We had a comfortable train ride while it made its way from Kraków to Prague overnight. We slept at around midnight and woke up at 6 am when the conductor knocked on our cabin door to let us know that we will be reaching Prague in about half an hour. We took a taxi and reached our hotel at around 8:30 am. Check-in wasn't available that early so we stored our suitcases with the concierge desk and had breakfast.
After breakfast, we left for a walking tour of Prague. There are 5 major attractions of Prague: the old town, the Jewish quarter, Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle and lesser Prague (Mala Strana). The first 3 of them are to the East of the Vltava river and they were the focus of this walking tour. The last 2 will be covered in another walking tour tomorrow.
Our hotel is one street behind the old town square so the location is excellent. The walking tour started at 10 am in the old town square. Our tour guide was a Dutch guy who is a psychologist by profession but is waiting to be certified in Czech language so he has been working as a tour guide for the last 4 years. The most striking features about Prague are its atmosphere and its architecture so to fully experience the city, you need to take it slow and that's what our guide did. In the square, there is an old church by the name of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn which has Gothic architecture. An interesting quirk about the church is that both its towers differ in width which is only noticeable upon close inspection, probably a design mistake which was too late to correct. In the opposite corner of the square is Saint Nicolas' church which is currently under renovation. In the middle of the square is a statue of Jan Hus who was burnt at the stake for questioning the corruption in the Catholic Church. Most buildings of Prague have been well preserved over the centuries which gives it a very medieval feel. Buildings in the square are no different except the old city hall. It was burnt down when Prague's residents were trying to save the city from a Nazi invasion. They eventually reached a truce with the Nazis since the Nazis wanted to leave Prague before the Soviets invaded it. The old city hall was so ugly that they decided not to rebuild if and instead just planted some trees there. Then our guide showed us how to read time on the famous astronomical clock of Prague's main square. The clock not only tells time but also shows additional astronomical information such as the moon's phases. It also show recommended names for each of the 365 days of the year and for a long time, many people followed the recommendations. Our guide gave us a hilarious demo of the hourly clock show which gave us a fair warning that the show would be disappointing.
Then we walked to Powder Tower which is a Gothic gate/tower dating back to the 11th century and separates the old town from the new town. After crossing under the gate, we saw the majestic Municipal House building with an outer facade that has the Art Nouveau architecture style. Then we walked to Wenceslas Square and saw the National Museum building at the end of the square. Then we walked to a cafe where we took a break. Samia and I shared a latte.
We started walking towards the river but first stopped a few steps from our hotel. That was the house where the famous philosopher Franz Kafka was born. Kafka is an interesting personality and owing to his general outlook towards life and existence, he was disappointed in his writings and never got them published. He put all of them in a box and sent them to a friend asking him to burn them. His friend didn't do that and instead got them published. Otherwise the world would've never known about Kafka.
Then we walked to the Jewish quarter and saw a couple of synagogues. The interesting thing about one of them is that its windows are now at eye level after the entire city was raised a few feet to safeguard against flooding from the river, causing the synagogue to go a few feet underground. We also saw the cemetery of the Jewish quarter. Since the Jews were forced to live in a small area for almost 600 years, they buried their dead in one cemetery and over time, that resulted in a vertical stacking of gravestones. It served as an inspiration to Berlin's memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe with its varying heights of gravestone columns with some of them tilting to one side.
Then we walked towards the Vltava river and our guide showed us a great spot to see the major attractions on the other side of the river - the Prague Castle, Charles Bridge and a government building where Czech Republic's president resides. Our guide told us a couple of jokes about the presidents of Czech Republic - the last one stole a pen while he was on national television and the current one showed up red-eyed and drunk to a press conference that was also on live national television. He also told us a funny story about a man shooting the president with rubber bullets and not getting arrested but instead giving an interview on TV. In short, it's an interesting political landscape. Another fact, there is still a Communist party that has large mass scale support and received 20% votes in the last election. We ended the tour by finding out about a remnant of communism that we might experience in Prague - poor service at restaurants. Our guide was really good and also gave us tips about the local currency's purchasing power, where to get the best rate when exchanging money and also restaurant recommendations.
We took one of his recommendations for lunch and had the traditional beef goulash which was amazing. It is almost like the Pakistani nihari, minus the strong flavor and aroma. After lunch, we came back to our hotel. We were able to finally check-in and get a room. We took showers and were extremely exhausted after walking over 50 km since the start of the trip and not having slept in a proper bed last night so we took a nap for a couple of hours. At least the weather has been good in Prague so far and hasn't been as hot as it was in Poland where we were finishing 5-6 bottles of water per person per day.
We went for dinner to a restaurant just off the square. It was an Italian place with very authentic thin crust personal size pizzas with fresh ingredients. We got a mushroom pizza and an eggplant pizza and then had tiramisu for dessert. It had gotten chilly so we quickly grabbed our cardigan/hoodie from the hotel and strolled to Charles Bridge. It was very majestic, specially the Prague Castle in the background. We walked over the bridge and on to the other side and walked around a little before heading back to our hotel. I wasn't able to finish yesterday's update so I wrote that and now after finishing this one, we're going to bed now. Till the next update, take care!
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