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The amazing astronomical clock on the city's
town hall building. |
So here we are completing our tour of Prague, Czech Republic. Loving the land, art, history, and architecture. The people, though... We're not too pleased. Maybe it's because we're in what we've come to call tourist-land? Maybe it's the language barrier? But, really, the people aren't very nice. When we first came into town they didn't stamp our passports so we tried asking around about where we could get that done. Turns out it's not really necessary in the EU. However, whenever we asked someone they would send us to a different person who would send us to a different person and so on. Finally we asked the receptionist at our hotel. Again, he tried sending us somewhere else. We explained to him that whoever we ask, we get sent somewhere else. At that he laughed and said, "That is just Czech nature." I see. I don't think I like Czech nature.
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Brandon's disappointed face
that came with each beer he
ordered here in a town known
for amazing beer. |
The restaurants have horrid service. This may go along with "Czech nature" but I feel like I'm causing my server a huge hassle just by asking for some more water. And, along with the bill, they always give a little piece of paper with the math and expected tip scribbled on it. Our first thought? "Don't tell me what to tip! You didn't even check on us once. We had to flag you down. And you want 20%? Yeah, right."
Today we were partially scolded by our waiter because we wanted to share a meal. He said that's just not the Czech way. If we want something small, we should go to McDonald's. We go to a restaurant to eat a full meal.
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These were everything I wanted them
to be. |
That's alright. The food isn't super exciting anyway. Except for the desserts. There is delicious ice cream everywhere and today I had some sort of sweet pastry baked in a tubular shape (see picture). It was wonderful.
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St. Vitus Cathedral. I'm sorry,
the picture does it no justice. |
On a lighter note, this city is absolutely
rich with history. There's no way I could list it here but I can say some of these buildings date back to the tenth century and was the home of the
Good King Wenceslas (you know, that guy in the song). We went and saw the castle and the castle's church and surrounding town. It was all amazing. Like a fairy tale. The castle church -
St. Vitus Cathedral - is probably the most massive, most immaculate church I have ever seen. It has so much detail with spires, stained glass, gargoyles, and everything. We can see the church from everywhere we go in town, it is so big.
Prague is a town filled with towers. There are clock towers, guard towers, gate towers, and viewing towers. We bought
a pass to gain access to all of them, plus a couple of other sites. All that to say: we have done
a lot of climbing in our stay here. I am so ready for our train ride tomorrow to give my legs and feet a bit of a rest. But all of the towers were awesome. It was neat to climb them and learn about what they were used for and why they are there.
There was one tower that gave a lot of history to the bells of the city. I didn't realize how much respect went to the bells but they have a history, a purpose, and some stories to go with them. It's said that every year on the Thursday before Easter all of the bells will make a trip to Rome to receive a blessing from the Pope. Even objects that are made from melted down bells remember their history and make the trip as well. It is said that, because of this, soldiers couldn't find their guns before a battle in World War 1.
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A spy setup in the top of a
bell tower. |
Another tower is an old bell tower in a church and was used by the communist secret service agents to spy from. They used many towers around town because they provided a good view of the land so they could watch out for "people of interest." Most of these "people of interest" were from the foreign embassies. The tower we went up had a view of about ten different embassies, including the American one.
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The carving of 1678 was in a statue at
the top of a gate tower. |
Something that I have found
incredibly interesting in these towers is all of the graffiti and carvings in the walls. These towers are so incredibly old and people have been carving their names in them since their foundation. The oldest I found was from 1678. We also did an underground tour and a couple of the rooms we went into were used as dungeons. The prisoners carved their names and messages into the walls of their rooms. It was amazing to see and to be able to touch something with such a story.
So that was Prague! There really is a lot more, but too much to be able to write in a blog. We're still having a fantastic time. My gut is healing pretty well. I've taken off two of my bandages. One of the incisions is being slow to heal and my belly button is pretty ugly and bruised. But I'm on my way back to being normal again! I totally climbed all of those towers at what I think was a pretty decent pace.
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We carved our initials in a lock to put on one of
the statues on Charles Bridge. It's supposed to
be good luck or something like that. |
So until next time my friends! Next stop: Munich, Germany.
