Pra-ha

Sunday, December 28 was our travel day from Budapest to Prague. It was a long journey via train – approximately 7 hours. We could have tried to break up the travel time better between cities by changing the order of how we did things. But, we knew the Christmas markets in Vienna closed on December 23, so we had to start our journey there. We are getting better at managing long train rides through Europe though (K went to pick up fresh bread and meats for us to snack on before we left the hotel this morning). And, usually the scenery is fairly spectacular so that makes things go by easily. We traveled through Slovakia on our way to the Czech Republic, and there was a lot of snow on the ground throughout the trip along with vast expanses of flat land. The landscape seemed to get more interesting as we entered the Czech Republic, but it also started to get dark so I couldn’t see as much. Upon arriving in Prague in the early evening, we walked to our hotel near the train station, and naturally, passed a Christmas market along the way. We opted for a low-key evening of getting settled into our hotel, having a surprisingly good dinner at the hotel restaurant (food note – K and I have both had goulash now, but not in Hungary where it is apparently more of a watery-stew; I had it in Vienna and he had it tonight, and we both enjoyed it), and putting our plan together for our time here. Like K said, even Le Tour has rest days!

On Monday, December 29 we woke up to snow in Prague. While it was pretty to look at it, it was somewhat treacherous to walk on the slippery cobblestones. So, we opted not to stray too far today. We are staying in New Town near Wenceslas Square, so that’s where we started our day. We stopped to say hello to the St. Wenceslas Statue in front of the National Museum then made our way down the Square through a Christmas market. 

Surprisingly, we haven’t visited too many museums thus far on this trip. Even without the cold, the Mucha Museum was on my list of must-dos for Prague, but the cold weather (temps in the teens) made it an easy decision to start with. I honestly hadn’t been aware of Mucha’s work until we started researching this part of the trip, but I took an instant liking to it. He is the founder of the Art Nouveau movement and made a name for himself as a poster artist and illustrator. I love the colors of his work, his amazing detail of the human form, and, of course, the flowers. The museum included a great video that detailed his career.

Feeling inspired by his work, we went off in search of a couple of other Art Nouveau style buildings, notably the Municipal House. We debated taking a tour of the interior, which is apparently impressive, seeing a concert later, or simply having a meal in the restaurant there. But, ultimately, we decided to move on because we still had things to see.

 

We passed under the Powder Tower next door, which is the only surviving piece of the wall that was built to defend the city in the 1400s, and entered the Old Town. We quickly found ourselves in the Old Town Square, which naturally featured a lovely Christmas market. 

 

 

 

After unintentionally grabbing perhaps the most expensive lunch one can have from a market stall, we needed to warm up so we decided to head up the Old Town Hall Tower. After a lengthy wait, we made our way up to the top and were taken aback with the beauty of the panoramic views of the city. Now, we have climbed up plenty of towers and high panoramic viewpoints throughout Europe, and the views from here just might have been the best (certainly rivaling the views of Florence from The Duomo). I’m sure the snow on the rooftops and Christmas atmosphere below added to the already spectacular views of the city with its numerous spires.

 

 

 

After rushing back down from the top to see the show on the Astronomical Clock at the top of the hour, we spent a little time exploring the market in the square before heading back into the Town Hall building to warm up while waiting for our guided tour. The tour of the building was informative, and we got to get up close and personal with the statues of the 12 apostles that parade by to outsiders on the hour.

 

 

 

 

Not wanting to brave the cold for too long, we simply headed across the square to the Gallery of Art Prague, which featured exhibitions of Dali, Mucha, and Warhol. I enjoyed the works by all three, even Dali who I usually don’t care much for. This was definitely more of an art gallery than a museum, as it didn’t necessarily feature a lot of the original works – primarily prints. But, I enjoyed it nonetheless, and it was a good use of our early evening time indoors.

 

 

Then, it was time for dinner and planning for the next day’s adventures!

We had a lot on our agenda for Tuesday, December 30. We started out by taking the metro/tram up to Prague Castle, which sits atop a hill overlooking the city and Vltava River.

 

This nearly turned into a planning fail though because, upon arriving, we had to wait in a long line for tickets to St. Vitus Cathedral (and other attractions) in the Castle complex and the Cathedral had limited hours (which would screw up our afternoon schedule if we didn't get into the Church in the morning as we had planned). But, it all managed to work out, thankfully. We started our tour with a visit to the Cathedral, which was quite grand and featured a beautiful stained-glass window by Mucha, as well as the Royal Mausoleum, tomb of St. Wenceslas, and other beautiful artwork.

 

 

Then, we dashed over to join the crowds at the top gate for the changing of the guard at noon.

We were chilled to the bone by now and went into the nearby gift shop to warm up before visiting a few other Castle sights, including the Old Royal Palace, Basilica of St. George, and Golden Lane. But, honestly, I was pretty cranky because I was cold and hungry, so I was ready to move on to food and warmth by now. After exiting the complex, we stopped for a yummy lunch at the nearby Lobkowicz Palace Cafe (thanks Rick Steves for the recommendation!). We were then treated to beautiful views of the city as we descended from the Castle Quarter.

 

We made our way on foot over to the Jewish Quarter, stopping for a photo op of the Charles Bridge (which connects the Old Town to the Little Quarter and Prague Castle and features statues along the way).

Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to really take an in-depth look of all of the sights in the Jewish Quarter (most of the buildings closed at 4 or 4:30pm at this time of year). But, we made a quick run through of what we could, including the Old Jewish Cemetery, Pinkas Synagogue, Ceremonial Hall, and Klaus Synagogue. It was extremely moving to visit the Pinkas Synagogue, which is a memorial to the victims of the Nazis and has walls covered with handwritten names of the Czech Jews who died at Auschwitz and other camps. Upon exiting the building, we entered the cemetery, which was the only burial ground for Jews in Prague for centuries. As such, the tombs were built on top of each other due to limited space and the tombstones became crooked as the land resettled over time. It was an amazing sight.

We then went back to our hotel to rest and get dinner (at a great Italian restaurant across the street from our hotel) before a late evening show of Swan Lake at the Hybernia Theater. There was no orchestra used for this performance, so the music was done from a recording which was a bit disappointing. We enjoyed the dancers though, and it was a nice way to wrap up our trip to Prague.

Overall, we both really liked the city, which certainly looked more magical with the snow and holiday lights. I am sure we'll be back in warmer temperatures!