Category Archives: Czech Republic

With a walk through the city we headed over to the Jewish Quarter within the Nazi regime, Hitler wanted to preserve this area as a museum to the exterminated race of Jews, thus this area was not destroyed during the war. We went to a synagogue. The interior was stunning! It was a very elaborate in comparison to other synagogue that we have encountered. Going through the different business offered a comprehensive understanding of the Jewish religion. I have to admit that even reading through the different exhibitions I still don’t understand it..There are many different rules, procedures, practises and traditions some of which I found fascinating. For example, if a women becomes a widow it is the expectation of the brother of the deceased to marry the widow. We then went to the Pinkas Synagogue inside the children were encouraged to draw what brings them happiness and their fears in a therapeutic matter. The children’s artwork was shown all inside with the biography of the child who drew it, sadly none of them survived. We then went to the Old Jewsish Cemetery. From the outside appearance it seems to be on a hill, it is actually twelve stories of bodies. Since this was the only burial space the Jews were allowed they continued to add levels as well as adding names onto already in-scripted tombstones since there is not enough space to have a tombstone for each individual.

We then walked through the city centre again to get one last look of the city. Just as we grabbed some ice cream it started to downpour! We ran into a department to seek shelter. Let me tell you that it was the strangest department store that I have ever preen inside! It was more like a collection of individual stores without entrances that all blended into one. Among the four floors I’d say that about more than half of the department was empty with places for companies to lease our store space. The rain managed to subside enough to brave the walk back to our hostel. Once we got there and dried up we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. When we first went in there was no one else inside, however some more people came in later on. Interesting fact for you is that water is more expensive than alcohol to drink soooooooo we had beer and wine instead to drink. Makes the most economical sense right? After dinner we packed up our things and got ready for our new destination tomorrow: Erglagen!

We took the morning easy as sleep in since we were tired from our busy day yesterday. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, a chimney cake. We walked up to the top of the castle hill to see the view of the city. It was absolutely stunning! You could see out into the horizon for such a vast distance. Every building had a the same terracotta coloured roof. It was an optical illusion as it seemed that all the buildings interconnected with one another, but since we’ve spent time walking through the city I know that this isn’t true.

We then went inside the castle grounds to see the inside of the Palace and Golden Lane which we didn’t get the chance to see yesterday. In the palace ballroom there was the family crest of all the previous ruling families and high end workers painted on the ceilings throughout. We were also able to see the windows that were used for the many Defenestration essentially throwing someone out of the window.

We then walked down the hill to a courtyard oasis! The gardens were well kept and there was a beautiful fountain with coy fish in it! Security scolded us when we fed th fish our leftover bread, well at least that’s what we think happened since we don’t understand a word of Czech…

After our nice rest in the sunshine, yes we finally got a little after all this cold weather, we went to see the John Lennon Wall. I unfortunately found it rather disappointing. There was nothing more than graffiti in the wall, and all the famous art pieces have been covered up. The interesting thing about the wall is that anyone is legally able to draw on it. I committed my first act of vandalism with an abandoned spray paint bottle. I suppose that the interesting thing about the wall is that it always transforming from everyone’s contribution to it!

Later, we grabbed our bags from the hostel we were staying at and headed over to the other hostel on the other side ion the city were we will be staying for our other two nights in Prague. The predicted forty minute walk ended up taking over two hours since we got rather lost and the sun made carrying all of our gear unbearable! After attempting to ask many people and businesses for directions we were finally able to find this hostel. Lets just say that when we finally found it we didn’t want to leave it and ended up having an early night!

An early start to today! We may have woke up the eight other people in our hostel by getting ready to hit the town…Once we not so stealthy got out of the hostel we grabbed some fresh fruit from a street vendor and headed down the hill to walk along Charles Bridge. As opposed to when we walked on it last evening en it was competent swarmed with crowds, vendors, beggars, street performers and anything else you could imagine. This morning it was the complete polar opposite, there was merely less than twenty people on the whole bridge. Once crossing the bridge we passed by a market and grabbed some food to make lunch for later. With our food in tow we went to the astronomical clock where we met our walking tour.

JP our tour guide was fantastic and probably the tallest person I have ever seen in my life, I’m guessing be was about 6’7 at the very least! He took us around the whole town and as taught us 2000 years of Czechoslovakian history in less than three hours. Fun fact the term bohemian originated in Prague and the originators of boho chic :) Our tour comprised of a quick overview of the city sites. We also met Shaanan and Kieran who are lovely lads and told us fun stories of their adventures. Let me tell you that Andrea and I had nothing to even compare!

Once the tour was over it left us at the entrance to the bridge that crossed the river to led us to the castle. We sat down on a bench with a view if the Ives and all the boats sailing through and ate our lunch and rested for a bit. Walking up to the entrance of the castle we were only able to do a few sites before it closed, so we saw St Vitus Catherdral as well as St George’s Basillica and will see the rest if the sites tomorrow. What is funny is that a tour guide passed by us and we overheard her talking about the new portion of the castle which was built in the 1500’s. I just smiled to myself as the oldest building back in Vancouver is the Sun tower build in 1912….

Once the exhibitions at the castle closed we went out for dinner and a Czech restaurant. To be completely honest I have no idea what our meals exactly were but it mainly consisted of meat, potatoes, gravy, dumplings and lots of salt.

We then went to the Prague Beer Museum Pub Now then title is deceiving as this was not actually museum but a pub! From our tour we learned that the average Czech drinks about a litre and a half of beer each day!!! In sprit and testers we tried to be a proper Czechoslovakian citizen and sampled five of the hundred of options! After this we then went back to our hostel and slept immediately exhausted from our busy day!

The majority of our day today comprised of a train ride to Prague. Thankfully we were able to find seats for each one of our trains without having to make reservations. We passed through lush German forests, which resembled to our many trees back at home. Once we crossed the border into Czech the train ride was absolutely stunning! I spent most of the time gazing outside of the window instead of writing down the last few days… The train followed alongside the a river, and there were houses along each side of the river. On the opposite side if the water there as a plateau and houses where on these jagged cliffs! The houses that I saw were all characterized, unique from one another unlike our standardized uniform like houses back at home in my opinion.

As we pulled into the train station we walked through the the city to go get to our hostel for the next two evenings. If carrying my backpack around wasn’t already enough of a sign that I was a tourist, then me gazing around as we strolled though the city was the compete giveaway. The building here we nothing like I have ever seen before! They are painted in a light pastel colour and have intriqite? Carvings and depictions on them. After crossing Charles bridge and walking up the hill baring the top of the castle we reached our hostel. Later, once we got our bearing and unpacked our gear we went for a quick bite, grabbing a falafel and learning some Czech from the restaurant employee and ate our dinner overlooking the river. There were locals fishing and we saw one of them catch a fish! Other tourists were feeding an taking picture beside so many swans in the water. As dusk started to settled in we walked to our hostel to get a good nights rest and plan out tomorrow!