Arriving early at the Dubrovnik airport, we proceeded to checked in. We fully expected to have to pay for over baggage as our ticket limited us to 15 kg checked luggage. The flight was not full so the ground stewardess did not even blink when our bag was placed on the scale ... 20.3kg. Here in Europe, we could not depend on our frequent flyer status as we were travelling on budget airlines. It turned out Smartwings and Czech airlines code-share so the couple who were our shipmates on the island hoping tour would be on the same flight as us.
Just before we board, we found them and another shipmate. The other shipmate made the comment about people
smoking and drinking when they cannot afford to pay their bills as if she were
better than them because she quit smoking 50+ days ago. We were glad the voyage was over. It is true that here in Eastern Europe (or Central Europe as these nations prefer to refer to themselves), there are far more smokers than Australia. It is unclear but appear to be related to the fact that these developing nations are facing a difficult time since the financial crisis that followed the aftermaths of their war or association with USSR. Could it be that these were the only affordable indulgence left for some of these folks?
On the flight, in spite of a half empty plane, a Swedish couple sat next to us. We wondered if they were in the wrong seat. The wife moved over to the empty other side as soon as the flight was airborne. The husband in the middle seat in the meantime had fallen asleep but he moved one over when he awoke. The additional room made for a pleasanter flight.
The Czech Republic is one of two member nations that were Czechoslovakia. It is a member of the European Union and a member of the Schengen subgroup. Its currency remains the Czech Mark (CZK) as it did not adopt the Euro. Exchange rate for 1 CZK is 0.055 AUD. ATMs are readily available at transit centres and throughout the city.
At Prague, airport, we headed straight for the Airport bus that would take us to the Main train station as soon as we had visited the ATM to withdraw local currency. No immigration clearance is required coming from Croatia. That was a nice change. Who would we find on our bus but the couple who were our shipmates. We all had the same bright idea of finding accommodation in the city next to the main train station. For us, that was our strategy. Main train stations tend to be close to city centers in Western Europe. We remembered that from when we backpacked across Western Europe in 1988. It also meant that we would have to lug our luggage the shortest distance on arrival at or departure from a city. The assumption did not hold true consistently in Eastern Europe but nevertheless the access to the city from the main train station had not proved to be too inconvenient or expensive. The bus trip was
unbelievably cheap, 42 CZK (~2.3 AUD). We did not bother to check whether the bus had wifi as the bus was quite full and we had to ensure our luggage was not interfering with other passengers.
Our friends got off at the same place as us. From there, we headed off in different directions. Our hotel was easy to find as it was less than 5 minutes away cross the
park and the road in front of the station. It turned out to be a really nice hotel, quite up market and new, even better than what we had at the Ibis in Bucharest. The lady manager was really nice
and assigned us a room with a view of the park and the station on the top
floor.
Of all the train trips that we had to make on this adventure, there was one that we concluded required pre-purchase as it was only available for a limited time in summer, most convenient way to get from Bratislava, Slovakia to Krakaw (pronounced "Krakof"), Poland, and was in high demand. It is a Euro Night train with sleepers. We had taken the risk to have the Czech-Rail do the booking online and send our ticket by courier to our hotel in Prague. The manager handed over our courier package. Great! That was painless.
It was already after 5pm but the sun was still high
in the sky. So we decided that we could do some laundry by hand before we go to explore the city. Our friends were only overnighting in Prague to catch their flight back to Australia the following day so we did not arrange to meet up. They would probably prefer to spend some alone time in this great city. We left around 7pm, hoping to catch the sunset at the famous Charles Bridge. We weaved through the old city and almost miss the river altogether as the streets there wind all over the place. Like old cities we had visited earlier, it was difficult to navigate as all the buildings were of solid stone construction and looked rather similar. We asked for help from a policeman in his van and he was helpful to point us in the correct direction. We found
ourselves on Legii bridge which we had mistaken for the Charles Bridge, and happily
walked across it to the other side of the Vltava River.
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| Prague |
We took photos of the swans that were flying at us when we were walking along the bridge, soaking in the atmosphere and checking out the peddlars stationed there. We walked onto the island at the bottom of the bridge to see if we could find more of our feathered friends. We found picnickers on the banks of the Vltava and a ponton bar. On the river, there were many on pedal boats, some of which were made to look like antique cars. We also spotted the public toilet in the most interesting of locations. In the Vltava, there are weirs. We were a little puzzled by its presence. Sunset cruise ships, though, did not appeared to be bothered by their presence as there was also a series of gates near the further bank that they used for going upriver. On the bridge, of all things, Chinese couples taking wedding photos - exotic and expensive photo shoots or destination wedding?
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| Prague Castle & Manesuv Bridge |
First thing we note is how similar the layout of Prague is to Budapest, with Prague Castle across the river and buildings around it higher than those on the side of the river where we stood. The other thing we noticed was that all the historical explanations on tourists sites are written only in one language - Czech. The writing is Latin but we cannot read Czech.
We took some night shots in the interesting Old City square before heading back to our hotel. The city square was most interesting. There were horse drawn coaches circling the square. It looked like a chapter from a story book pre-cars. At this stage, we knew little about the buildings or the history of Prague, even though we had managed to photograph a large number of the important tourist attractions (we realised that later as we wrote this blog and verified the sequence of events against the sequence of photographs we had taken).
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| City Hall with astronomical clock |
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| Jan Hus Memorial in front of Church of Our Lady of Tyne |
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| Opera House |
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| Powder Tower |
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| Jerusalem Synagogue |
It was then that we realised that we were hopelessly lost. The map we had with us was too small to read even with reading glasses. Putting glasses on to read a map and then taking off to navigate the street was frustrating and slow. We then remembered that while in Dubrovnik, we had learnt about a navigation app - Map.me. We had downloaded the map of Prague on it but we were worried about how much roaming data the app would consume. We were lost and it was late. So we took out our phone to try this ... we would just have to pay the 5 AUD that Vodafone would charge us for roaming. Before we left home, we had subscribed to a second Vodafone SIM with a plan that would enable us to use our data plan at home as if we were at home but at a roaming location. It was for situations like the one we found ourselves in. We discovered that the app did not use roaming data at all. It just pinged off the mobile network towers to pinpoint the location of the phone and thus enable it to function like an excellent GPS. Sweet!! We looked a little silly glancing constantly at our phone at every road junctions but we were lost no more and we got back to our hotel in no time at all. This app has serious potential. The phone did chewed up a lot of battery during the process as the display screen was on the entire time. Some power planning would be required.
Arriving back in our room, we started to sneeze and cough at regular intervals. Uh-oh. We must have caught one of our shipmates bugs. We took some cold remedy that we had brought with us in our first aid supplies and boosted ourselves with additional Vitamin C and zinc to ward off further deterioration. We went to bed and planned to sleep in the following morning to give our body the best chance to fight this off. We also discovered that we had further left some articles of clothing behind - they were drying on the chair on the balcony! Not a good track record for losing articles thus far.
7 June.
The free city walking tour today would start at 10.30 am in the Old
Town Square in front of the Czech Tourist Office and the Crystal place according to the information from their website. We were feeling better, so we got ready to head out. We did not bother too much about navigating as we know that we can always get Map.Me to help should we become lost. So we strode confidently in the direction we thought we had to go. To conserve battery, we put our phone into flight mode. It was not likely that anyone would need to get in touch with us in a hurry. We would check intermittently through the day to ensure that we were not completely unreachable in case an emergency were to emerge back home.
We wandered successfully to the Old Town Hall and bought a ticket (@100 CZK (5.5 AUD)) for later that evening –
sunset would be a great time to go up to the tower. The receptionist advised that last entry for the day was 9.30pm. That would be the perfect session to wait for sunset. We then went in search for a public bathroom before the free tour started. There was one in one of the restaurants near the square that charged 10CZK (0.06 AUD).
Our guide for the free walking tour was Kathryn who originally grew up in Queensland, Australia. What a small world! Her grandfather was of Czech descent. So are her husband and
son. She is really energetic, fun and put historical facts together in such a manner that it was easy to remember. She would have made a great history teacher.
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| Charles Bridge |
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| Example of calling card |
We learnt that this part of the world was untouched by the Ottoman Empire
because the Czech were fighting them at the borders. The republic was originally settled by Slavs from Boheme. The
Germans called this part of the world Bohemia.
The most important king of all time was King Charles IV. (Karlov).
The Charles Bridge was named for him.
There was a lot of Austrian influence.
Hence, the architecture in Prague range from Roman to Renaissance to
Baroque to Cubism. Every house in Prague has two
plagues, the red indicated the number of houses in the areas when these were built
but these were now so misleading and the blue ones that are used by the mailmen today. Each house also has a calling card – hence the
reason why there are so many interesting objects in font of each house – sort of
like the siren in front of the boat - these identify the building. Back in the days when not everyone could read,
that was how a house in Prague was described. Now we would probably be better able to navigate in the city since we better understood what features to look for at junctions.
The walking tour started in the Old Town Square where Kathryn showed us where
old town hall building that had been destroyed stood. Today, a park stood in its
place. She then showed us the church of St Nicholas and our Lady of
Tyne. These were the three buildings that most fascinated us the evening before. She also taught us a few Czech
words such as good morning (dobre rano) and thanks (diky).
We then walked over to Estates Theatre where a statue of Don Giovanni stood. Here Wolfgang Amadeus originally performed that play in Prague.
We then heard about the
Prague Spring which led to the separation of Czechoslovakia from the USSR. A famous reformist, Alexander Dubcek, who
was elected as First Secretary of the Communist Party to Czechoslovakia decided
to not take the directives from USSR. He
said that he would take them under advisement but decided that he would modify
the USSR model as required for the benefit of his country. USSR was not sure how to deal with this
unprecedented show of resistance. An army was
sent to Prague, but on the way they found that many cities in Czechoslovakia had decided to rename
themselves Dubcek and the Czechs had changed the signs of how to get anywhere else. What would have been a two day trip to take
back Prague took more than 8 months after armies were sent the wrong direction
by apparently and conveniently confused folks everywhere in Czechoslovakia.
But the USSR did succeed in finally take Czechoslovakia back. It was then, Jan Palach started the other
movement of setting himself on fire in protest against USSR. He was subsequently followed by two others. Finally, the Velvet Revolution would take place
after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This delivered to Czechoslovakia its
independence from USSR. That revolution was followed 4 years later by the Velvet Divorce that would
see Slovakia and Czech Republic deciding to live as separate countries.
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| Czech National Bank Building |
We then walked to the Czech National Bank building
where one of the scenes from Vin Diesel's movie "XXX" was filmed It sits
opposite the Municipal Building
which looks more like a theater than the actual theater, Divaldlo Hybernia. The entire XXX movie was
filmed in Prague as it was possible to find locations there that looks like a lot of other countries and cities in Europe. Other films that were shot in Prague included Mission Impossible, Casino Royale and, of course, Amadeus. We then went to where the old Horse market was and the street
that ends with the giant Metronome. Where the giant Metronome is was where the giant statue of Stalin stood in the
USSR era. The metronome marked time lost
during the USSR era and time gained since the end of that era. Sometimes though, the
metronome just stand still. We were advised that a plan to have a
2m tall Michael Jackson statue standing in Letna Park (where the Metronome is) has been approved. When Jackson was on his world tour, he had used a huge
blown up balloon of himself to stand where Stalin stood. That statue is expected in about 2 years.
There is no plan for it to replace the metronome.
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| Municipal Building |
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| Metronome at Letna Park |
We then walked to the Cubism café which was also known as the house of the
Black Madonna as that was its calling card.
It is unique due to its contrast to all the curves and ornateness
of most of the architecture in Prague. Enroute,
we past a Powder Tower and a Gothic gate (one of the original that separates old
city from new city). The tower was used to mark the coronation route. In the 17th
Century it was used to store gun powder, hence its name today.
Back to the old city, the group stopped for a drink/rest stop. This is the longest walking tour we had ever joined for a city. We sat with an older English couple who had walked with us - he was a
diplomat for England who had come to this part of Czechoslavakia for Her Majesty back in the days just shortly after Communism, and she is his wife. It was interesting to hear his stories. They treated us to our strudel and
home made red lemonade (homemade lemonade is whatever the house decide is the
flavour of the lemonade for the day, and it was raspberry that day). We must remember to pay this favour forward.
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| Altneuschul |
The next part of this free walking tour was to visit the
Jewish quarter – it appeared that in medieval times, the Jews were ordered to
live outside the city in the swamps and separated from the city by a wall from
the rest of Prague. For some reasons,
the Jews have always been requested to live apart from the rest of population. It was only in the 15th Century in
Prague that the walls came down and they
were permitted to mix freely with the citizens of Prague. We went to the Altneuschul (OldNew Synagogue,
the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe and learned of the tale of Golem. Golem was this clay figure created by the
Rabbi Loew to protect the Jews living there.
The synagogue was built with stones borrowed from the Temple of Jerusalem
with the caveat that the stones be returned to Jerusalem when the Messiah returns.
The 2nd oldest Jewish cemetery in the Czech Republic is
also located there. It contained 200,000 remains in the space meant to contain only contain 20,000 because the bodies are buried 12 deep. The oldest grave there belongs to Rabbi Avigdor
Kara, the most important rabbi of Prague in history. The graves there would have been
destroyed during Nazi occupation were it not for the fact that Hitler
ordered this graveyard and surrounding area preserved. Hilter had wanted it to later serve as a museum to an
extinct race when he came to his victory.
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| The old Jewish cemetery |
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| Rudolfinum |
What used to be the Jewish quarter now house the richest name brand shops in all of Prague. Our
walking tour ended at the Rudolfinum, the home of the Czech
Philharmonic Orchestra. It is decorated with the statues
of famous historical composers looking down from various strategic positions from the
roof. We heard the story of Hitler asking to remove Mendelssohn from the top
of the roof and how no one could identify the correct statue with any certainty as names associated with the statues were non existent. Wager, Hitler’s favourite, was almost accidentally removed. In
the end, the correct statue was removed from sight. Years later, the statue was found lying flat on the roof top. Those ordered to remove it had just made him not visible rather than
remove him. When the Nazi era was over, he was restored.
At the end of the walking tour, we heard about the Prague Castle tour. It was a fixed price walking tour and Kathryn would conduct it that afternoon. We decided then we would go to this tour. As the tour would start at 2.30pm, we went to explore Charles Bridge
and ended up touching the dog but not the lady sitting with the statue of St John of
Nepomuk. We later learnt that locals believe it to be bad luck to
touch the dog but good luck to touch the lady. We would have to return to Charles Bridge later to undo the deed before we leave Prague. St John of Nepomuk was the priest who
listened to the confessions of the queen married to the Duke of Wenceslaus (the same who is
referred mistakenly as Good King Wenceslaus in Christmas Carols). Although ordered to, refused to
tell the king the content of her confession because of his Catholic vows. The king ordered him drown in the Vltava River.
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| Wish spot on Charles Bridge |
There were many artisans on the Charles
Bridge hawking souvenirs to tourists. Another popular spot on the bridge that rivaled the Statue of St John was where one could make a wish that would come true by touching all the stars in this place with only one hand.
We hurried back to the Rudolfinum to start the Prague Castle Tour. The tour costs 300 CZK (15 AUD). It was also necessary to buy a tram ticket - 24 CZK (~1.3 AUD). This time we crossed the Vltava on the Manesuv Bridge to the park where the memorial to World War II stands. Manesuv Bridge is the bridge that is decorated with statues of Neptune and his crew.
For the Czechs, WWII started a year early in 1938 when Germany annexed the Sudentenland. Hitler had asked for that borderland in exchange for no occupation but as soon as it was taken, the Nazi proceeded to take Czechoslovakia as well. Behind that monument was a statue of a mythical beast to honour the Czech Air Force who flew with the British RAF during WWII.
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| WWII memorial |
For the Czechs, WWII started a year early in 1938 when Germany annexed the Sudentenland. Hitler had asked for that borderland in exchange for no occupation but as soon as it was taken, the Nazi proceeded to take Czechoslovakia as well. Behind that monument was a statue of a mythical beast to honour the Czech Air Force who flew with the British RAF during WWII.
We caught a tram from there to the top of the hill near
Prague Castle. The idea was to explore the area from back to front as the route would then be downhill rather than uphill as the hill is relatively steep. Immediately after the tram stop was the
statue of Tycho & Kepler, the two astronomers, who would established the theory that
the planets revolved around the Sun and the Sun revolved around the Earth. Tycho was Danish and Kepler was German. Theirs were the days where alchemy, astrology and astronomy were on par with science.
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| Strahov Monastery |
We then walked to the Strahov Monastery where beer is
still brewed today and sold to the public.
Pilsner, the beer brewed with bottom fermenting yeast, originated in the Czech Republic. Prior
to the invention of Pilsner, beers were made from top fermenting yeast. Drinking in public places is not prohibited
in the Czech Republic. Neither is possession of marijuana which has been decriminalised as long as one has below 5gm for personal use and was not trading. On the way, members of our
group picked up some beer from this brewery.
The walk to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave us nice view
of Prague.
Along the way, we passed the rich Savoy Hotel and the very beautiful Schwarzenberg Castle.
We arrived at the gates of Prague Castle just in time to
witness the change of guards at 4pm. The
change of guards takes place hourly through the day with a more elaborate show at noon. The uniform worn by these guards were designed by the famous Czech designer, Theodore Pistek, who won the Academy Awards for Costume Design for the movie Amadeus. At Prague Castle, the Czech flag would fly if the President were in his office there. The flag was flying when we started our hike
but by the time we arrived he had then left the office for the day.
The two statues at the top of the gates of Prague Castle of giants
mauling each other were courtesy of Queen Marie Therese who reputedly loved such subjects. Entering the grounds of Prague Castle, we
proceeded to the Cathedral of St Vitrus.
Current version is actually 3rd reiteration as the original
church was a rotunda and much smaller, built by Winceslaus to convert the then mostly
pagan folks to Christianity after acquiring the relic of St Vitus from the then Emperor. The building is majestic
and all things about it is Gothic except for the presence of the 4 architects who completed it. They are depicted as dressed in
modern clothes and carved into the facade of the church
itself. Only partial entry into the
church was permitted. We had a look at the
fountain and the well that supplied the castle, believed to be guarded by a mythical
water sprite.
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| View of Prague from Prague Castle |
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| Schwarzenberg Castle |
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| St Vitrus |
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| Change of guards |
We walked past the Basilica of St George, believed to be the second oldest church in Prague.
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| Basicila of St George |
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| Golden Lane |
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| Dalibor Tower |
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| Statue of boy |
Finally, we arrived at the Dalibor Tower, which is now a
museum that houses a collection of Barbie Dolls. In this old courtyard, there is also a statue
of a boy with a golden penis. The statue would not have even attract attention except for the story that accompanies it. Apparently, the Soviets were uncomfortable with anatomically correct nude statues during the USSR era and had requested the removal of the statue's sexual organ. The statue then looked so odd such that they had to reverse their order subsequently. These days, visitors give it a rub in the hope of
augmenting fertility, thereby polishing the bronze organ to a gleam. Our last stop on the tour was the terraced beer garden on the palace ground. It offered an excellent view of Prague. We stopped for a rest and drink with Kathryn.
Prague Castle goes down in history as the largest
castle in the world. The Rolling
Stones was very impressed when they visited during their tour to Prague. They asked the then president,
Havel, who was also a dissident playright and a lover of rock & roll why it was
not all lit up at night. Havel replied that it was not his priority as he had a country to run. The Rolling Stones then volunteered their lighting man to design the
lighting and subsequently sponsored the cost of the lighting renovation to benefit the residents and visitors of Prague.
After a drink, Kathryn and we strolled to the bottom of
the hill where she headed home. We walked down Mala Strana to recross the
Charles Bridge so that we can touch the lady next to St John twice to undo the
bad luck. The bridge was no longer as crowded as earlier so we stayed a while to listen to musicians who have replaced the artisans and people watch. We observed a photographer who appeared to be taking pictures of female visitors. We thought that the gentlemen in linen suit
was randomly taking photographs of female from behind without their knowledge.
Another was observed randomly photographing the antics of Asian tourists.
As we had seen the swans flying up stream the evening before, we had hoped that the swans would do the same. We watched a flock gathered on the left bank of the Vltava. Suddenly some broke into a run and took to the air. The rest of the flock followed fulfuling our wish…. even though they flew under the Charles bridge rather than above it … the few
that we had photographed the night before flew over the Legii bridge.
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| Swans taking flight |
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| Sunset over Prague from Town Hall observatory in Old City |
We then headed back to the Old Town as we have tickets for
the final admission session for the day at the Old Town Hall. It was already 8 pm. Sunset would not be before 9pm and last entry
was 9.30pm. We entered the Town Hall
tower at 8.30pm and took our preferred position at the observation tower to wait for the sun to set. Quite a few other photographers had the same idea.
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| The astronomical clock in front of the Town Hall when it is marking the hour |
Then we went
down to the front of the Astronomical Clock to wait for the show that would
chimed in 10pm. Unfortunately, the show was not as entertaining as anticipated.
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| The moon appeared |
It had been a long day. We made for the hotel. We were feeling a little feverish again.
The cause could be too much sun made worse by dehydration …. May be we were finally succumbing to the bug that was going around when we were on the
sailboat. The throat felt raw and sore and the sniffles had began … it was time for immunity fortification. Initially, we trialed our homing pigeon instinct but in the end, we depended on Map.Me to get back to the hotel. We had some fruits for a late dinner and took our preventative medication in hope that our body would win the fight against the invaders by morning.
8 June
We woke up feeling much worse than before we went to bed. So we decided
that we would not head out until after lunch …. Back to bed we went after breakfast for some additional rest. Then feeling a little better,
armed with two liters of water, we headed for Letna Park where the Metronome is. The intent was to spend sometime exploring this
park and see if we can spot some unique birds.
But first, we headed out to the Train Station, where we
would pick up the train ticket to Bratislava for the next day.
Not feeling the best, we decided to splurge on a first class train
ticket even though it is only a short 4 hr train ride. That cost us a total of Euros 45.3 including
reservation. It was probably twice the price of a second class ticket. However, it would give me a chance to get a little more rest which we felt we would need for the trip the next day.
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| Inside the Jerusalem Synagogue |
On the way to Letna Park, we stopped at the unbelievably ornate Jerusalem Synagogue a stone throw from our hotel. Visiting
a synagogue for the first time in our life, we have no idea whether the
rule to keep our heads covered applies only to men or to both sexes. To be safe, we placed one of the disposable kippah provided at the door on our head and walked in.
What a sight to behold. This
synagogue was three stories tall, with a gallery on the upper floors along both
sides adding to the grandeur. It was built
in Moorish style, which confused us as the Ottoman never reached this part of
Europe. We would later learn that the architect was influenced by the Moorish
style prevalent and popular at that time in none other than France!
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| Kloster du Ducha |
From there, we wandered into Kloster sv Ducha (the Church of
the Holy Spirit), a Benedictine church.
Its décor was interesting and impressive so we stayed a while. There are too many churches all over Prague
to visit, and each of them has impressive distinctive interiors. From the contents of these edifices, one has to conclude that Christendom was much about accumulation of power
and wealth than it was about principles of belief and life.
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| Cechuv Bridge |
We finally found the path that would lead us across Cechuv
Bridge to Letna Park. The bridge was
also impressive. Unlike Charles Bridge
with all the statues on the bridge itself, there were 4 sculptures here which
borne the weight of the bridge. Sea
serpents facing downriver and sirens facing upriver. The long series of stairs to the metronome was unfortunately ugly with graffiti.
This day the Metronome was not ticking as men were carrying out maintenance on it. The top of the stairs offered a great view of the city and
the Vltava River. The view brought back
memories of Pittsburgh as viewed from Mt Washington near the Cable Car
station. In fact the way Prague presents
itself after one enters the Letensky Tunnel coming from the airport in the
Airport Transfer Bus in the same manner as Pittsburgh through the tunnel of Route 376.
Letna Park is an urban park also visited by many moms with strollers, students on class tours, sun bathers and
casual visitors. It is too busy for bird watching, so we went to visit the pavilion there, Hanavsky Pavilion which now houses a restaurant was built in the art noveau style. Along the way, we get another perspective of Prague City. Bridges across Vltava reminded us of bridges across the rivers in Pittsburgh. We found a bike path from there descending to the bottom of the hill. It was a little steep but much easier on the knees than all those stairs.
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| Bridges over Vltava |
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| Hanavsky Pavilion |
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| The hidden entrance to Our Lady of Tyne |
The throat still feit raspy and we were increasingly feeling unwell. Fever has begun again if the aches in the joints are anything to go by.
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| A peek in the interior of Our Lady of Tyne |
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| Inside Altneuschul |
On the way we found ourselves passing the Altneuschul (OldNew Synagogue) so
we decided to enter as it was our last chance to do so. We paid the
entrance fees of 200 CZK (11 AUD) (Jerusalem Synagogue had only cost us 80 CZK(~4.5 AUD)), and went
in. It was rather austere in keeping
with its time. A nice lady who worked there explained a few things. We asked why the
tables in which prayers books were stored were locked. She said because they contain the prayer
books - these are expensive and they do not want anyone stealing these. The seat of Rabai Leow in the synagogue was chained off
so that no one can ever sit in his place. The
cloth above the curtain behind which the Stones of the Ten Commandment are placed is the original.
The flag that bear the Jewish standard of Prague which was used in historical times but not now is kept there
permanently. Apparently, only men
entered the synagogue proper during services while women sit in the knaves outside and listen
through narrow slit-holes in the wall. The gender separation arrangements are not unlike the Islamic segregation of men and women in a mosque. The Torah cannot be touched with the hands so
a Torah pointer has to be used. We should have
asked our Jewish brother more about his religion all these years that we were
sailing with him in Pittsburgh!!
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| Interior of St Nicholas |
Feeling a little more educated then, we wandered into St Nicholas
Church in the Old Town Square as it was only opposite to that of Our Lady of
Tyne. The interiors there were impressive and yet not
overpowering.
We cross the square in search of the hidden entrance to Our Lady of Tyne. This was one of
those churches with impressive black backdrops with gold figures popping
out. There were 10 panels in all. Photography was restricted so we used our silent phone cameras to capture just a few shots for
memory. Not our usual extensive
photography job.
We then use Map.Me to find the restaurant U
Parliamentu. It is a nice, understated
place. We chose an outside table to have dinner. Shortly after we were seated, a gentleman on his phone asked if he could join our table. We consented. He continued talking on the phone
while we waited for our order of smoked pork with potato dumpling (sliced) and
spinach and homemade lemonade to arrive. The meal cost us 225 CZK (~12.5 AUD).
When our order arrived, he said bon appetite as he had gotten off the
phone and proceeded to order a beer. He
offered that he is a veteran who now works the sound system and oversee technical
matters for the church. Other than that
he said he was planning for his next holiday to Sweden near the Arctic
Circle. If he was trying to impress, he
did not get anywhere as we have stories about Arctic Circle and North Pole ourselves from our travels last year. He made off after
finishing his beer, mumbling that he was scheduled to help the church with the summer concerts. Not that we cared. We left shortly after we finished dinner.
On the way home, we decided to stop at the Pharmacy to pick
up some stronger cough mixture and more cough
drops. They provided us with herbal
lozenges as Strepsils Plus was
not available. Hopefully the lozenges would sooth the soreness in the throat which by then felt as raspy as razors. The cough had also gotten seriously worst. That's it. Time for an early night.
We tried to sleep some but was really bothered by our throat
so we went downstairs to the hotel reception in search of salt. The sympathetic receptionist was in the same situation a
month ago when she was on vacation in the US.
She found the salt flask on the breakfast table and let us take it to our
room on the promise we would return it.
When we were on our way to returning it, a gentleman got into the elevator on the
First Floor. We were so surprised and
disorientated that we jumped out of the elevator and walked down the single floor only to meet him there where we apologised for our out of sort behaviour. After a gargle with salty water, we went back to sleep.
Footnotes : Milan Kudera, who wrote "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", is actually a Czech. Beethoven’s favourite city was Prague because he had a mistress there.
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