Prague

The drive to Prague takes around four hours, so we set off around 8:00am, and arrived almost bang on noon, with a pit stop on the way. We’re staying at the Hilton, but this one seems to have its act together and, so far, all has gone according to plan.

It’s just as hot here in Prague, but fortunately the Hilton is air-conditioned throughout (unlike Le Meridien). We had an hour or so before our first tour began at 2:00pm, so we decided to have a quick lunch in the hotel. Blimey! Won’t be doing that again! Not that it wasn’t nice, but the price tag was extortionate, even for a hotel.

The first tour was of Jewish Prague. Like many cities and countries, Prague had persecuted Jews to a greater or lesser extent over the centuries, as party of the Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian empire. The nazi plan had been to create a museum of extinct races in Prague as part of the Final Solution, so they decided not to raze all the synagogues here, which is why there are still some very old synagogues, and the Jewish Cemetery, to visit. That plan backfired, didn’t it? Most of the synagogues we visited are now museums, as the Jewish population of Prague has plummeted somewhat. Only one, the Old New, was still in use as a place of worship. Nevertheless, men were instructed to cover their heads as they entered. In the Pinkas synagogue the walls are inscribed with the names of the ~80,000 victims of the Holocaust from Czechoslovakia, as it then was.

Whilst wandering around we were also able to observe some of the buildings which are in the Jewish Quarter, which are decorated to indicate their provenance.

General picturesqueness

Note the decoration on the building

Outside of the synagogue

Synagogue silverware

Pinkas synagogue

Spanish synagogue

The Jewish Cemetery is a small plot in the city. As there was no additional land allocated as a cemetery, particularly when the Jews were being persecuted, it had to be re-used over and over. It’s eleven people deep in some places.

In the evening, we nipped out for a quick bite at The Gate restaurant, as recommended to us by our guide Igor. Then at 7:45pm we were ready for another tour, Prague By Night. This involved piling aboard a bus (with some passengers from a different cruise ship – they’d been on the Paris to Prague route), and driving up to a high point overlooking the city. This was Strahov monastery, so we looked out from there, and then went back to the monastery for a beer, as monks seem to do nothing other than have time for brewing, apparently. The original monk in charge was called St. Norbert, so the beer is named after him. The next stop was at the Fred & Ginger building, a modern building with a café & bar at the top. It gets its name from looking a bit like a ballroom dancer. The views from the seventh floor were again quite good, but it was very crowded, and night hadn’t fallen fully even by the time we left. I was a bit disappointed in this tour, as I was expecting to do more walking around and seeing buildings lit up. Ah well, we returned to our lovely air-conditioning. 

Prague castle

Prague by night-ish

In the morning, we joined Igor and local guide Irena, to tour the main sites of Prague. We started off at the castle, now the President’s Residence. It’s a substantial building complex, the largest in the world, and as presidential palaces go, it’s larger than the White House. Inside the complex is St Vitus Cathedral, which was founded in 930AD by Wenceslaus I. The current gothic cathedral was started in 1344, but work stopped in the 15^th century and it wasn’t until the 19^th century that work restarted, finally finishing in 1929. It took nearly 600 years!

Well how Gothic do you want it?

We reboarded our bus and headed for the central city, stopping in the Old Town side of the river. As we were now reduced to only seven (two had dropped out to go and look at something else en route), our guide decided to take us to an unscheduled stop at the church of the baby Jesus, which is a weird cult thing that people come to see, particularly tourists from catholic countries in Latin America, for example. He looks like this:

Not weird at all

We crossed the Charles Bridge, which is decorated with statues old and new, and continued on to the Old Town Square. This contains the famous astronomical clock on the side of the Old Town Hall. From there we admired the rest of the square, including the Church of Our Lady before Týn, which is now obstructed from view by Týn school, that someone unbelievably thought would be a good idea. 

The astronomical clock

There are loads of churches, nearly all with spires, in Prague, which give the city one of its nicknames, City Of 100 Spires (there's probably more, but City Of 473 Spires doesn't have the same ring). Despite this, Czechs are proud to boast of their atheism - our guides have variously given figures of 75 - 85% of the population declaring they have no religion in a recent census. This goes back to before even the Communist era, but to the 30 Years' War (which they lost, having started it with the Prague Defenestration), and being forcibly converted to Catholicism. This seems to have given them a distaste for the whole religion thing. Nearly all the churches are no longer used or converted to museums these days. They are however maintained by the state as part of the city's history.

This about ended the tour. Igor suggested we join him at a restaurant belonging to one of his friends, just along from the Old Town Square and on the way back to the hotel. There we tried some becherovka, a Czech vodka flavoured with a secret blend of herbs and spices (cinnamon was prominent), and then stayed for lunch and a glass of Pilsner Urquell, one of Czechia’s national beers. Afterwards we wandered round some of the old squares, including Wenceslas Square, then headed back to the hotel, along the way noting places as possible venues for tonight’s dinner.

Tomorrow we set out at sparrow fart to see if Sleazyjet can convey us back to the UK.