The story of Prague

I can hear you all thinking... 'What? Another blog within a week? What happened?' Well, graduation happened and Prague happened. I was sorting through my photos to decide which ones to upload to my previous blog and I figured I might as well write the full story on Prague straight away. So here goes!

So last week I briefly mentioned that Kim and I did a free walking tour through the rain on our first full day of discovering Prague to get a good sense of the city. The impression it made on me that first day, despite the rain, is that in one word, Prague is beautiful. The buildings are majestic and history can be felt and seen on almost every corner. To have a tourguide actually telling you about the history makes it even more interesting and gives you a better understanding of the city you're walking around in and the sights you're seeing. For instance, one of the stories our Dutch tourguide Tijo told us that really stuck with me is that his Czech girlfriend's grandma had lived in Prague her whole life and has still lived in 7 different countries! All over the city, signs of this obviously turbulent and both long-ago to recent history can be seen. The tour covered a lot of the most important sights, which meant that on day one we could already tick off Old Town Square, Church of Our Lady before Tyn, the famous astronomical clock, the Estates Theatre, parts of the Jewish Quarter and The Powder Tower off our 'to-see list', plus some other sights that I forgot the name of.

The guided tour we did that first day in Prague gave us ideas of what we wanted to fill the rest of our time in Prague with. Which is how we ended up going on a guided full day trip an hour outside of Prague in the morning of day two, to the historic town of Kutna Hora. Luckily by day two it had stopped raining, although it did remain grey and overcast. Kutna Hora was a town with a rich history, both literally and figuratively. It was where silver was mined from the 13th to the 16th century from which the hard currency for Central Europe of that time was made, and where tough battles of the Hussite War were fought out in the 15th century. It was also where we could now find the so-called Bone Chapel. Now the Bone Chapel is kind of creepy and ghoulish, seeing as it's a chapel where all decorations are made from human bones. From a coat of arms literally made of arms to a chandelier heavily featuring human skulls. Yet in all its creepiness and ghoulishness, I thought it was also strangely beautiful. It's definitely something you don't see every day...

From the Bone Chapel we made our way to St Barbara's Church. Unfortunately the front of the building was up in scaffolds, but it was still interesting to walk around inside and hear a bit of its history. After St Barbara's Church we had a beautiful rich traditional Czech meal for lunch, before walking around the historic town a bit more, seeing more of its sights and hearing more of its history. After a long but interesting day of walking around Kutna Hora and surrounds, we eventually made our way back to Prague in the shortest train I've ever seen, arriving back at Central Station just after dark. Being quite tired from yet another full day of being on our feet, we had a quiet night in at the hostel.

Day three once again included a lot of walking. In the morning we went back to the Jewish Quarter to explore that part of Prague a bit more. We went to the Jewish Museum, which was very impressive. Part of the museum is situated in this synagogue called the Pinkas Synagogue, where they have painted all the names of the Czechoslowak Jews who became a victim of the Nazi regime in the Second World War on the walls. All the walls are completely filled and the list just seems to go on and on. You simply can't imagine the enormity and tragedy of it. They also had a collection of drawings by children held in the nearby Terezin concentration camp on display. To think that the vast majority of those children never lived to see adulthood or even puberty is simply unimaginable. Very moving. Walking around the Old Jewish cemetery behind the Pinkas Synagogue and seeing all the weathered headstones was very impressive too. I was very glad we went back there to discover it a bit more.

In the afternoon Kim and I once again joined a guided tour, this time to the Prague Castle. We again had the German-British Michael as our tourguide, the same guy who had guided us through Kutna Hora. He was a funny character who knew his stuff and made the tour very interesting. We had a beautiful view over Prague from Mala Strana, the area surrounding the castle. And then we went into the castle grounds and the surrounding castle district, with Michael bringing it all to live with his stories. It happened to be a national holiday that day as well, celebrating the Czechoslowak Independence of 1918. Which is why there were heaps of wreaths and flowers lying beneath statues of important Czechs in the country's history and we could witness a march of Czech soldiers towards the palace after the changing of the guards. We ended the 3-hour tour with once again a beautiful view over Prague as dusk was setting in. After resting our tired feet for a little bit back at our hostel, we went out for a last dinner together at Old Town Square, followed by a drink or two at a pub we happened to stumble upon. Good stuff :)

And then my final day in Prague arrived! I was flying out late in the afternoon on Saturday, leaving us with just the morning to do the things we still wanted to do before leaving Prague behind. We decided it was a perfect time to walk across the famous Charles Bridge and do some souvenir shopping. So we joined the many tourists once more and did just that :) By the time we got back to Old Town Square we were even blessed with maybe an hour or so of blue sky, the first and only blue sky of our entire time in Prague. Of course it had to be documented in the form of photographs extensively, haha. One more beautiful lunch was had before I had to make my way to the airport. So I said goodbye to Kim with one last big hug, and off I went... Leaving behind a beautiful friend in a beautiful city that I was so glad I got to discover with her :)

So that's the full story of Prague! My feet have slowly come back to life after a full day's rest, but the sights seen and memories made are still very fresh in my head :) I always love hearing how you're all travelling as well, so please feel free to leave a comment! I hope you're all well and smiling :)
xC.


PS. Photos of my graduation and the touristy day in The Hague have been added to the previous blog, for those interested.