Czech out our Prague-ress!

(Title credit goes to Andy, whose love of punning was inspired by our first stop.)

Brussels wrapped up nicely, with Friday morning spent on one last academic assignment. In groups, we were sent to interview EU lobbyists; my group had a delightful British woman from Amnesty International, which made for a very interesting hour. I kind of want her job now-- it's a combination of lobbying, communications, and policy analysis. And Brussels would be a fabulous place to spend a year or two...although I'm definitely glad to be in Copenhagen for my semester abroad.

Once the study tour wrapped up, I hopped a plane to Vienna, where I was supposed to meet Andy for the night before heading to Prague early Saturday morning (it was cheaper to do it that way). I made good on the whole plan, but Andy missed his plane out of Gatwick and thus met me in Prague the next day. We were both a bit tired, but, armed with my awesome Rough Guide to Europe and a list of must-do's from my friend Carly who spent last spring there, we were nonetheless ready to take Prague by storm!

We started out on a big main street, Vaclavske Namesti, and immediately sampled trdlo (me), sugar-sprinkled bread baked wrapped around a rolling pin, and kloebasa (Andy), the apparent Czech answer to hot dogs. We wandered up a tower called St. Henry's for an amazing view of the inner city and quickly discovered why Prague is known for its 'thousand spires'-- though, to be fair, a lot of the things they count as spires are poking out of one large one, which I think is cheating a little bit. The tower also had a nifty bell tower and a small display on Prague's spires, many of which we closer contact with over the course of the weekend.

We wandered through a big square or two in Stare Mesto, the old town, doing much admiring of the architechture and the marionette shops that lined every street. I don't think I've ever seen so many souvenir shops in such a small area, let alone that many selling puppets! The Charles Bridge was our next stop, and we took our time crossing over the River Vltava. The view was amazing, to begin with-- I think that was the first point that I realized just how stunning Prague is. The whole city really ended up being eye candy for me. The bridge is also crawling with kiosks and things to look at. Andy was teasing me for stopping to peer at every jewelery stand, but, to be fair, he took a picture at the caricature booth of Jack Nicholson's head growing out of a foot with some flowers. There was also a fantastic five-man band playing up a storm and featuring a very talented and excellently goateed gentleman on the washboard.

Once over and in Hradcany (which we started calling 'Hard Candy'-- our Czech is awful bordering on nonexistent, so this sort of thing happened a lot), the wandering took us up a number of stairways and hills-- as if I hadn't been crisscrossing Brussels for the last three days in heels!--to loop around several gorgeous palaces and buildings. Schwarzenbersky Palac was my particular favorite; it was closed to visitors, but each individual brick on the outside was decorated and the overall effect was stunning. Next came the Prague Castle complex-- at this point, it was too late in the day for a tour, which ended up being fine with us-- where we took a few moments to appreciate the sheer size of it, what we thought was a Lenin statue (actually Prague's first president), and the exterior of St. Vitus Cathedral. Aside from being spectacular in the sense that many big, grand European cathedrals seem to be, St. Vitus also has a few gargoyles that, upon closer inspection, proved to be men sticking out their tongues.

We found a small and apparently one-way walking street, which led to more amazing views-- Hradcany is set into a hill, so wherever we were on that side of the river meant that you'd turn around and gasp. We stopped for crepes and hot wine (apparently a Czech thing) in a lovely little park-- the crepes were yummy, the wine resulted in an amusing series of pictures of Andy trashing it. The fooding continued from there, as neither of us had really had lunch; we split something that may be called smazyny syr that was sort of fried dough with garlic sauce, ketchup, and cheese on top. It sounded (and looked and smelled) more than a bit odd, but it was surprisingly good. This was topped off by a bit of risotto and Pilsner Urquell (another Czech thing--fortunately, their beer is far better than their wine) back in Stare Mesto. We headed back to the hostel after that. It was only about 8 or 9, but we'd both been up early to get there, and we'd done so much walking that bed was more than welcome. Plus, our hostel was in a totally different neighborhood, one that looks way more Soviet than the older parts of the city, so we got to "Czech" out a different look of the city and experience the subway system, which turned out to be very easy to use and to do so without buying tickets (which, for the record, we did anyway). And the whole place was painted a very cheery yellow!

Day 2 of Prague began with a fake breakfast of stroop waffles (from Amsterdam) and strawberries and then a real breakfast of apple strudel in Josefov, Prague's Jewish quarter. There are about half a dozen synagogues within a few blocks, so we got the general pass and went about being good Jewish tourists. The Maisel Synagogue had a great little Jewish museum, which taught us a bit about what we'd be seeing elsewhere; the Spanish Synagogue was possibly one of the most gorgeous interiors that I've ever seen in a shul, ever-- I wish I'd disobeyed the sign and taken pictures! So intricate and colorful on every possible surface, my lord. We did go to the Pinkas as well, though this interior no longer looks like a synagogue: the first couple of stories have been redone to bear the names of every Czech Jew killed during the Holocaust. The memorial is simple and effective, particularly when paired with an exhibit of children's art from the Terezin concentration camp upstairs. Outside of the Pinkas Synagogue, we looped around the old Jewish cemetery, marveling at the sheer number of burials there despite the relative lack of space. Some of the tombstones were so old as to be illegible; others had been replaced, with the originals in the Maisel museum. It was interesting to me that those we could read were totally in Hebrew-- no other languages the way you'd see at home. We peeked into the Old-New Synagogue (it had been the New Synagogue at one point, but then all the older ones were destroyed), which was very cool in its being the oldest operating temple in Europe.

Next, we headed back over the Charles Bridge, stopping to admire a guitar-playing marionette and the city's metronome on a not-so-distant hill. We took a very fun funicular train ride up Petrin Hill, which provided us with more amazing views, a fun little Hall of Mirrors at the top, and a lunch that included something called fried cheese on a bun. We walked down a long and winding road through hillside back to Hradcany to see the inside of St. Vitus Cathedral. The crypts were closed, apparently for technical reasons, but the Art Nouveau stained glass and a few really interesting altars were well worth the (free) price of admission and the (five-minute) wait in line to get in. Andy, navigator extraordinaire, walked us through a lovely more suburban area to get back to the subway; among other things, we passed by the Ministerstvo Obrany Czeche Republiky. I'm not sure what it was, exactly, but the place had more surveillance equipment out for the viewing on its lawn than we'd ever seen before.

Once back at the hostel, we picked up our bags, checked email (and Andy's finalized his flight to come visit me in April!), and caught our train to Vienna without too much hassle. We had some delicious soup on the train, discovered the Vienna subway system has security measures like Prague's, and found the Hotel Geblergasse fairly easily.

In short, Prague was great. I was astonished at how much food I found to like there, and I found the entire city to be essentially eye candy. Those vistas! The Spanish Synagogue. Wow.