Kodiak Haakansons: Prague, Part II

We crammed our full day in Prague FULL to the brim with being tourists. After an amazing breakfast at our B & B (thank goodness to TripAdvisor.com for helping to find great accommodation), we headed straight up to castle hill, which overlooks the river and the old town. And not exactly straight up, but rather zig-zagging up stairs and alleys until we arrived at the beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral. This Catholic cathedral is late Gothic, complete with Rose Window and, on the inside, an ambulatory for pilgrims to make their way to the little side chapels and view holy relics. Two things struck us about this church. One was the amazing Alphonse Mucha stained glass window. It did not at all fit with the style of the cathedral, yet it somehow fit. Mucha was a famous Czech art nouveau artist whose work is emotionally-charged, elegant and dark. We found ourselves staring at the window for about 15 minutes, just reveling in the little touches that he figured out how to integrate into his one window.

The other thing that got us was the beautiful anti-protestant wooden carving behind the altar. Prague had an important yet unsuccessful role in the Protestant Reformation. Prague had its own Martin Luther: Priest Jan Hus, who preached to the public about Catholic abuses and how the church should not be allowed to take up arms. Unfortunately, Jan Hus did not have the printing press behind him to sell his story to the masses and he was imprisoned and later burned at the stake, which inspired the Hussite wars (where followers of Jan Hus were both attacked and turned-revolutionary, anti-Austro Hungarian empire). His thoughts and actions are widely thought to have contributed to Martin Luther's teachings. Interestingly, the Catholic St. Vitus Cathedral still looms over Prague, yet the Czech Republic is 90% protestant, primarily following the spirit and teachings of Jan Hus. And the wooden carving that we studied is basically anti-Hussite/ Protestant propaganda, showing the looting of the church by Protestant 'hooligans'.

Heading up....

The Mucha art nouveau Window

After the cathedral we headed to the castle, down the Golden Lane (a street with well-preserved home and stores from the 1500s), to the dungeon (Eilidh's favorite thing so far), and to the river again. Rain had broken out again and there was discontent about who should hold the umbrella, so we stood under a tree for a while and waited for a canal boat/ restaurant to open up (thank you David for the recommendation!). We had an amazing lunch and enjoyed watching the rain fall into the Vltava river while we decompressed.

Golden Lane preserved building.

Golden Lane

Overlooking the city from the hill.

Amazing metal work outside Prague castle.

After lunch we headed to the part of Prague that I've been aching to see: the Jewish Quarter. We knew that the Jewish Ghetto, once swamp, was amazing, and we knew that the numbers of Jews dropped from 150,000 before the war to 10,000 after. There was one ticket that covered a multitude of sights in the quarter, so we jumped in and just began. The girls were engulfed in hysterics and giggles so we had to walk around a bit to let them get their giggles out, but when we were able to enter the first Synagogue we were glad we let them be crazy outside, as Bella and I immediately burst into tears at our first stop: Pinkas Synagogue, which is dedicated to the 80,000 victims of the Holocaust from Moravia and Bohemia. We weren't prepared for the fact that the only ornamentation of the church would be beautifully-inscribed names of those who had disappeared or died during the holocaust. And they were listed as families, so were able to count the number and age of the children who had never returned to their homes. It was hard to see. And even more difficult was the little exhibit upstairs of children's art from the holocaust, many of it done by kids the ages of ours, and most of them dying in the concentration camps. After Pinkas we worked our way through the Jewish cemetary and a couple other synagogues, but we were too emotionally worn out to do much else, so we stopped at The Bake Shop for macaroons and coffee before our long walk to the Alphonse Mucha art museum where we really did enjoy the art (but all of us enjoyed the nap during the movie of his life even more). We were pretty wiped out so we headed to a park right along with river, under the Charles Bridge, and gave ourselves some down time before having an amazing German bread & cheese and leftovers meal at our hotel. It felt so good to be 'home' and the girls reveled in serving up little servings of bread and cheese to us.

Leaving Prague- We didn't want to leave. After a morning walk to the Charles Bridge and the park we reluctantly drug ourselves back to our B & B to pack up our belongings and make the 5 hour drive to Budapest. Note to self: at least 5 days in Prague next time.