Prague et fin

Prague

When I was originally planning my trip, I kept thinking, “Geez, 5 days in Prague seems like a long time!” Well thank goodness I did have those 5 days, because I was a waste of skin for 2.5 of them!

When I last wrote, I was planning my attack on the city for the next day. Well, that attack kind of fizzled out. I was able to force myself to leave the hostel, but I was very unhappy to do so. I was whining and complaining internally the entire time. The smells of certain foods (okay, make that most foods) aggravated my latent nausea. I had no energy. I was worried that I might be without a toilet if there was an emergency.

I ended up just wandering around a bit – I walked to the Vltava river and enjoyed the scenery and sunlight for a bit, but in the end, I just did not have the right mindset to be out in the city. E.g. I found the famous Charles Bridge, walked half way across it, and then I was so grumpy that I turned around and walked back. I ended up returning to my hostel 2 hours after I had left and slept some more. I admit that I did look at the costs involved in changing my air ticket to come home sooner, but in the end it would have been a lot more money to change my flight than to stay in Prague.

For “dinner” that night, I left the hostel again to go to Subway for food. Oh my gosh. That wasn’t the best of decisions. I forgot that even though countries have the same menus, the ingredients aren’t necessarily the same. The chicken in my sub was slimy and pinkish looking. I ate about half of my sub and then I had to scrape the chicken out of it so I could finish the rest without ralphing. I ended up going back to the hostel and sleeping again. By this time I was getting antsy with doing nothing all day, but I have nothing to entertain me beyond my book and a magazine I bought.

By the 27th I was feeling human again. As a matter of fact, with the exception of some latent weakness, I felt pretty dang good! I therefore decided to tackle Prague Castle.

Of course, I didn’t realize just how damned steep the climb to the castle was! I had taken the long route to get across the river and then had to climb up the hill to the castle in the humidity and heat. As mentioned, I was weak from my recent illness, so the climb was brutal. I was worried that I’d fall over for a bit because I couldn’t catch my breath, the humidity was destroying me, etc., but I persevered. I managed to rent an audio guide and then set out to discover this famous Castle area.

Now, firstly I should clarify: When I describe it as being a “castle” – it’s not the kind of stereotypical castle that Westerners envision with stones and ramparts, etc. Nope. I find that in Europe, a castle just refers to any big, famous building that was once used by royalty. This means that the term can include Baroque buildings, etc. Therefore I’ve never actually seen a real “castle” in my sense of the work. Also, many of the old buildings aren’t old anymore – they were either destroyed or burnt down to their foundations, and when they were rebuilt, they were rebuilt in the modern styles. Therefore when you read about them, they sound really impressive (e.g. this church was built in 920 AD blah blah blah) but then you find out that it was burnt down and renovated in the 18th century and is not a generic Baroque building.

Prague Castle was a series of large Baroque structures. They were pretty and everything, but I had seen the same things in other European countries. The Castle area started off with the Cathedral of St. Vitus. The outside of the cathedral is very impressive – it was a gothic style building with lots of buttresses, etc. I was less than impressed with the interior though. I found it very sparse and it lacked the sense of serenity or awe that other churches have given me. The one thing I did really like were the stained glass windows. They were some of the largest I’ve seen and since I was there during the day, the sunlight poured into them. I was intrigued by the Chapel of Wenceslas even though you weren’t allowed inside that section (you could peer from the doorway). It was very old, and the walls were covered in gemstones, etc.

One thing that especially amused me was that when I was leaving, I passed some covers of tombs and one reminded me so much of the knight’s tomb from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I had (and still have) the sudden urge to go rewatch the movie. Ahem. Let’s move on, shall we?

The rest of my ticket for “Prague Castle” got me admittance to several different famous buildings. Honestly, most of them weren’t interesting other than to admire a single feature or two. E.g. In the Theresian Wing building, there was an amazing ribbed and vaulted ceiling. The rest of the building lacked any interest for me. I also got to go into the Basilica of St. George. This small building was slightly more interesting just because of its age – it was built in the 10th century and even though was rebuilt several hundred years later, some vestiges of its former glory remained.

Afterwards I entered the Golden Lane – again, a bit of a let down. It’s just a very short lane with expensive artisan shops lining it. It’s apparently famous due to a) the fact that it use to house the castle archers and b) Kafka either lived or had an office there. But seriously, the lane was a grand total of maybe 15 houses long – and one of those houses is known as being the smallest house in Prague. Get the idea?

Lest you think that I did nothing but complain on my Prague Castle experience, I will tell you that my fave part of the complex was visiting the Daliborka Tower. Built in the 15th century, the tower was originally meant for city defenses but later became a prison instead. The first “resident” of the prison was a knight called Dalibor (whom the tower is now named after). He apparently sheltered some upstart peasants and the King wasn’t too pleased with him. Popular legend says that Dalibor learned to play the violin while he was in prison and his music was so beautiful and sad that people would gather below his window to listen.

Now, here’s the thing that I love about history and what you can learn. As mentioned, the legend said that Dalibor played music, etc. Well, historians claim that this legend arose because of the torture Dalibor underwent while in the tower. He was tortured and eventually changed his story to comply with what the guards wanted to hear, therefore he “changed his tune.” Somehow this morphed into him fiddling his tune and then into stories of him playing a musical instrument. Heh. The real story is a lot less romantic, eh?

The tower was originally 7 floors high but the top 5 burnt down. I was surprised at how small the tower was in general. It’s now filled with historical torture devices and you can see into a couple of the cells. It was very dark and creepy – especially the hole at the bottom of the lowest section of the tower where they put extra troublesome prisoners. The hole was only maybe 1.5 feet wide and probably 15 feet down. Prisoners were tied up and lowered into it. There were no windows and now way to clean any filth out of it.

The other thing that caught my attention in the tower was the Spanish boot. I’ve always known that the Spanish Boot was a torture device but my understanding of what it exactly did was vague. The one that I saw was a vice that was tightened around the foot/ankle – but this one also had large inward pointing spikes. Yikes!

The view from Prague Castle was absolutely lovely. Several times over my self-guided tour I stopped to admire the view. However by the time I was finished in Daliborka Tower I had to hustle back to the entrance so that I could return my audio guide. (Okay, seriously Prague – you have got to install a place to return your audio guides at the end of the Castle district.) I was so tired and I did NOT want to have to traverse the castle again to return the damned guide.

I returned to the old section of Prague via Charles Bridge. The bridge is very pretty, full of artisans and buskers. There are also statues of people that I assume are saints and kings lining it. My knowledge of historical or religious figures is not enough to be sure.

I was running out of steam at this point, so I just wandered around some of the side streets. I found a long set of stalls selling produce, souvenirs, etc. It was pleasant ogling all the goodies. I also grabbed a bite to eat at an Italian restaurant followed by some delicious gelato.

Random rant: One thing I hate about traveling is figuring out how to tip properly. In some countries it’s normal to tip, in some it’s not. Some countries demand 10 – 15%, in others you just round up the bill. I’m pretty sure that I overtipped at every restaurant I went to in Europe (with the exception of one). Part of this was because I was calculating prices in Canadian dollars, sometimes it was because I forgot which country had which requirements, etc. And sometimes I just tossed down money and hoped for the best. (In the Italian restaurant in Prague, the guy looked too appreciative of the 10% tip that I left, making me suspect that I left too much.) The thing that sucks though is that I find the service in these restaurants to be worse than in Canada. And the quantity of the food is not reflected in the prices. E.g. At the Italian restaurant just mentioned, I paid about $15 for a small plate of pasta with half a tomato, a sprinkle of mozzarella, and .33L of apple juice. (Ugh, don’t get me started the size of beverages either!)

If I recall, I wound up back at the hostel shortly thereafter. As mentioned, I had no energy left so I slept pretty well. I also finally had roommates again (after my first night in Prague, I had the room to myself for 2 full nights). I met two Chinese girls who were studying in Slovenia, and then by random chance we had two more Slovenians join us. The Slovenians were so super friendly and nice. I had a lot of fun talking to them. And their accents were amusing me for no reason that I can discern.

On my second last day in Prague I ventured out to visit the Jewish quarters. I only wanted to visit two specific sites: The Old Jewish Cemetery and the Old-New Synagogue. Unfortunately those business savvy people bundle up all their tickets so that if you want to see one you have to buy the more expensive package, and then the other site is in another package. It cost me nearly $26 by the time I was done!

The Old Cemetery was amazing. If I recall, it was started in the 12th century. At that time the King of Prague decreed that Jews could only be buried in this one small cemetery. To conserve the space, the Jews had to dig their graves 12 people deep, and then they placed the gravestones in front of each other.

What fascinated me about this particular cemetery was mainly its age. The tombstones were so old and faded. Plus, the sheer number of markers and the changing terrain meant they were falling over slowly, knocking into each other, etc. I saw one stone that had fallen over I don’t know how many years ago on to a tree. The tree was actually growing around the stone. That particular stone will always embody the graveyard for me. It seemed to show the passage of time in ways that calendars and history books cannot.

After the cemetery I went to the Old-New Synagogue. This is the oldest synagogue in Europe and you could tell – it was very small and built on a different scale from today. I can’t wax on about it too much because it was only one small room with a few tiny windows. I was amused to read the historical info in which it mentioned that some of the small holes on one wall was so that the women could sit in the smaller, sparser room and still hear the sermons. Other than that, the place smelled funny.

I also went into another small “museum” which was empty. The only adornments were on the walls. Each wall listed the names of all the Jews killed in the Czech Republic during WWII. They were listed in order of region followed by alphabetical name. It was very sobering to see it all laid out.

By this point in my trip, a sense of malaise had set in. Part of it was due to the illness I had suffered, but I was also just tired of traveling. I missed the comforts of home. I missed being able to lay down on the couch and watch TV. Hell, I was missing clean clothes! I had no ambition to force myself out to see the other sites in Prague. I had hit up the main sites and that was enough for me. By this point, everything was started to look the same.

I found myself back at the small market from the day before. I grabbed some pizza and gelato and wandered to Wenceslas Square, a long shopping street. I ended up sitting on a random bench and people watching for a couple of hours. I also went for a long walk along Vltava river and just explored random side streets.

In Prague’s Old Town Square there’s a famous astrological clock. It tells the time, date, month, year, etc. It’s also the penultimate cuckoo clock. Every hour it rings and there’s a small show of saints and demons that emerge. I finally happened to be in the square when the show started.

Wow. I felt like I was joining the masses to worship some kind of pagan god. Seriously. A small crowd gathered below the clock tower and we stood like sheep, gazing worshipfully at the clock. Finally the clock struck 5 PM and one of the skeleton gargoyles adorning the clock started tugging on a small bell. And then the doors on the clock opened and in the recessed shadows wooden figurines rotated along slowly. And then the clock stopped tolling, the doors closed and that was it. Wait, that was it?! Talk about anti-climatic! LOL

Because there was some kind of event with live music going on, I ended up people watching and just relaxing in the square for the rest of the evening.

On my final morning/afternoon in Prague I was essentially wasting time until I had to go to the airport. I had to check out of my hostel by 10 AM but luckily I was able to leave my luggage in storage with them.

For my final breakfast I found a great little bakery. I highly approve of European patisserie’s. They don’t just serve frou frou baked goods – you’ll find sausages and meat buns too. I pointed to some random Czech bun with a meat looking substance poking out of it and had it for breakfast. Turns out it was sausage in a pastry. It was delicious. I ate it while sitting on a bench in the town square.

I wandered around the side streets for a bit and ended up at a park, people watching. I then decided to walk to the river, but a different section than I had ever been to before. Well, 20 minutes later I hadn’t found the river – meaning that somehow I was lost despite having wandered in a rather straight line. I decided to cut my losses short and change directions towards where I thought the Old Square was. 2 blocks over I tripped over the river. Doh! It turns out the river changes direction more dramatically than anticipated. I had a terrific saunter along the water’s edge before winding back up at the small market.

I grabbed my final lunch at a cute café that was playing awesome chillout music. I also bought my last helping of gelato and finished off my day by sitting in the sun and watching all the brides and grooms getting their photos taken in the town square.

Now there was little left for me to do but pick up my backpack and head towards the airport. Now, I found Prague to be very easy to negotiate sans using the metro. To go to the airport though I had to take the metro and bus. Wow. Czech transit passes are crazy. I had to buy a ticket for myself AND a reduced price ticket for my backpack! (Of course I couldn’t figure out how to buy them via the ticket machines so I had to wait in line at the metro station instead.)

Getting to my bus wasn’t a problem either. The real issue was trying to figure out when I was supposed to get off the bus! I didn’t realize until I was on the bus that Prague airport had multiple terminals, and my flight itinerary didn’t tell me which terminal to go to either! So essentially I’m sitting on the bus, gawking out the window trying to identify which airplanes are leaving from where. I ended up getting off the bus when everyone else did – sometimes that’s the safest course of action. And it worked. By random chance I had found my terminal. Huzzah!

Of course I had to use the self-check in machine and I ran into problems. Firstly I couldn’t scan my passport (I was holding it in the wrong way up). And then after asking for help from a customer service woman, she couldn’t get my ticket to work. And when it did work, it showed me as having two tickets under my name. To condense my story, she had to get a new electronic number for me to work with, and even then she had to type in all my passport info by hand. Phew! Thank goodness she was able to help me, or I’d have had a complete meltdown!

The Prague airport is rather boring. I think the most exciting (I use that term loosely) thing to happen was scaring and being scared by a bag lady in the washrooms. I startled her when I entered. I felt bad for her too – she was doing her laundry in the bathroom. So sad.

The flight home was great. I had a seat neighbour on the way to Paris, but from Paris to Montreal there was an empty seat between my neighbour and I, so it was relaxing. I watched many movies, read my magazine, tried to sleep for an hour but it didn’t work.

The only issue I had upon landing was with immigration. I had no problems with the customs line, but after I exited the customs section, I followed (like a good little sheep) the people into the glassed off area right behind customs. I’m waiting and waiting in line and I’m getting irritated at how few people are manning the desks! And then I see some people being told to skip the line. That’s when I start paying more and more attention to the people around me and I start to wonder if I should even be in the line! I finally slip out of the line quickly to ask at the reception desk (it hadn’t been manned when I first entered) if I had to line up or not and lo and behold, I didn’t have to! As a citizen I should have gone straight to baggage instead! Whoops! (I blame my stupidity on being a) a sheep and b) the fact that the customs kiosk I went to was directly in front of the immigration section.

Despite the delay, I managed to get to the luggage belt just as my backpack exited. And to make things even better, I caught the necessary bus just before it left the airport. And then when I got to the metro station, my subway was just arriving too! How fortuitous!

By this point I was running on adrenaline. I was tired (it was about 2:30 AM for my body when I landed) but I was excited to be home. I enacted the lessons learned from my last trip and I went to the grocery to pick up eggs and milk so that I’d at least have something to eat the next morning. (Last year I woke up at 4 AM and had NOTHING in the house to eat – I had to make do with a can of soup!)

I phoned home to let my family know that I had arrived home alive without being consumed by a volcano en route and finished my evening by puttering around, tidying up my baggage, prepping my dirty clothes for the wash, etc. It was divine!

Despite my illness I had a great trip in Europe. I have to admit that I am getting tired of the continent though. I don’t want to go back there for awhile (unless it’s to the UK or back to France, or maybe to the Nordic countries). I’m just fatigued of visiting the same tourist sites over and over again. I am glad that I got to see Eastern Europe though. It’s definitely not a place I ever anticipated going.