Sunday 23 August 2015

Prague

Well, it's the last night of our holiday, and given that Jody declared Prague "ace" today and is now suggesting places for our next time abroad, I think I can call the trip a success.

After a long train ride from Berlin yesterday, we arrived at the central station and hailed an Uber to take us to the hotel. Given the reputation of Prague taxi drivers, I figured we were better off using a service with clearly published and tracked rates, where I could provide instant feedback and get a credit were there any questionable charges. Unfortunately, standing directly in front of the Uber pick-up spot sign didn't help the driver find us at the station, and it took longer to locate the car than it did to drive the short distance to the hotel once we did. After that small hiccup, though, we spent a relaxing first night listening to the trams rumble past and reading my guidebook, in preparation for a full day of tourism.

I've been looking forward to getting to the Czech Republic for a long time, because I feel my Bohemian genes somewhat more strongly than most of the other European bits that make up my mutt-like form. Reading the guidebook, I was stricken by how every landmark noted had a quirky historical story to go with it. I've never seen so much unusual history in one place. Given that my Czech great-grandmother was quite a character (my mom has often said that I "would've liked her" in a way that really means you and she are the same kind of weird), maybe I was right about the dominance of the Czech genetic material in my makeup. She always claimed to be Bohemian royalty, and while my family rolls their eyes and translates that to crazy gypsy, I took it to mean I needed to check out the old palace while here.

So we got up this morning -- OK, afternoon, it is us -- and set out to see the city. Our hotel is in the old town (Staré Mēsto), so it was just a short walk to the Old Town Square (Staromēstské námēstí) which was full of tourists, with a large statue in the middle, surrounded by lovely old buildings, and home to the famous Astronomical Clock. Sadly, we arrived just a few minutes before the clock did its big display on the hour, so the entire street in front of it was jammed with people waiting. Since Jody had never heard of the thing, and I'm against those kinds of scenes, we wandered off without seeing it and hopped the metro to Prague Castle (Pražsky hrad), which is much more than just a castle.

After a 2 minute ride, we left the metro and walked a couple of blocks to the castle approach, which is a long uphill trek, with a few stairs mixed in. I'm reasonably healthy, but making that walk in the sun was a bit much for me, and I thought Jody was going to kill me for making him do it... until we got to the top and the most incredible view of Prague was before us.


After a lot of photos and a significant mood improvement, we walked around the corner and strolled through the large castle gardens, thoroughly enjoying the scenery in all directions. From the garden, we emerged into a square with the old palace and some other buildings, before going into a castle gate. The architecture was brilliant, so many beautiful buildings with ornate details, that we were constantly stopping to take pictures.

And then we came out a dark passageway to stand in front of Saint Vitus' Cathedral (Katedrála sv Víta), and both uttered curse words in amazement.

I love a cathedral. In addition to my general religion nerdery, they're some of the oldest and most incredible buildings you'll get to see these days. I'm always impressed by them to some degree, but never so much as by this one. We braved the massive crowds to go inside, took even more photos, and just generally marveled at its literal awesomeness for a while. They still do mass there, and I can't even imagine how much more inspiring the place would be during a high mass. Neither Jody nor I have ever done particularly well with religion, but we agreed that if we had that capacity in us, worshiping in a place like that would certainly do it.

After the cathedral, we saw some more nice buildings, all seeming a bit less spectacular than they would have otherwise, and made our way out of the castle. Another metro journey back to hotel, a bit of shopping, some Indian food, and that's us pretty much done for the day.

Tomorrow we're off to another country that's in my genes: work for Jody and another week of vacation for me, back in Edinburgh.

No comments:

Post a Comment