Dora from Slovakia was our guide for Wednesday's foray into the "Castle District." Her charm and expressions reminded Maddie (and me) of Hayley from Modern Family, though she shares none of that character's ditzy qualities. After studying political science and international relations in her home country, she came to Prague as an exchange student and fell instantly in love. Since her parents met in Prague long ago, she feels as if she had a sort of cosmic connection with the city. Now she is here studying film, writing, and, of course, giving tours of her beloved adopted city. We learned that the Prague Castle is a bit of a misnomer, as there are far more than one building. In fact, it is the largest castle complex in the world, earning it a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Because there is so much of it to explore, after our short and lovely walk from the square, we caught tram 22 (one of the busiest in town for obvious reasons) to the highest point in the castle district, at which point we spent the next 2 1/2 hours touring the area while walking downhill! This was welcome news to us, as Dana did some checking on his iPhone last night and realized that we have walked 5 - 7 miles each day of this vacation, with just two exceptions - our .2 mile day of recovery from Italy on the first at sea day and our just over 1 mile second at sea day (we figured we spent a good deal of that day walking back and forth between trivia games and Shanghai tables ;), Even our driving days have seen us walk nearly 5 miles, and many of those 10,000+ steps each day have been up (and down) steep steps. So... yes, downhill was welcome! :)
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| Dora cautioned us about the often very packed tram ride, but ours was quite pleasant |
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| The first gate into the castle district |
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| The "hunger wall" King Charles ordered built in 1360 in order to give his starving people valuable work to do to earn their food. According to legend, Charles, himself, worked on the wall for an hour or so each day. |
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| Beautiful Maddie enjoys the first of several perches above beautiful Prague. |
Dora, the aspiring film writer, turned out to be an exceptional story teller, so she had us all -- a group just as diverse as yesterday, though we had someone from Estonia join us today -- beguiled with funny and fascinating tales of the monks and kings that lived in this district throughout the centuries.
We were particularly intrigued by the
Strahov Monastery, with its working brewery named after a monk - one of many who went from sinner to saint - who had a particular penchant for beer. There is also a "literary museum" there that houses the largest collection of books about trees anywhere in the world. The collection includes a book made from each tree being explored within its pages. Maddie bemoaned that often these tours are a mixed blessing. While you learn about so many aspects of the city you are exploring that you would have otherwise never known while heading out on your own, you also learn about all of the many places you now want to explore in greater depth, though your time has not increased. So, we later determined, the exploration of the tree library would have to await another trip to Prague.
After our visit to the monastery, we headed into the main castle complex, where we arrived in time to watch the low key changing of the guard (Dora warned us that if we'd seen it done in England we would not be impressed :) and to learn lots more colorful stories about the various leaders, each of whom had left a unique mark on some physical part of the castle.
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| The Changing of the Guard - much like photographing the Mona Lisa, I found it entertaining to take in the crowd taking in the ceremony. |
What was perhaps most fascinating to us was the fact that the President of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman (their Donald Trump, Dora told us) works each day from the office pictured in the photo below. As you saw from the photo above, this area is filled with people - tourists and working locals alike. There is increased (though not visible) security around the area recently, but anyone and everyone can walk through the gates, without going through metal detectors or being disturbed in any way. She shared the story of how in 2012, then President Vaclav Klaus was shot with an airsoft bb gun while having one of his many cigarette breaks of the day right there in that very corner. The shooter, Peter Gun, walked away and gave an interview. And Klaus was back in the same spot smoking the very next day. Odd place, this Prague, though it did make us think long and hard about all the convoluted security measures we take back home.
After passing through a couple more historically significant gates and hearing a couple more amusing stories about past Prague kings...
Such as the one where the annoyed Spanish workers wrote ano instead of anno on their gold engraved emblem to give King Matthias a somewhat safe if not so subtle indication of what they thought of him and his inflexible deadlines. Their excuse? They didn't have room to put both n's. :)
We looked up and saw the true crown jewel of the Prague Castle --
St. Vitus Cathedral
Built over several centuries, due to the interruptions of several wars and other such inconvenient obstacles, the cathedral has distinct stones, architectural styles (for instance, the young architect who took over at age 23 after the original one died had a particular fondness for Notre Dame, so he found a way to incorporate gargoyles into his design; when he died in his late 80's, the project was still underway :)
Below you can clearly see the contrast between the stones - and centuries. The building on the right is the oldest part of the cathedral. Dora noted that sometimes tourists ask why they don't clean off the old buildings in Prague, and that the answer is always, "If Prague were to scrub clean all of its buildings (history), it would become Vienna."
After concluding the wonderful tour, we set off for a light, late lunch in an adorable cafe in Little Town, a quick stop by the Kafka museum (though we only explored the courtyard and gift shop ;), an exploration of the bustling area on the "other" side of the Vlatava River, and, finally, a walk across the very popular C
harles Bridge
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| The kids rest up for the next several thousand steps while Dana pays the bill after our lunch of crepes and homemade lemonade (available in seven different flavors, including strawberry, rasberry and cucumber - the three we sampled) |
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| Daniel is amused by the rotating peeing statues outside the Kafka museum |
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| K is for Kafka |
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| Daniel was convinced these two had been perfecting this balancing act for years... until we saw the same act/different duo an hour later in another square. Disheartening to be sure, but it is one crazy cool illusion! |
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| xoxoxoxo |
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| If you rub this image on the St. John of Nepumuk statue, you will have good luck and be promised a safe return to Prague one day. Poor St. John didn't have such luck, as he was thrown from the bridge to his death for not revealing to the King what his wife was sharing with him (he was a priest) in her daily confessions. |
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| Lots of boating activity on the Vltava River |
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| Heading towards one of the three remaining towers in Prague |
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| And, of course, we had to have another trdelnik :) |
It is inevitable that when you are taking over 10,000 steps each day, a few of them will be missteps. So when I turned an ankle walking up a few steps to a church we were going to explore, I shouldn't have been surprised. Luckily, it wasn't too bad a fall... just a bruised leg and a slower walk back to our hotel to get ready for our evening at the opera.
We returned to our home away from home just as a light rain began to fall (a rain that continues as I write this, and promises to continue until we leave Salzburg). We opted to have dinner in the well-reviewed Asian ispired restaurant housed right here in our hotel, as it was a convenient option given our desire to be at the theater by 7:30. We expected it to be utilitarian, so when the food arrived presented beautifully and tasting not only delicious but so different from everything else we've been eating these past three weeks, it was a delightful surprise. After dinner, we hopped in a cab (due to my fall and the rain, we figured that would be the best option) for a strangely long drive around and around and around to arrive at the Estates Theater and our private box. While there was an audience of locals and tourists alike, it was fun to see fellow box dwellers equally excited about their private quarters as we were. Roaming the halls roamed by Mozart and Salieri was an exceptional experience.
While we read a crash course on what would happen in the opera, we still had moments when we were nudging each other (much easier to do in a private box, let me tell you) to ask, much like Seinfeld once did, "Who is he? Oh... he's with him... it's a good thing he killed him then..." With no subtitles and our Italian a little rusty, we had only a passing idea of what the hell was happening on stage, but we all very much enjoyed the experience just the same. After the show was over, we opted to take a very slow walk back in the very light rain, which wound up being a lovely way to spend our last moments on the streets of Old Town.
As we pack up and check and double-check the many nooks and crannies or our luxururious quarters, the rain falls steadily outside. Our driver for our final "day trip" will arrive in just less than an hour for our trip to Cesky Krumlov and, finally, Salzburg, where we will help Maddie get acquainted with her new home over the next couple of days before heading to Munich for a night - and then home.
I will close today's blog with a message for the birthday boy. Wish we were there to spend the day with you, but we can't wait to celebrate soon! xoxoxo
