Prague Blog: Days 2 & 3

Day 2, Saturday, had us waking up to the sounds of the street musicians up near the castles. There are several little groups and solo artists that play around and within the Castle Quarter. Before we left Germany, Tom watched the Rick Steve's episode on Prague (I still spit on his name, ptooey) and when we got up to the grounds he saw a group that he was positive he saw on that episode. He was like, "if there's a dude with mutton chops playing the flute, that's the group! Look for Mutton Chops!" Sure enough:

I guess Mutton Chops was Rick's tour guide's boyfriend.

Although the Green Lobster had free breakfast, we slept a little late and were in no hurry to get started with the day and didn't make it before serving hours were done. But there were tons of cafes and we weren't looking for anything fancy anyway. Unfortunately, of all the dozens of cafes we could have chosen we somehow picked the most overpriced, poorly located one possible. For one thing, our light breakfast cost us like $40. In a town where we were paying that much for giant full dinners, that was ridiculous. Second, this quiet cafe in a little corner was also located in front of some door that was a big stop on every tour guide's list. So as we ate, we were gawked at by about fifteen different tour groups. The door wasn't labeled, so I don't know what it was. Maybe it was a time portal or something... it must have been really important.

Continuing on, we entered the castle complex, which includes a bunch of sites on the same ticket. They included St. Vitus Cathedral, which is absolutely enormous and dates back to the 1300s. It has amazing stained glass windows and a very diverse collection of statues, shrines, what have you. We also walked through the Royal Palace, where pictures were not allowed. We only saw the lower floor, which was unimpressive, but there might have been better stuff upstairs. Wyatt was being difficult, it was crowded, and so we took him out to run around. St. George Basilica, a dungeon, and the "Golden Lane" (a lane of tiny little shops outside the palace) were also included. Just outside the complex is a Toy Museum, which was really interesting. One floor was a collection of antique toys, and the other floor was a Barbie museum. I'm normally not much for stuff like that but there really were some interesting collections in there. Wyatt thought the toys were really cool, and it was an excellent distraction for him. He kept saying things like "Super awesome!" and "This is incredible!" He was less impressed by the Barbies and got really antsy, so after leaving the castle complex we went and sat in a little park, where he chased pigeons and Tom and I sat and people-watched.


I love people-watching. People watching in Prague was an amazing feast for the eyeballs of what I kept thinking of as confusedly dressed people. I don't know how to explain it exactly-- clothes that didn't quite match in terms of style, or a mish-mash of styles? A general collision of out of date clothing with more out of date clothing? All I know is that it completely matched my expectations. I'd also like to point out that it was a stark contrast to Western Europe, where the people are incredibly trendy and dress nicely for everything. (Well, there are German dude exceptions to that, but the Italians and French compensate.) And my thing about the red and orange hair? EVERYWHERE! I eventually stopped taking pictures because I would have ended up with hundreds. Every third group of people walking past had a woman in it with that hair! These Europeans, who appeared to be Central/Eastern (judging by languages that sounded more Slavic than Romance) also had a different "vibe" to them. Western Europeans have kind of a confidence or sophistication or something. The Eastern Europeans seem a little more wary and jaded. We actually had a few friendly restaurant servers, so that was a pleasant change... but the shop staff were downright nasty (as we've grown to expect). Go Europe!

From the park we began walking toward the Old and New Town areas of Prague, crossing the Charles Bridge. This is a pedestrian-only bridge with lots of statues, musicians, and vendors who want to sell you costume jewelry and drawings of yourself. It was really, really crowded and less impressive than the guidebooks would have you believe (but looks nice when taking pictures from the neighboring un-crowded bridge). Walking across it was another exercise in people-watching though-- I felt like there was just an endless wave of bad clothing decisions for me to enjoy and sometimes even boggle over.
Reaching the other end, we rambled through the other side of town. Our plan was to cover the sights of that area the next day, so we weren't looking for anything in particular. I noticed right away that this side was different than "our" side-- the buildings were a little more run-down, the side streets were a little scarier, it was way more touristy, and it had a lot of clubs and bars. It was also incredibly crowded. We stopped for a late lunch at an Armenian restaurant, inexplicably named "Santa Fe". It was incredible! I had a simple wood-fire cooked kabab thing, and Tom had this delicious lamb stew that he says is the foodie highlight of the entire trip.

We waddled back over the bridge and checked out the Lennon Wall. Background: Back in ye olden Communist days, when freedom of expression was frowned upon, for some reason people picked this big wall in a quiet neighborhood to graffiti up with portraits of Lennon, quotes and songs hoping for freedom and peace. The police would paint over it and the pictures and quotes kept returning. After the government came over to the capitalist side, the graffiti was allowed to stay and it became a symbol of hope in difficult times. However, it is still an "active" wall-- people still come and write stuff on it. And instead of keeping the original spirit of the wall alive, they write stuff like "Fred was here" and "KB+DL 4EVA". Also, bad Lennon portraits and terrible inspirational quotes.

We took another break in a park, and according to our map we could cut through this park to get up to the Strahov Brewery near the Castle complex. Technically, this was true... but technically, "cutting through" meant "climbing a mountain". And so we climbed what felt like Everest and walked on our rubbery legs through field and forest, and finally found the Brewery. Know what? I don't even drink beer. Know what else? They serve Pepsi there. I walked up that giant mountain for a freakin' Diet Pepsi. Ugh. We also discovered, on leaving, that the restaurant is located at the top of the Big Sweaty Hill. Essentially from our starting point we could have walked about four flat blocks and up the BSH, saving ourselves twenty miles (what's that, like three hundred kilometers?) of mountain. Blerg. We made it back to the hotel and collapsed for a little while. I was developing a serious case of what I call "Cobblestone Feet". I was using the bidet (they are very good for this) to soak my sorry feet when I learned that the water temps in this very old hotel can vary wildly. On the upside, not everyone has a story that starts, "Once in Prague I burned my feet in a bidet".

This is a terrible picture, and before
the fire dancing. But you get an idea
of hanging flammables and swooping hands.

Dinner was at a place called U Sedmi Svabu, or "By the Seven Cockroaches". We saw this place Friday night because it had a sign outside it that said "Fire Dancing Women at 8pm". Unfortunately, it was completely full so we made reservations for the next night. It was a medieval-themed restaurant, a very dark candle-lit hole-in-the-wall that served up giant legs of things, cheap beer, and did in fact have medieval dancing girls. The decor included many dried flowers hanging from the very low ceiling, so the fire-dancing really took on an added air of excitement as the dancer swooped around with two oil burners in her hands. It was good food and a fun experience. I tried Czech goulash, which had horseradish in it, Tom had some sort of big meat sampler that included this amazing carmelized sausage, we had an appetizer that was described as a bacon/onion spread and turned out to be bacon and onions with a big ball of lard for spreading. Wyatt had plum sauce pancakes and we also had a dessert that was made of these dough balls with apricot filling that knocked  my socks off. Add four beers and two sodas (plus the fabulous entertainment) and the total came to $53. Go to Prague and eat cheap, people!

And that was Day 2! We fell asleep to the sounds of many revelers on the neighboring rooftop terraces.

Day 3

On day three we woke to the sounds of St. Vitus' church bells. We made it to Green Lobster breakfast in plenty of time, where the food was not exciting but was very good. We headed back over to the Old Town to visit the Jewish Quarter. The ticket includes entrance to six places, but the most interesting of these are the Pinkas Synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery. The Synagogue is a tribute to the Czech victims of the Holocaust. The numbers of Czech Jews lost are incredible-- I don't remember the exact numbers, but almost 80,000 Jews were taken from Bohemia and Moravia. The walls of the synagogue are covered in the names of those lost and their birth and death dates. Wall after wall has family names, followed by individual names, with varying dates of birth but always 1941, 1942, 1943 as dates of death. It's very emotional and compelling to walk past so many names-- the magnitude of the loss within just one country is overwhelming. Pictures are not allowed inside, and although some people were taking them we felt it was very disrespectful and so I did not. They are easily available on Google images, though, so if you'd like to get an idea of the scope of what we saw, take a peek there.

The other interesting part of the Jewish Quarter is the cemetery. People were buried in it from the 1400s-1700s, and if you keep in mind that Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto walls and it's not really that big, you'll realize that's an awful lot of people. There is (or was) also a Jewish belief that once buried, a person could not be moved. This led to what I assume must have been some very creative arrangement, and what it ended up looking like was this:

I'm not sure if I'd rather apply for
"groundskeeper" or "plot manager".

After leaving the Jewish Quarter, we headed towards the Old Town Square. It was pretty and is the location of another famous church and an incredibly fancy clock, but otherwise there's not a lot to do. We continued walking past shops and stands, where there was a lot of the usual souvenir fare (mugs, keychains, fridge magnets) as well as the more Czech things like crystal, garnet jewelry, those doll-within-a-doll things, marionettes and puppets everywhere (I think they're so creepy), and lots more absinthe.

I can't pretend to understand
the connection between massages
and ostriches.

Our next stop was Wenceslas Square. Now, Rick Steves says this is the "heart of Prague", but since I knew ahead of time that he's full of crap I didn't expect much. And in fact, aside from a nice view of what I assume was St. Wenceslas Church, it was utterly uninteresting. It was a long boulevard of big name chain stores. So I suppose if you went all the way to Prague to eat at McDonalds, buy a Bulgari watch, or maybe an Armani suit you'd be satisfied. Me, I had to be satisfied with other things.

We took the metro and tram from the Square back up to the top of the Big Sweaty Hill, and had lunch at the Strahov (we'd only had beers the day before and the food looked good). The food was very good-- but halfway through our lunch, it started to pour. Since service was very grumpy and slow the worst part of it was over by the time we were done, but we picked up some ponchos and the rest of our afternoon was spent souvenir shopping in the rain.

Our final stop was the KGB Museum. There is a Museum of Communism somewhere in town, but I read on TripAdvisor or somewhere that this one was more interesting-- and TripAdvisor rarely lets me down. The KGB Museum is operated by a Russian guy whose name I did not catch. It's not very big, and not very busy, so you get a personal tour of his big collection of KGB memorabilia. It starts with him letting you hold some old guns and wear military hats while he takes your picture, and then there's a whirlwind of spy gadgets, weapons, technological doodads, facts about women snipers, and a rundown on the great achievements of the gulags. Yep, that's right-- those gulags put out some great work. The most interesting thing about this museum is the owner himself-- his perspective on the accomplishments and achievements of the Soviet Union and KGB is not one you will find in too many other places. He was genuinely proud of the products designed and produced by the Soviets, their skills in secret policing, and their technological prowess during the wars. He was more than happy to answer my many questions, and although I had many,

Best. Tour. Ever.

many more I refrained from asking anything about the more... sketchy things about the KGB and the Soviet Union in general because I respected his enthusiasm. In the US, we are not taught anything positive about the USSR and this was an absolutely fascinating peek at the opposite side of the story. I mean, he was maybe a little optimistic about folks in the gulag not being murdered, only worked to death, and the fine craftsmanship of the hands of Soviet children... still, this was a huge highlight of my trip. He was genuinely appreciative of my questions and I wish I could have spent more time asking them... but he was on to his next tour and Wyatt was being awful (again) so I parted ways. If you get the chance, go see this guy. 


And that pretty much wraps up our time in Prague. We had dinner Sunday night at an Irish pub, and then dragged our aching feet back up the Big Hill (it was much chillier outside so at least we weren't sweaty) and to bed. We had planned on going to the Prague Zoo on Monday, but it was raining again in the morning so we headed out of town.


We stopped at Nuremburg on our way back, about halfway between Prague and Kaiserslautern. Nuremburg is the town famous for being the home of giant Nazi Party rallies and also, later, the Nuremburg trials (in which former party-ers met a short drop and sudden stop). There is a great museum in one of the buildings commissioned by Hitler as part of a huge complex of buildings meant to house rallies and whatnot. Many of them were never completed or have been destroyed, and what's left hasn't really been kept up (except for the Stadium which is still in use). We checked out the Museum and the Zeppelin field. The museum gives an overview of the rise and fall of the Nazi party, the plans for buildings at Nuremburg, and a little on the Holocaust at the end. A lot of it was information I already knew, but it was a great opportunity to get an idea of the massive scope of the buildings that were designed for use by the Nazis. You know all those pictures you see of the rallies, where it's an impossible number of people and soldiers? These were those places. Standing at the Zeppelin field and climbing the steps to stand at the top, looking out over the whole thing, is intense. It's just huge, and in one of the museum's videos they explain how all the stone for these buildings came from concentration camp labor-- so when you get out there, and you're standing on the endless stone steps, it's even more incredible. I put the Nuremburg pictures in a separate album and there are a few graphic concentration camp ones from the museum, FYI.


https://picasaweb.google.com/109948724159677921314/Nuremburg?authuser=0&feat=directlink