Hola todos,
I've made it to a new country! While I was definitely sad to leave Amsterdam, Prague has already more than made up for it.
My plane landed around 10:30 pm, and then I caught a bus to the metro and took the metro into town a few stops to my hostel. It sounds like a lot, but it was only maybe 30 minutes start to finish. (And it was super easy to buy the bus ticket and find the bus stop at the airport!)
My hostel is super centrally located, and right when I got off the metro, I could tell I was in the center of the nightlife. The streets were filled with people on patios and at bars and walking the streets (which makes sense for 11 pm on a Saturday night!) as I made my way to my hostel.
I'm always a little unsure what exactly I am going to find when I check in at a hostel--did my reservation not go through? Or did I book my stay for a month from now on accident? This time, though, I only got a good surprise. I had registered (and paid!) for a 12-bed mixed dorm, meaning there would probably be 4 sets of 3-person bunks in a small room and my roommates would be (likely) a mix of men and women. (Side note: 3-person bunk beds are a little scary, especially if you're in the top bunk. Ask me my story about a Brazilian 3-bed bunk and a ceiling fan sometime.)
Anyways, when I got to my room, it was a 4-person women's dorm! And none of the beds were bunks! And the room has a private kitchen with a fridge and a stovetop! This is probably the nicest hostel room I've stayed in, which just means the rest of the hostels this trip can only go downhill... But I am certainly not complaining. :)
I got bed pretty late and woke up exhausted. (I'm worried my body clock has resisted my attempts to hard-reset it to Central Europe time...). But I had an alarm because I have so. much. Prague.
I briefly met one of my hostel roommates, Megan, who has been in Prague for two days and is leaving today for Budapest. She's from Australia and spending a few weeks in Europe. (This is why hosteling can be fun! Especially when traveling solo. You can meet some cool people.) Before I left for the day, Megan warned me: "It's intense, man."
Well, now it was my time to find out!
You know how I loved walking early morning Amsterdam while the city was rising? Well, the same is totally true for Prague. It was 7:30 am, and there were so few people out, but the sun was up, the air was crisp, and I got the best views of everything!
I started walking across the city and across the bridge to the Prague Castle, which is actually a complex of several different buildings. It's also the largest medieval castle in the world!
The view of the castle complex from the bridge.
To start, I checked out the exterior of the complex, which is free and opens several hours before the ticketed buildings open and tour lines form.
St. Vitus Cathedral (I have my phone camera zoomed out so that you can see the whole thing, so the picture is a bit distorted. See the tiny people down below? It's overwhelming in size.)
This is a view from the side of a building next to the Cathedral, which conveys the scale of it a bit better. As I would learn later, it took almost 6 centuries (centuries!) to build the Basilica.
It was a pretty hilly ascent to the top of the Castle, but the views made it totally worth it.
Then I walked back across the bridge into town to go to my free walking tour, which focused on the Old Town and Jewish Quarter of Prague. (I did stop for a quick espresso and breakfast on the way, too.) My tour group was fairly large, and I befriended a couple of recent college grads from Virginia (they literally knew where the Trader Joe's nearest to my house is...) and a family from California.
The tour started at the Powder Tower, which used to be a small part of a larger defensive wall. Now, it is all that remains. It used to store gunpowder, thus the name. Next to it is the Municipal House, which is where the Czechoslovakian declaration of independence was signed.
Left: The Powder Tower (or Powder Gate) is on the left, the Municipal House on the right.
Right: the Municipal House.
Franz Kafka was Czech and was born in Prague, and the city is very proud of that. We stopped at a statue representing one of his stories, and later we stopped by the house he was born in.
Left picture: Kafka statute. Right picture: apartments he was born in.
As I mentioned, a big part of this tour focused on the Jewish history of Prague. While the Jewish people in Prague certainly suffered persecution during World War II, they had a tumultuous history with the various kingdoms that ruled this region (Bohemia) for nearly a millennia before that.
These were two of the synagogues we passed in the Jewish Quarter (also called "Josefov" after King Josef II). The one on the left was part of the mid-19th century Jewish Quarter renovations completed by Josef II, one of the Hapsburg kings (I think?). That area of town went from being a slum in disrepair to prime real estate because of the money and work put into it. On the right is the oldest active synagogue in Europe. It was built in 1270. Nope, not a typo.
Throughout the Jewish Quarter, you can see little gold plaques like these in the ground. They commemorate Jewish individuals or families who were killed by the Nazis. This plaque was outside of an apartment residence, indicating that building was their last known official address. All four of these individuals were murdered in concentration camps.
Next stop on the tour was the Astronomical Clock, a famous and famously complicated four-part clock on the side of a former church (or maybe town hall? Honestly, it is so easy to lose track.).
There are four different "clocks" telling different times. I can't remember it all. But it is a fascinating bit of engineering! Every hour, some of the figurines move around (meant to symbolize the passing of time and memento mori).
Not all walking tours have a built-in break, but this one did. We stopped at a row of cafes for coffee and bites. I got to try raspberry kolache. Yum!
Our last stop was the state theater building. Much of the architecture in that area is gothic and neo-gothic, so it stands out as... well, not that. I can't remember what kind of architecture this is. Anyways... this building is where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni in the 1700s (!) and the Czech national anthem was premiered in 1993 upon the split of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Quite the history! The building still holds concerts today.
The tour concluded, but my day was far from over! It was time for me to trek back to the Prague Castle for a timed tour ticket (or, at least, that was what I thought.). The tricky part was getting back across the river (via a different bridge) and getting up to the complex.
The view from the Charles Bridge, my second bridge of the day.
I could see where I needed to go (again, it's at the top of a big hill!) but I wasn't exactly sure how to get there or which streets would dead end. There were signs with arrows, but I don't read Czech, so I was just guessing that the one with a picture that kind of looked like a big castle (compared to the other signs with pictures that looked like smaller castles?) would get me there. And while I thought I gave myself plenty of time to get there after the tour, it took much longer than expected. And it was a super warm day, and I was pretty dehydrated. But... I did it! I got there with a few minutes to spare.
But, as it turns out, the tour situation for the Prague Castle wasn't quite what I had expected. The ticket that I had pre-purchased came with a quick 15-minute orientation to get us situated in the complex, as well as an app-based tour. However, the app needed wi-fi and, unlike the Rijksmuseum yesterday or my next museum here in Prague, the complex does not have wi-fi. And I don't have a data plan that works here in Europe.
That really wasn't a huge deal-- the app tour was just a few dollars extra, so I figured I would just rent a physical audio tour/headset from the complex. But by then, it was about 2:30 pm, and parts of the complex close at 5. My headset rental would be good for 3 hours or until the close of the complex, so I was going to be rushing myself. And, my ticket to the complex allows for one entry per complex building within three months. If you're confused, so was I.
With all of these factors bouncing around my overheated, dehydrated, just-booked-it-up-the-stairs-I-can't-do-again head, I sat down to re-plan today and tomorrow.
Because I can use my ticket tomorrow, I decided to wait on most of the complex tour. But, I could still visit a few parts of it today!
First, I checked out the Castle Gardens. They weren't really "gardens," just more like structured green space with amazing views overlooking Prague. (They're also a free part of the complex.)
Then, I went to the Lobkowicz Palace, a small (okay, only small in comparison!) building at the end of the Prague Castle complex. While not included in the Castle ticket, it is well worth visiting. (And your ticket comes with a free audio tour narrated by the Lobkowicz family!) The Lobkowicz Palace is a privately-owned home that displays the Lobkowicz family's collection of art and china (not to mention the palace itself). Their stuff dates back centuries, and their family is (somehow, very convolutedly) connected to European royalty. While all of their possessions were confiscated twice (during World War II and then during the communist regime, I think) they've managed to reacquire and restore much of what they used to own.
And if this sounds like another boring museum, it isn't... The pieces all feel a bit more personal since these are pieces of a curated family collection, not just a compilation of museum donations. And some of their stuff is really freaking cool.
First of all, the art is mostly original paintings, and if you stand in the right lighting, you can literally see the texture of the brushstrokes. You can get close enough to touch these things (I didn't!) but you can see the individual brushstrokes and care put into these extravagant works of art.
Second, they have a Velazquez. And not just any Velazquez. They have a painting of la Infanta from Las Meninas. And while this is going to sound super dorky, I have wanted to see a painting of her since I was in early high school. I learned about Las Meninas in a Spanish history and culture class that included a lot of art studies and have wanted to see Velazquez's work since. And here she was, a portrait of la Infanta just inches from my face! It was exquisite.
Third, they have ORIGINAL copies of works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart, some of which have the composer's own notations or corrections made in preparation for a piece's performance. I saw an original copy of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. What?!
So, like I said. Well worth the additional ticket charge for the Lobkowicz Palace!
Next in the Castle was the Golden Lane. This is included in the Castle ticket. It's a quirky little street with small, festive houses. Some of them are made to look like the shop or pub they would have held in medieval times. And No. 22 was the residence of none other than Franz Kafka himself!
Left: No.22, Franz Kafka's residence. Right: the inside of one of the houses, which used to be occupied by a famous film collector and historian.
Golden Lane is a colorful collection of houses!
On my way out of the Castle, I tried to find the St. Wenceslas Vineyard to get some Moravian wine at the end of my long day. But I couldn't find it, so I just decided to head back to the hostel to get some water, rest my feet, and figure out a dinner plan.
After taking a bit of a break, I went out for dinner. My first choice place was recommended to me by a friend who lived here for a while. But unfortunately, it was permanently closed! My backup was Restaurace Mincovna, just off of the Old Town Square. (A travel blog had said that it was good local food without the tourist prices. The blog was wrong about the prices-- I found out later that I way overpaid for the food. But hey, at least it was good.)
I ordered the goulash (beef stew) and a local beer. The goulash was incredibly flavorful and served with raw onions and scallions on top. The potato dumplings on the side soaked up the flavor of the sauce.
Then it was off walking again: this time toward Wenceslas Square (the Champs-Elysees of Prague, if you will). Even though it was a Sunday night, there was so much going on--bars, shopping, street performers.
And I had to make sure to pass the Head of Franz Kafka! This is a moving statute--it continuously rotates different "bands" of Kafka's head. You can see the distortion in the face of the first picture compared to the "normal" appearance of the second.
And you know it wouldn't be the true end of an evening in Europe without some gelato in my hand. (How did I make it through Amsterdam without getting any?!)
I hit nearly 30,000 steps today, so it's time to rest up for another big walking day tomorrow. I have to finish everything on my Prague itinerary since it's my last day here!
Besos,
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