Let me begin by saying this: I love Vienna. Ich liebe Wien. It is a beautiful city with rich culture and history, and to top that, rich food and wine. That being said, Prague is the most beautiful European city that I have seen thus far. I visited for a short period this weekend with some classmates, and found myself gasping at every single building I saw. The architecture is phenomenal, and the city is remarkably old, with each building symbolizing a distant era centuries back.
None of us really knew anything about Prague, except for that they had a really old astronomical clock (and dang, that clock was cool). But we arrived willing to cram all the tourist-y things we could into the short period that we had to spend. Our bus got in late Saturday night and our return bus would leave early Monday morning, so we pretty much had Sunday to do everything we could. Of course, I have to recommend that anyone visiting Prague should visit for a longer period than we could. But I also must say that we made the most of our time in Prague.
The clock in action.
The Old Town Square is, to my limited amount of knowledge, the center of the city of Prague. It’s also where the astrological clock is located, so it became a sort-of home base for us jaded travelers. We found that they offered a number of free walking tours around the city, and our group jumped at that opportunity. Our guide was Justin, an ex-pat from Los Angeles who had fallen in love with a Czech woman and moved to Prague for her. (We also chose to go on a “castle tour” later on, and we were guided by another ex-pat from Kentucky. Maybe I should just get up and move to Prague.) Justin gave us a great tour around the inner city, starting at the clock (which has been around since the 1400s) and stopping at various opera houses, synagogues, and other civic buildings. It was very interesting to learn about Prague’s history because it is connected in many ways to the history of Austria. In our class, we have been learning about the Habsburg influence, but this is somewhat biased towards Austria. I enjoyed hearing about what that meant for other countries under Habsburg influence, like the Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia). Specifically, on our castle tour, we got to see the building where the Defenestration of Prague occurred, starting the Thirty Years War. I’ve mentioned this before in my blog, I’m sure, but I absolutely love how we learn about history in class and then get the opportunity to see what we discuss firsthand.
I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t really try to learn any Czech on my trip. It was overwhelming going from one country where you’ve kind of almost gotten to the point where you can get by with niceties (i.e. hellos, goodbyes, pleases, thank yous, where am i’s) to another country where you have no idea how to say anything and can’t even pronounce the words you read. On our tour, we learned “Ahoy!” meant hello and that’s pretty much all I remember. Also, since we did engage in a fair amount of drinking (purely as a way to imbibe the culture), I learned how to say cheers: “Nasdravi!” (I’m positive I spelled that incorrectly). Hopefully a trip to Prague lasting longer than a couple nights will be in my future...
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| Pilar with some Czech beer. |
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| Disrespectin' a nation, one guard at a time. |
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| Kafka!! |
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