Prague - Day One

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The breakfast buffet at the Hotel Boscolo was the size of the main floor of our house. There was lovely music, and we realized it was a live harpist.

Our Prague Card gave us a free 2 hour bus tour of the city, so we took the earliest one, there were only 6 of us on this tour. The bus had a retractable roof. He took us all over the city, and gave us a half hour stop at Prague Castle, where we walked around, enjoyed the panoramic view, and visited St Vitus Cathedral.


The tour dropped us off at the Old Town Square, and we decided to see the Astronomical Clock. We heard a tour guide giving a group very good information on it, so we sneakily walked up to hear what he was saying. We noticed that he had a green t-shirt that read "Free Tours", so we decided to follow along and found him (Keith) very likable and knowledgable, so we stayed with him for his whole 3 hour walking tour. It's a very interesting idea: he gives a free tour, and if you liked it, you give a tip at the end. Of course, he cleaned up at the end. He told us a lot of things that we wouldn't have known on our own. For example, the lovely Church of Our Lady before Tyn has 2 towers, and if you look closely, they are different sizes. They are called the Adam and Eve Towers because one is larger than the other.


There was a very strong police presence in Prague. Keith said Prague is a very safe city except for petty theft. He warned about the money changers on the street (they will give you counterfeit money), and the pickpocketers. Someone we met said they were in a tour group of 14 people, and 6 got pickpocketed. Anton is wearing his extra special slash-proof money pouch.

He told us about the gables in town: before people could read, houses were recognized by their signs. We saw, for example, The Black Madonna. House numbers were introduced in Prague in 1770.

The Powder Tower dates from 1475. It was one of 13 entrances to the Old Town. The gate was used to store gunpowder in the 17th century.


The Church of St James the Greater has an interesting story (besides the one about Count Vratislav being accidentally buried alive in a tomb there). There is a tale of a thief who was intent on stealing the jewels and relics in the church. He attempted to steal the jewelled necklace adorning the statue of the Virgin Mary, and she came to life and reached out and gripped his arm so that he could not escape. When the monks found him, he begged for release, so they sawed off his arm that was in the statue's grip. The 400 year old arm still hangs from the ceiling of the church (we saw it). Apparently the thief was so filled with remorse that the monks forgave him and he became the caretaker of the church.


Prague claims the oldest Jewish cemetary in Europe. People were buried there from 1439 - 1787. The plot of land the cemetary occupies is incredibly small, so people are buried on top of each other in layers, up to 12 people deep. 90 - 100,000 people are buried there.

The Nazis occupied Prague from 1938 - 1945. Hitler preserved the Jewish Quarter here because he thought it would serve as a museum to an extinct race. Heinrich Himmler took over the Prague Castle, but would often go to the Rudolfinum Concert Hall to practice his violin. The Rudolfinum roof has perched statues of several composers, and Himmler learned that Mendelssohn's statue was among them. This was not acceptable since Mendelssohn was a Jew, so he ordered Mendelssohn's statue removed and destroyed. The workers, however, had no idea which was the correct statue. The supervisors told them to just pick the statue with the biggest nose, so they destroyed that one. The one they destroyed, however, wasn't Mendelssohn, but Richard Wagner, Hitler's favourite composer.


After our tour with Keith, we found lunch and then had to make our way back to the hotel because we had only taken out 600 czk. We thought that was a lot, but it only turned out to be $30. We had to be careful what to order for lunch, since we had given Keith a good tip. We found an ATM and took out 2000 czk, but it came out in one bill. We went into the building to see if we could get change. There was an information desk, and she gave us a number. When our number was called, Anton had to step into a small room and close the door. What a strange bank.

We walked down the shopping district and found a back way to the Charles Bridge over the Vtlava River. First there was a wooden bridge in this spot, but it was destroyed by floods in the 11th century. In 1172, Wenceslas I ordered the first stone bridge and named it the Judith Bridge for his wife. It collapsed in a flood in 1342. The current Charles Bridge was built in 1357 by Charles IV. It is said that egg yolks were used to strengthen the mortar. It has 30 statues of saints, and towers at either end. Today it is a pedestrian bridge which is full of vendors and street performers. And people rubbing the statues for luck. You can see the polished bronze from all the rubbing, except maybe they don't know that the statues are replicas with the originals kept elsewhere .


We walked back through the Jewish Quarter, found dinner, and walked through the Old Town Square. We watched a street performer stuff a cucumber down a man's pants and chop it into pieces while blindfolded. We spent the evening at the Image Black Light Theater to see their Africania performance. It was an interesting combination of black light, dance, and pantomime, set to African themes.


The show was an hour and a half long, but we had trouble getting back to our hotel because we were distracted by the spectacular way the buildings and steeples were lit up. Prague monuments begin to light up after dark. The first to light up are monuments from the 10th century, then every 3 minutes monuments of a century younger. One minute after midnight the process reverses. Prague is absolutely gorgeous in its architecture. All the street lighting is done by gas lamps.