Our first Eurorail trip was a lot of fun. Seeing the countryside of both Austria and the Czech Republic was a cool experience. We sat in a 6-person cochette that was only occupied by four people (the other two people were a professor and a program director from University of Tenesse's accounting department - we ended up seeing them four more times in Prague!).
We arrived in Prague in the morning, eager and ready to explore the city...possibly a little too eager, as we got to the intra-city train platform and missed the sign to validate our ticket. A train cop witnessed this innocent mistake and decided that we were going to pay for our mistake... 700 krowns. After a long conversation and coming to the realization that 700 krowns equates to 30 Euro, we paid the man and left for our Prague journey.
We walked from the train station to our hotel, the lovely Hotel Athena Palace. From our hotel, we started our walk around Prague. We visited the National Museum, Mustek (like Market Street in San Francisco), Henry's Bell Tower, the Poweder Tower, Tyn Church and the Astronomical Clock. And, we ate Trdelnik, an amazing cinnamon-sugar doughnut-like thing, in Staromestske Namesti.
Day two in Prague, we walked through the Havelska Market, where we saw tons of handmade arts and crafts, vegetables and fruits for sale. Then, we headed to the Josefov neighborhood. Josefov is the Jewish area within Prague and houses six Synagogues. All six now contain museums that educate people on the lives of Jewish people in the Czech Republic with a particular focus on pre and post WWII life. One of the most amazing sights that I have seen so far on this trip was that of the 80,000 names of Jewish people from Prague who were murdered during WWII inscribed on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue. You have no idea what 80,000 names looks like until you see them written on every wall in a Synagogue in size 14ish font. It is truly chilling.
From the Josefov neighborhood, we headed across Charles Bridge to St. Nicolaus Church, Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral and Petrin Tower. During our visit to Prague Castle, we were able to witness the changing of the guards - not very dramatic, but they sure are cute!! We have seen a ton of churches on this trip so far, but the St. Vitus Cathedral has been the most amazing thus far. They are actually getting ready to receive the Pope this weekend in Prague and St. Vitus is one of his stops!
On our walk to the hotel, we came across a couple of interesting spots: the John Lennon Wall, a mill with hundreds of locks attached to the gate and an awesome microbrewery. Check out our pics of Prague!
View our pics of Prague here.
Observations on Prague...
The puppets here are amazing, especially the ones farther from the tourist areas - handmade, wooden, scary and adorable at the same time.
The Soviet influence on the Czech Republic is highly visible in the city's buildings, people and culture. The main attractions in the city are all pre-Soviet buildings.
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