Prague

Having been in Germany now a little over two months, we decided to take our first “real” trip over Columbus Day weekend. The USO offered a “Prague Express” trip; depart Stuttgart at 0100 on Saturday and return around 0200 on Sunday. Quite the whirlwind trip, but to get our feet wet with traveling in Europe, we chose to go. For this short trip, not much preparation was required. After a small flurry of activity–packing backpacks with sandwiches and snacks, grabbing a couple of blankets and pillows, making sure we had the camera–we hopped in the car at midnight to go catch the bus.

Traveling in the middle of the night on a full bus is not my idea of a good time, but the trip was fairly uneventful. We had a rest stop somewhere along the Deutsch Autobahn, and had our first encounter with the motorway rest area toilet arrangements–explanation provided by the tour guide before we stopped, for the benefit of those new to traveling. The rest area is like a gas station/convenience store. Basically, you insert €0.50 (50 euro cents) into a turnstile to get to the restroom area. You get a ticket from the turnstile that you can then use as a credit to buy something in the store. The tickets are good for a year; you can save them up for later trips if you want to.

Back on the road and on our way. We passed the German-Czech Republic border a little before 0600. To my surprise, there’s no stop for passport checks or anything at the border. Although you do need a passport to travel there, the Czech Republic is a European Union country (although they still use their own currency), and has “open borders”. Wow. What a change from the last time I lived in Germany. We did make another short stop to exchange currency–Euros or dollars for Czech koruna (crowns)–although our tour guide said most places in Prague would accept small Euro bills or even dollars.

Another hour on the road and then we stopped for breakfast. Here’s where we had our first meal in the Czech Republic.

Breakfast stop

Yep, that’s right! Sausage egg McMuffin, hashbrown, and coffee. Czech coffee (káva) is supposed be be strong and good. McDonald’s káva is, I gather, the same the world over.

They open at 0700. 0700, not a moment before. The weather this morning was colder than the forecast led us to expect. Cold and foggy. At least the káva was hot.

We were the first customers that morning, but another bus came shortly thereafter. Hope they weren’t expecting a quiet Saturday morning.

On the bus again after breakfast, we were anxious to get to see something. Our tour guide whiled away some of the time telling us some of the history of the Czech Republic and of Prague. Almost the same thing, as Prague has been the major city of the area for more than 1100 years. I did not know that Prague was in the Bohemian region. Wow, Bohemia! I found out after a little research that this is not actually where bohemians in the artistic sense originated, although apparently there is a relation, as the French who originated the term thought the Gypsies they applied the term to came from Bohemia.

The first stop of the tour proper was not in Prague, but in the village of Sedlec (Kutná Hora). We saw the “very interesting” (in the words of our guide) Sedlec Ossuary (bone house or bone chapel).

Outside of the "Bone Chapel"

Schwarzenberg coat of arms

The basic facts are: In the 12th century, there was a monastery in the area. One of the monks brought back some dirt from the Holy Land and sprinkled it in the cemetery, thus making it a very popular place to be buried. Some 40,000 people were buried there over the next couple of centuries.

Inside the Bone Chapel

Around the year 1400, a church was built on the site, which meant all the bones were dug up because of the construction. The legend is that in 1511, a half-blind monk of the Cistercian order was given the task of stacking up all the bones in the chapel made for that purpose. In 1870, the aristocratic Schwarzenberg family hired a Czech woodcarver to “arrange” the bones. Today tourists (i.e. us) visit this historic site to see the bone decorations.

We also saw the Sedlec Church of the Assumption of the Virgin. The church was originally built in 1280, but was burned by the Hussites in 1421, during the Bohemian Wars. It was restored in the baroque style in 1700-1708 by a Czech architect.

Sedlec Church of the Assumption of the Virgin

No pictures allowed on the inside, but it looked like they were doing some more restoration work. There were some large, interesting, very Catholic-looking paintings–martyrs of the saints, the Crucifixion (Rebecca wanted to know–“why is Jesus wearing a tutu?”). They also had a couple of old confession boxes, and several stones that were from the original building.

The Kutná Hora town center and the chapel are on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites lists.

Once we’d seen the sights of Sedlec, it was on to the city center of Prague.

Prague Main Train Station (Nádraží Holešovice)

Our guide talked about the city as we drove through.  It was quite interesting to see the different parts of the town, from the 1920s/1930s buildings, to the Communist era buildings, and the new construction after the fall of the Iron Curtain.  Unfortunately, it was still foggy, the road was bumpy, and I wasn’t able to get any pictures.

The bus parked right outside the main train station.  It was still quite foggy, but I managed to get a picture later in the day to show something of what the station looks like.  Unfortunately, it’s blocked somewhat by the advertising.  What fortunately does not show is the regrettable trash and smell around the station.

Our guide handed out maps, and his USO cell phone number.  The plan is we’ll all do a basic walking tour, then have free time to explore, before meeting back at the bus at 1900 for the trip home.

From the train station, it’s a short walk to Wenceslas Square, which seems to be the main focus of the commercial tourist district.  Yes, that’s Wenceslas Square, as in Good King Wenceslas from the Christmas carol.  Here, he’s also called Saint Václav.  He was the Duke of Bohemia from 921 until he was assasinated by his brother in 929.

Wenceslas Monument in front of National Museum

Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Square used to be the main horse market for Prague.  Now it seems to be the main tourist market.  Lots of restaurants, shopping, food kiosks, and sadly, also the odd beggar or two.  It’s also a main area for public events and demonstrations, and it’s where the Prague Christmas markets are held during the Christmas season.  Evidently they also have a Christmas mass in Wenceslas Square.  I read that it “comfortably” holds 400,000 people.  Fortunately, there weren’t that many people during our trip.

The square/boulevard is 750 meters long and goes down toward the border between “New Town” and “Old Town”.  Although there is a lot of historical interest here, we’re still in “New Town” in this area.

Memorial

We stopped to look at one bit of history dealing with demonstrations in Wenceslas Square.  There’s a small memorial to Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc, two students who immolated themselves in the square in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

As we moved into the Old Town area, we started to see some beautiful old buildings.

Church and Bell Tower

One of the really popular sights, judging from the crowd, is the church/bell tower.  On the hour, the bells ring, and the doors on the sides open to show figures moving with the music of the bells.  There’s also a really gorgeous church (the Church of Our Lady before Tyn) to the right of the bell tower.

As we walked along, our guide gave us tips.  Don’t shop in the stores right off the square, as you can get better deals in the shops in the passageways under the buildings and the areas between the buildings.  He pointed out a place to eat if we wanted authentic Czech food (unfortunately we didn’t eat there this time, as we couldn’t find it again until after we gave up and just grabbed a sausage from a street stand).

Our guide gave us several interesting bits of information.  It seems many of the shops are “underground” now–they used to be on the ground floor, but sometime in the past, there were major floods in the city, and the ground has now been built up to 3 or 4 meters higher than it used to be when the old buildings were built.

House of Five Crowns

The streets in Old Town are narrow and winding.  In several parts of the old city, there are no numbers on the buildings.  Many of the old buildings have symbols on them that served as the address.  Our guide pointed out several of these old buildings.  One very special one was the House of the Five Crowns, which he informed us was the house where his mother was born!

Our walking tour ended at the Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava River and connects Old Town with the Malá Strana (Lesser or Little Quarter), which is where Prague Castle and the surrounding historical areas are. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get there this trip, as we wanted to look around the markets, and of course try out some of the local káva!

Prague Castle over the Vltava River

Despite the overnight bus ride, it was a worthwhile trip. We got to see some interesting and beautiful things–Prague definitely requires a return trip!

• Porta Nigra

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