank from juice boxes and played  I-Spy, like children everywhere do on trips, I suppose.

Shortly thereafter, I suddenly realised that all the signs in the towns we were passing were in Czech.  We had passed over from Germany into the Czech Republic and I had had no idea...well, possibly there was an announcement abut it, but it would have been in German and/or Czech and I clearly missed it. No one ever asked for my passport. It must be what travelling through the EU is like, but it's pretty weird.

Famed German punctuality ensured that we arrived at the main train station in Prague right on the money. I found a bank machine and took out some Czech Korunas (incidentally, one Czech Koruna equals about 0.05 Euros, so the bank machine gave me a two-thousand Koruna bill, which I wasn't quite sure what to do with...). I had no time initially to admire Prague's insane beauty, as I had speed through the Old Town to meet my contact for the apartment I had rented through airbnb.com (the same website I used to find my Berlin apartment--I'd highly recommend using it!). Here's an exterior shot of the building.

Karlova 24

Shockingly, I forgot to take photos of the interior of the apartment, which is not like me at all. Probably I was too anxious to get outside and take photos of the city itself. I ended up taking about 850 photographs, and easily could have taken more but was worried for my camera's battery life. Even as it was, on Sunday I had to take an hour's detour to my apartment to recharge my battery just enough to get me through the rest of  day. 

Prague is a magical city. Its beauty is kind of surreal, in fact. Everyone I know who has been had told me so, but it's hard to imagine. It's all red-roofed Gothic, renaissance, and baroque buildings, and tiny winding cobblestone streets and about a gazillion churches and towers. Admittedly, I stuck very close to the Old Town square and never really left the throng of tourists, but the Prague that I saw was certainly wonderful.

After dropping off my bags at my rented digs, I set out to explore the city for what was left of the afternoon and evening on Saturday. I started off by grabbing a cup of tea and a slice of carrot cake in a cafe near my apartment, and then I set out for Petrin Hill, a hill right in the middle of Prague that offers wonderful views of the city. I opted to take the funicular car up the hill to save time and energy, which was a good decision as it was quite a long way up. Also, at the top there's this tower you can climb up to get a bird's eye view of the city. It was 300 steps up, but was well worth it.

It's a mini Eiffel Tower! Interestingly, it is supposed to be at the same height as the real Eiffel Tower, if you count the hill it stands upon.

Prague, with the famous Charles Bridge.

Prague Castle, with St. Vitus' Cathedral in the middle of it.

Petrin Hill is on the other side of the Vltava River from the Old Town, so after walking back down the hill, I began to make my way back across the river towards Wenceslas Square. Really, it was more of a wide boulevard, lined with restaurants and shops. And tourists, everywhere of course. Wenceslas Square is not quite as charming as the Old Town Square, with its towers and churches and picturesque buildings. 

Crossing back over the river from Petrin Hill. The funky building on the right is known as the Dancing Building and is a Frank Gehry design.

Lovely Prague.

Lovely Prague II.

I loved the colour of this building.

Looking down Wenceslas Square.

The National Museum, presiding majestically over Wenceslas Square. (I did not go, because it felt criminal to be indoors on such a glorious day in such a glorious city.)

The Old Town Square.

I grabbed dinner at a pan-Asian noodle bar after dismissing about ten other restaurants for their (expected) lack of vegetarian options. It was actually quite good, and I chased it down with some coconut gelato, as everyone in Europe seems to love ice cream an inordinate amount (or is there no such a thing as loving ice cream inordinately?). Turns out, the Old Town at night is just as lovely as it is during the day, with the exception of there being more loud, drunken teenagers milling about. 

The Old Town Square, just after sunset.

Ditto.

And again.

The next morning I was up early to walk across Charles Bridge before the throng of tourists. It was worth the early wake-up. (Also included: some photos from the bridge I took the night before.)

The tower on the Old Town's side of Charles Bridge.

Lovely Prague III...

...and in daylight!

The other end of Charles Bridge, leading to the Lesser Town.

Looking back over Charles Bridge towards the Old Town.

Lovely Prague IV.

With views like that, it's easy to see why walking across Charles Bridge is the thing to do as a tourist in Prague.

After crossing the bridge in the early morning air, I needed to find a place for breakfast. I felt like a silly (North) American doing it, but the only place open at eight in the morning was Starbucks. However, Czech Starbucks have these delicious chocolate-cherry muffins with real pieces of cherry in them, and this super creamy yogurt with honey and nuts and raisins. It was actually the best breakfast I've had on this trip so far...!

Otherwise, you know, Starbucks are the same everywhere.

Well fuelled up, I left Starbucks and began the climb up some steep medieval streets to Prague Castle, with its gorgeous views and impressive palaces and cathedral. The castle is apparently one of the largest such complexes in Europe, and certainly it's one of the oldest medieval castles, dating back to 900 AD. I paid admission and was able to go into several of the buildings, which were beautiful, although the exhibits were not as informative as I would have liked. In fact, I returned to the Castle grounds later that day while on a free walking tour of the city and learned more about the place, including the fact that it was once briefly conquered by the Swedes (in the 1600s) and that the imposing cathedral, St. Vitus', took 1000 years from beginning to completion--apparently, that's why parts of the building are darker than others, since the sandstone it's made out of darkens with age. 

On my way up to Prague Castle.

On the way to the Castle.

Lovely Prague V.

Closer!

Prague Castle.

Its view.

The view from one of the palace rooms.

Prague Castle, again.

St. Vitus' Cathedral.

The doors of the cathedral.

The cathedral again.

A glimpse of St. Vitus'.

I just loved this door. It was in a passageway between two parts of the castle grounds and probably led into a closet, but really--it was lovely.

On my way back down from the Castle, I stopped for some gingerbread and a Trdelnik, a traditional Czech snack that's basically warm, sweet bread covered in cinnamon sugar. (It was so good I had another one on my way to the train station the next day!) 

Gingerbread from the "Gingerbread Museum" (not really a museum!).

The Trdelnik place

Mmm.

I stopped in at the Wallenstein Palace Gardens on my way back to the Old Town, and was very glad I had, because it was breathtakingly pretty, compete with peacocks and all! This was the point when my camera died, but not before I was able to snap some photos:

The Wallenstein Palace Gardens.

Again.

Enjoy the gardens, but please keep of the grass and leave your guns at home.

After a brief pause at my apartment to recharge my overworked camera, I headed to the Old Town Square, literally just five minutes from my apartment, and joined the free walking tour. 

Some photos from the tour:

The Astronomical Clock. It's super duper old and has been keeping perfect time, still with the original clock mechanisms inside.

Buildings in the Old Town.

Inside St. Peter's.

It looks like someone peeled off a layer of this building's skin or something, and then got really lazy and decided not to finish the job. Very weird.

Franz Kafka memorial in the Old Jewish Quarter.

Little Venice.

Our guide was great--quite funny and knowledgeable--and I made some friends with two people on the tour who were visiting from Vienna. They saw I was travelling alone and kindly offered to meet up later for a drink after the tour, which was pretty cool, as one was a Spanish-Colombian working in Vienna and the other was a Bulgarian working as an au pair in Vienna. They had already been learning German in Vienna for a year, and so they knew much more than I did, but it was pretty cool to have a half-English and half-German conversation at a bar in Prague!

The weather was amazing all weekend--gloriously sunny and warm but not hot. It rained only Sunday evening, so really I can't complain. I was quite lucky, in fact. And, two years of living in Vancouver has taught my to always pack an umbrella, so I was prepared even for the brief rain we did have.

Oh, and on Sunday night I also went to this great vegetarian restaurant that I had looked up, and I was able to order veggie versions of some traditional Czech dishes, each made with soy-based fake meats. It doesn't look that appetizing,but actually it was quite good!

Vegetarian svickova: soy "meat" with a vegetable-cream sauce, dumplings, cream, cranberries and lime.

Monday morning I had a slower start to day. I returned the keys to be apartment and then went to Bohemia Bagel, a well-known chain of bagel places in Prague stated by some American ex-pats. It was underwhelming. I didn't linger very long over my breakfast before making my way to the famous old Jewish quarter. Prague's Jewish community is one of the oldest in Europe, and the Jewish Museum offers an audio-guided tour of six important Jewish sites, including several synagogues and a medieval cemetery. I seem to have a thing for old Jewish cemeteries, because the cemetery was certainly the highlight of the tour for me. My beloved Weißensee Cemetery in Berlin is much larger and more beautiful, but Prague's cemetery speaks to an older history, with graves dating back to the 1400s. Confined as they were in a ghetto for so many centuries, Prague's Jews had no choice but to keep piling dirt on top of the existing graves and bury their dead several layers deep. An estimated 12,000 graves are in the cemetery, which is not even a full city block in area. The result is a haunting sight of undulating hills, and layers upon layers of gravestones competing for footing.

The Old Jewish Cemetery.

Again.

The old Jewish Burial Society building, next to the cemetery.

The majority of Prague's Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust--today, most of the synagogues in the Old Jewish Quarter are museums. One, the Pinkas Synagogue, is a Holocaust memorial. Being the somewhat jaded, erstwhile Holocaust scholar that I am, I was not expecting to be as moved as I was by the memorial. Possibly it's because I was not expecting to walk into a memorial but rather an old, empty synagogue, which, indeed it was, only in addition to the ark and bimah, which had been preserved, the walls were covered in names. Tens of thousands of names, one for each of Prague's (known) Jewish victims of the Holocaust. To stand in an empty synagogue, surrounded by those thousands of names...it hit me rather forcefully. It was one of the most straightforward and most effective Holocaust memorials I've seen...and I've seen many, so that's saying something.

The exterior of the Pinkas Synagogue. Photos were not permitted inside.

The exterior of the beautiful Spanish Synagogue. It was the most beautiful synagogue I had ever been in. (And again, unfortunately, photos were not permitted. But Google-image it for an idea.)

Beyond the synagogues and cemetery there isn't really anything else in the neighbourhood that speaks to the Jewish life that was once so predominant in those streets. After the Czech king emancipated Prague's Jews in the late-1800s, the ghetto was dismantled and Jews moved to other neighbourhoods. Eventually the area became quite built up and ritzy--today it's home to high-end designer shops (in fact, one of the main streets is called Paris Street) and beautiful buildings. I was a bit disappointed that this is all the Old Jewish Quarter is today--given how old the Jewish community is in Prague, I suppose I was expecting something more like a shtetl in the middle of the city. A bit naive of me to think so, perhaps, but still. The name "Old Jewish Quarter" is a bit misleading, that's all.

I shouldn't be disappointed, of course. In fact, I ought to be grateful for the remnants there are, given how much of Jewish life was wiped out by the Nazis during the war. It is somewhat perverse, but the synagogues and Old Jewish Cemetery that I visited in Prague would not be standing today if it had not been for Hitler. That's sounds wrong, but for some reason Hitler permitted the physical landmarks of the community to be spared, if not the members themselves. It's not entirely clear why, but the prevailing opinion is that Hitler wanted to preserve Prague's Old Jewish Quarter as a kind of museum of curiosities, chronicling what he had intended to be an extinct population of a subhuman people.

After being sufficiently saddened by all that, I left the Jewish quarter and grabbed some tea and a macaron for a pick-me-up (not very Czech, but you know, delicious) at Wenceslas Square before heading back to the train station to catch my train back to Berlin.

The train ride back was good. The weather was much nicer than it had been on my way in a few days earlier, so I was able to enjoy more of the scenery, which was beautiful. Lots of little towns with church spires, perched along the river, nestled among these lovely green mountains. Beautiful, yes, but I found myself thinking it was nothing different from the kinds of scenery I'd seen at home--of course, right as I was thinking that, I noticed that perched high upon one of these small mountains was the ruins of an old fortified castle. So, you know, a bit different from Canada, after all. 

Next trip planned: la Paris in three weeks' time! Let's see if the City of Lights can surpass the Golden City in my books. It'll be quite the challenge, although I suspect it's one that Paris is up to.