Prague, called and spelled Praha, was immediately a relief from our time in more primitive Poland. Actually, the first stop our train made in the Czech Republic came as a huge relief as we heard an announcement made in English out the window. When we arrived in the train station in Prague after a very hot eight hour train ride, we were relieved to find everything user friendly to anyone who can speak Czech, English, French or German – finally. I accredit a lot of this to the fact that the Czech Republic is the only former nation of the USSR that has officially been declared a “developed” nation, with a plan to adopt the Euro in 2012. We did the usual dance of trying to find an ATM, our way out, etc., with the understanding that taxis that pick up travelers from the station tend to be running a scam on prices. Brooke was highly impressive after we finally landed ourselves in a cab with a set price of 200 Czech crowns equaling about $10. The first cab we tried wanted to charge us 800, and the second cab started at 400 and Brooke haggled our way down. Purely entertained, I just sat back and watched her do her magic on these guys. On our way back to the train station, we found out the actual metered fair was only 89 – that’s traveling for you!
Morgan, our other friend from Berlin, had already been at the hostel for a couple hours, so we had talked to her before we arrived getting the details and understanding what to expect. Honestly, this was probably my favorite hostel we’ve been to… maybe because it was a lot more quiet? Again, we trudged our way up three flights of stairs to get to our room which was a little more apartment style: 12 in our room, a kitchen, our own bathroom, and a living area within our room with a nice balcony, as well. There was a common room upstairs, but we really didn’t have a need to go up there, as everything we wanted was all in one place. This hostel seemed geared more toward someplace to live rather than someplace to party. A nice change of pace, regardless.
The three of us headed out for dinner, which ended up being a fantastic simple, yet comforting pasta dish of spaghetti and meat sauce. And once again, we found ourselves in a place where a meal like that costs under $10. Then we headed back to the hostel to get ready to go out for the night. Before we headed out, though, we had a good time getting to know some of the people in our room and played cards with them in our little living area… We ended up in a club that was recommended by a friend, yet was not really alive on Wednesday nights. Not to mention, most of the people there were either middle-aged men or 18 year olds from America and Germany. Needless to say, we called it a night early and went back to crash. Thankfully, our hostel was in such a great location, that it was only a two-minute walk away.
The next morning we rose pretty early, got ourselves some breakfast food at the nearby grocery store and headed out for a day of mostly just walking around. We started out walking around the old town square, and then over to the Jewish Quarter, called Josefov. There, with one ticket, we were able to go in and out of many different synagogues with various exhibits within them. There was also a Jewish Cemetery, which has 12,000 graves, some dating back to the middle of the 15th century; and because of how full it is, the burials are sometimes twelve layers deep. Also, ironically, we ran into a couple from Brooke’s synagogue back in Philadelphia, twice. It is a small, small world. It was amazing to see how dense this area is with synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Something I guess we’re just not used to. But, it’s almost as ridiculous as two beautiful Catholic cathedrals sitting right next to each other because the grandson of one king, who then became king, wanted a bigger and better one built. Who knows what the rationale was.
We found our way to the river and settled for a nice lunch right on the bank, where I enjoyed a $5 chicken marsala. After another good meal, we walked down the riverbank more, passing the Kafka museum as well as lots of washed up dead fish on the shore. I feel that kind of thing would make Franz Kafka happy to hear. That is, the romanticism be taken away from the river bank by the reality of dead carp lying in the path of those who walk along it. Good ol’ Franz Kafka. Anyways, we crossed the famous Charles’ Bridge, which was built in the 14th century and witness to at least one murder (the only one I’ve read about because of a priest and his ties to the royalty). Now a pedestrian bridge, it is possibly the most ornate bridge I have ever seen with thirty 18th century statues among other decoration. With lots of venders and tourists we walked back toward the Old Town Square after passing by many huge old ornate churches practically positioned on top of each other, apparently a lot like Italy.
Finding our way, again, to our hostel for some down time before we went out for the night, Morgan and I got food from the grocery store for a light dinner costing us a grand $3 - what a contrast to my grocery experience in Copenhagen! We got ready again for a (hopefully) more promising night than the one before, by deciding to go on the pub-crawl my new friend from Krakow used to run. After meeting outside the famous astronomical clock in the Old Town Square, which wasn’t really anything to write home about (even though I just did), we followed our guide from Chicago, who graduated as an Art History major from Tufts University last year and moved to Europe to teach English, up a clock tower to the room we were in for the first hour and a half. When we got there, they asked us how we heard about the crawl, and we said that Dylan recommended us to it, not knowing that such name-dropping in Prague would get us a discount. Yeah, we’re that cool. At that point, I almost felt badly for my underlying dislike of him.
While up there for the first hour and half I got to know some pretty cool people. Two of whom were from Illinois and had just graduated from Northwestern. I talked to them for a while about one going off to med school and the other not really sure what he was going to do after not being accepted into any of the law schools he applied to. Brooke, unfortunately, did not have such luck with her new acquaintances, and therefore our night was cut a little short. We had a lot of time to talk about it and were more than relieved to get home and go to bed. Ultimately, sleep was all we truly needed.
For that reason, we started out kind of late the next day with a main goal of our afternoon being to see the great Prague Castle. This was not without a lunch full of familiar comfort food with a chocolate milkshake on the side in the Hard Rock Café first. After a solid pulled pork bbq sandwich and fries, we set off to hike of the very large and somewhat steep hill toward the palace grounds. There we went into St. Vitus Cathedral, home of St. Wenceslas’ tomb, as in Good King Wenceslas and patron saint of Czech Republic. Also, there was the tomb of St. John of Nepomuk., who I have no idea who that actually is, but his tomb was ridiculously ornate. We also walked through the Old Royal Palace, the Rosenbourg Palace and the Basilica of St. George. None of which were terribly exquisite and only being able to see a few different rooms in each one; the first being where the stately affairs took place, the second being the gentlewomen’s quarters and the third being a basilica. Honestly, there’s so much history and buildings all having to do with Catholicism… I just don’t understand it all. Maybe someday my brother will teach me, in a way where I would not lose attention after 5 seconds.
Because it was just so ridiculously hot we headed back to our hostel for a break, yet again, and had a regrouping of ourselves… the heat just takes so much out of us, and has at times put a damper on our trip to a continent that doesn’t believe in air conditioning. Determined that it wouldn’t keep me from doing all I wanted to, I headed to a fortress I read about called Vysehrad, which is suppose to give you a great vantage of the city.
It was kind of a hike, partly the reason I ended up going by myself, but I stopped on my way for some sustenance (an apple and ice cream, obviously), and made my hike up the hill toward the fortress. I got to the top and I feel there’s no way to describe it but perfect. All I could think about was how I found MY spot in Prague. It was quiet and breezy and there were families on bikes, dogs running around in the park, couples drinking wine on blankets - you know everything wonderful and romantic for such a city. There is also a beautiful church with two towers called the SS Peter and Paul Church, which at 9 o’clock played three songs from its bell towers. This was only after I had time to walk around and find a place to sit on the hillside of the fortress to watch the sunset over the city and Prague Castle. There was a small area growing grapes, almost like a mini vineyard next for a restaurant that was only a ten second walk away from a beer garden. Life was good for me on top of the Vysehrad. I was so glad I went, and make it back to my hostel as it was getting dark.
Without my evening at Vysehrad, I don’t think I would have really liked Prague much. It’s a beautiful city architecturally, in fact it was almost an overload; but, it is, in my opinion, overrated. It was the first country where I felt like I always had to be looking back, knowing where people were at all times in my surroundings because, even though there were so many, I felt like a target as a tourist. We saw a lot of cool things, and met some fun people, but nothing was AMAZING… until Vysehrad. Which is why I feel like finding your spot when visiting someplace is so important. It can be kind of hard when you’re touring with other people, because sometimes I feel like finding your spot is a private thing. Someplace that you cherish simply because it makes you feel good; a place where you don’t have to be talking to anyone or walking with anyone to be having fun. My spot in Berlin was actually a bookstore on Friedrichstraße, in London, Notting Hill. Since we started our “Eurotrip,” as everyone calls it, I haven’t really had my spot. But Prague gave that to me, as well as many other learning experiences I couldn’t have anticipated.
Honestly, though, even when you’re in your hometown, you need a spot. It’s just harder to find when you’re traveling between countries with only two or three days in each city. But, I feel without this spot, you never actually feel comfortable, you never really picture yourself belonging. And ultimately, that’s all that we as humans ever really want. To have our place, and to belong.
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