Czech it out!
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
29
45
Trip End
Apr 29, 2008
Prague,
Czech Republic
Friday, August 17, 2007
Prague is a really nice town. It has pretty much been untouched by really modern construction, and so is filled with old-style buildings. There are fantastic things to see by just walking around. We took a free tour to learn our way around the old city, then struck out from there. We strolled around the castle hill area and took a tour through some of the displays. Our favourite part was probably the changing of the guards ceremony - one of the guards started laughing halfway through and that made the crowd crack up too
01 Cathedral on Castle Hill
. The tour of castle hill was overpriced for what you got - only small parts of the castle were open to the public - save your money, and walk around the beautiful grounds for free. The Cathedral on the grounds (which is free to see) had the best stained glass windows we've ever come across. Charles Bridge crosses over the river that cuts Prague in two. The bridge had dozens of statues of historical and religious significance. It was also full of "artists" who would be happy to draw a portrait or caricature for a fee. There were tons of those people all over the bridge. I just couldn't figure out how any of them could make a living. Charles Bridge lead to a souvenir shop filled street which was dominated by a park on a hill, with a 1/5th scale model of the Eiffel Tower on it, for some reason.
Two of the really outstanding things we did while in Prague were visiting the Communist museum, and also visiting a church outside of town decorated with the remains of tens of thousands of people. The Communist museum took a look at Czechoslovakia behind the iron curtain - how they indoctrinated their kids into the system, the black market, that sort of stuff. The Ossuary outside of Prague (in a town called Kunta Hora) is decorated with the remains of something like 40,000 people
02 Stained Glass
. Apparently when they started building the church, they accidentally unearthed a graveyard, and decided to put everything to good use. Surprisingly, it wasn't creepy at all - the bones were used to make some really beautiful and artistic decorations. It was actually quite peaceful.Terri's family is originally from Czechoslovakia, so she was interested in trying to find out some family history (apparently her Grandfather was rich, or something) but that actually seemed too much like work, so we didn't bother. We'll take a look next time around.
Next stop: Krakow. Stay tuned...
