When the East meets the West!

5th October

God bless Easyjet company and their cheap flights! The only time when I was glad to spend the pound sterling came when paying 54 pounds for my flight from London to Prague.

Prague was originally founded by the Romans but it wasn't until 14th century that it flourished under the Czech ruler, Charles IV. It was my first experience seeing a city that has both the western influence in the form of medival, roman, gothic and baroque style and also the european eastern communist dull square box style about the place, and you can often spot this difference especially in the architecture of the city's buildings.

I checked into my hostel and you must forgive me for having the first impression that Czech people are not the most creative. This impression is derived from my hostel's name, wait for it...Traveller's Hostel. Uh huh..told you so. This however is where the drawback of the place is limited to. Great helpful staff, wonderfully clean and spacious room and amenities all make this place a home away from home, which came as a relief I must say after how I've been spoilt for accomodation in terms of staying with friends in the last 3 of the 4 cities I've visted.

As I sauntered around the main town centre, only a few minutes walk from my hostel, trying to get a feel for this magical city, I noticed that the inhabitants of the city were made up of the serious morose looking elderly folks, the hard faced business people in their cold black suits and carefree bubblegum popping youngsters with their ipod mini and smarting hip hop fashion wear...not too dissimilar really to elsewhere in the world but perhaps the more depressing looking post-communist infra structure of the city somehow gave it that tired look. However, if you could look past the depleted dusty exterior, you will discover the time before the hardship, when the ancient castles and towers sparkle like jewels across the Baltic sea.

6th October

This morning I decided to join yet another walking tour given my past success and enjoyment of them. This time I found a bargain! 7 hours worth of guided tour through Prague plus a ferry trip and a complimentary night walking tour thrown in..but wait! There's more!! (Always more!) We would also get a complimentary lunch in one of Prague's oldest restaurant serving a range of local cuisine.All this for 30 Euros (which is NZ60 but you're not suppose to convert..so imagine if it's like NZ30 for all this!) I must sheepishly admit that due to my trademark tardiness, I almost didn't turn up in time for the start of the tour but made it in the nick of time, pheew!

We met at the centre of the city, the Old Town Square. Our guide's name escaped me because I got there after he introduced himself. So for the sake of this tour, let's just call him Stalin (if he ever reads this, he'll kill me, you'll see why later). He was a short mid 30'ish guy with a big umbrella, that doubles as a pointer and walking stick. His English of course had a thick Czech accent and it could take a while to understand him. Anyhow, he began by informing us that Prague is divided mainly into four sections, the old town, which includes the old jewish quarter, the new town, the lesser town and the Prague castle vicinity. The lesser town and the Prague castle vicinity are separated with the other two sections mainly by the Vladava river and they are linked across this river by the infamous Charles Bridge, named after its popular ruler, Charles IV. I didn't know whether Stalin was just not a morning person or he was just plain dull and dry...perhaps both but I remembered thinking to my self, oh boy, this is going to be a long day.

Church of the St Nicholas (one of two!) built in 18th century located at the Old Town Square.

Here horsey, horsey, horsey...one of the many tourist trappings located at the square.

We were taken around the square and stopped by this door you see above. The picture isn't very clear but if you look at the top of the arc, you are meant to see a very 'happy face' on the top left, a very 'sad face' on the top right and slightly to the bottom in between the two faces, you'll see a very menacing looking face with sharp pointy teeth. Stalin explained that it is tradition for Czechs getting married at this St Nicholas church to enter through the door on the left to this one and once they're proclaimed husband and wife, they would exit the church through this door. The significance of exiting through this door? Well, the 'happy face' symbolises the bride, who's happy she's finally married. As you would guess by now, the face on the right would be that of the groom who's miserable being tied to the ball and chains. The scary face in the middle would be none other than 'the mother in law'! :P

Then we went past the jewish quarter and I took some photographs but I'll save those for later viewing. We then came to halt in front of this building where Stalin explained that it is typical in Prague in the 15th century for houses to be built with keyhole shaped windows in them.

See top left - hate to see the size of the keys!

We then made our way past 2 Japanese tourist groups, Stalin carefully making sure that I didn't get caught in the tidal wave of the rising sun and disappear into an obscure sushi parlour at the back of some darkly lit street.

We then arrived at this:

Yeah..wow alright!

One of the most impressive gothic sacral building in Prague with the construction of which lasted from the mid-14th century to early 16th century but due to some religious upheavals as a result of which, Prague became the fist Prostestant city in Europe, the interior of the church was never finished and it wasn't until the late 17th century that the interior was rebuilt in baroque style upon the return of catholism in Prague.

We then walked down to the pier to our awaiting ferry and its lovely staff greeting us with the Czech greeting of "Ahoj!" (pronounced Ahoy!), meaning Greetings, or hi! The boat trip was very pleasant indeed going up and down Vladava river listening to Stalin rattling on and on about how communism has ruined his country. He would point to some gothic style building on the right and said "And you see, how beautiful this building is? Now look to your left and see that ugly box? That my friend is communism!" And this was the theme for a while before we sailed past a big old sports complex, so then Stalin got all excited again as he started to lecture about the great Czech tennis players who had to flee the country when the communists took over and how that destroyed the country too. Dunno if it was the complimentary budzar (Czech beer) or simply being in good mood due to the beautiful sceneries but I found Stalin's monotonous whining about communism rather funny and entertaining.

Soon after, to everyone else's delight, Stalin's thirst got the better of him and he went off to enjoy a glass of beer, leaving the rest of us to ponder in our own thoughts as we continue the water journey accompanied by classical music. Ahh...bliss...

We disembarked from the ferry and continued our journey by making our way to Charles Bridge. The imposing arc greets you as you approach the bridge. This arc was built in the late 15th century and later used as a gun depot.

Prague's Arc de triumph! :P

Then we met the man himself, Charlie boy IV!

Here, Stalin explained Charles' obsession with astronomy and as such, when he was deciding when would be a good time to set the cornerstone for the building of the bridge, he consulted his astronomer who came up with this diagram:
......9
....7...7
...5.....5
..3.......3
.1.........1

Looking at this pyramid numbers, you'll see the astronomer's advice to Charles was to build the bridge in the year 1357, 9th July at 5:31am (which happened to be sunrise at that time). This date can be followed from reading the pyramid numbers from the bottom left and right to the top and back down on the right hand side again. So Charles had the first coernerstone laid exactly as advised. Interesting huh?

There's 15 bronze statues being placed with equal distance apart from one another on each side of the bridge. I took a few photos but the most significant statue was that of Saint John of Nas who became a saint after he, acting as a confessor to the queen refused to reveal the queen's confession to the jealous king, who had him killed.

If you look at the statue closely, you'll see the shiny dog on the left and the shiny woman on the right. The locals believed it was good luck to touch the 'woman' who was the queen as you walk past and as the bronze statue becomes dark green over time, the constant touching of the queen polished her and made her figure shiny again. You're now wondering why is the dog shiny then? Well, one night, drunken students who walked past the statue felt sorry for the dog as nobody touched him, so they polished it until it shined. The next day, people who saw the shiny dog thought you're meant to touch both the queen and the dog, and ever since then, both have been touched religiously by people!

During this walking tour, I made friends with couple of Americans and a Japanese tourist and we soon became like 'photography buddies' i.e taking photos of one another and cracking jokes about the trip, including the total number of times Stalin would be whining about the effects of communism in Czech by the end of the tour. After crossing the bridge, we caught a tram to the the old restaurant for much needed food, our tummies grumbling along the way, echoing our hunger. The restaurant was small but very cozy, decorated in a hunting theme, with animal skins, heads and various old rifles hanging against the otherwise bare walls. We were first served with this yummy vegetable soup before being offered a choice of main course meals, all of local food. I ordered the Czech goulash, which as it sounds, was beef ghoulash with dumpling (not like English or chinese one, but more like hardened dough medalions). For dessert, we sampled the "little coffins" which are meringue shaped like lil coffins with cream on top, sugar haven!

From here, Stalin, fully fed was back in high spirits as he led us on to the castle. It was rather interesting for us to note that as the tour goes on, Stalin began to relax a little and what we originally perceived as his dryness and lack of sense of humour were actually the opposite, his sense of humour were just dryer sounding due to the accent and his poker faced outlook. He broke away from this mould when his face suddenly lit up as he recalled a joke while telling us about communism and its effect on freedom of speech in Prague. He quipped "Like other countries, we were free to speak, it's only after we've spoken that's the problem". He laughed heartily and we politely chuckled while pretending to admire the next approaching building.

We soon walked past what seemed like an ordinary looking pub. We were however informed by Stalin that this is the cheapest pub in Prague? "So what, they give away free beer now?" asked Chris the American from our group. "Almost..it costs only 23 crowns (NZ$2) for a pint of beer." A few Danish men in our group started to edge away from our group and inching closer to the pub before their wives 'tsk,tsk' them back into place as we walked along. Next we walked past an old antique shop which Stalin loudly boasted as "the first Sex Shop in Europe". In response to our puzzled looks, he pointed to this rusty looking steel device and announced that it was a female chastity belt. Charming..

We finally arrived at the front gate of the Prague Castle (there's 3 gates all together before you enter the castle). By the front gate, there stood two Czech guards standing motionless cum London guards with Marge Simpson hairdo.

The last pic of me with my sunglasses outside the palace gate before I lost it (or was it stolen?! Hmmms)

The castle, like the bridge was built in 1357 and its construction continued on for several centuries, completed in various stages. Upon entering the first gate you see the more modern building that housed the current Prime Minister's Office and through the second gate, we finally arrived at the glorious sight in all of Prague (so I believe!) It's the Prague Palace Cathedral, also intially built in 1357 in gothic style but due to the religious upheaval, wars and political coup de tat, it wasn't completed until 1927.

The tower was so high I couldn't even get it all in frame!

The cathedral from the side view and yours truly.

One of the stained glass featured in the old cathedral. If you look at the bottom, there's some Czech words which translated to "Who would save you at times like this?" And the rest of the stained glass reflects the troubled times when you need saving. And the answer to the question being provided in either of the two: 1. The eye right at the top of the glass, depicting God as the saviour...or 2. Right at bottom left together with some pic of leaves are some words which basically translate to "Czech First Insurance". That's right folks, commercialism strikes again! Apparently, the church needed an old window replaced with stain glass and the insurance company agreed to sponsor the building of the glass provided they get something back.. so there you go!

From there, we then went up the south tower, all 318 steps (huff, puff,huff) to the top, just enough breath for me to mutter that the view better be great! Luckilly it was...

One of the shots taken from top of the tower overlooking Prague.

After leaving the tower and the cathedral, we made our way past the third gate and out towards various palace buildings that has become museums but we did not enter since it wasn't part of our walking tour. The last building we saw before we exit the castle was the "Black Tower" which is another old Tower that's colour is anything but black, it was white actually. Why the name? Well, apparently, there was a big fire this one time at the castle (aka bandcamp), the smoke of the were so black and thick that it covered the entire palace, the ashes sticking to the walls of this tower turning it black and it was then named the Black Tower and the name stuck, even after the clean-up. With that explanation, Stallin bid us adieu.

Me and the view of the city from outside the castle.

What a day..The American-Japanese-NZ alliance also made their way discussing the day and one thing everyone agreed upon was the great value of the walking tour. We would have probably not learnt so much about this place had it not been for our guide. I then excused myself quickly from the group to head home to get ready for dinner with Pohu. John, whom I met on this travellerspoint.com website (who advised me a lot about Europe as he used to live in Europe), is also a good friend of Pohu, a local Prague girl who had coincidentally been to NZ before (and hence her nickname, Pohu, from Pohutekawa tree). She took me to dinner at a nice restaurant in the centre of town and we had a good time talking about anything and everything! It was nice meeting a local to spend your evening with and a good way to unwind after a hectic day of sightseeing.

7 October

My last day in Prague was spent sightseeing in more detail the places I've already been to during the walking guiding tour but just taking my time a bit more to study or take pictures of the things I like. I also bumped into Ron, another American who was also on his own touring Europe. Unlike the other two Americans I met yesterday, Ron's from New York with your typical New York accent. We decided later to have lunch at this very nice cafe by the old St Nicholas church (the second one that's on the way to Prague castle). From where we sat, we had an awesome view of the city. Then I made my way back into the city, packed and head off to Bratislava, 5 hours away and capital of Slovakia.

Lunch with a view!

AO rating: Prague's amazing!! After Paris and London, would definitely be the best city I've seen. Did not have the fortune of discovering more castles in the suburbs but definitely will come back more to explore! 5 castles down, 996 to go!