Robby and my’s first official day of actually sightseeing and being semi awake was pretty fun and relaxing. I think the older we get, the less “get up and go”, and the more “meandering where ever, for however long”. We hopped on the metro to town (Robby’s host family lives about 30 minutes outside the city) and arrived so early that the shops weren’t open. I guess Sundays in Prague are like Sundays anywhere else, shop owners sleep in or are at Church.
We walked the fairly less crowded streets in search of coffee, my drug of choice at 8 am. After stopping in a cute shop along a cobbler-stoned alley, my fix was in hand and I was ready to explore the gothic city. Good thing stores weren’t open because we window shopped along the stores that bordered the Prague castle; Czech glass and garnets, plus other shiny things called to me, but safely behind closed doors.
After trudging up the giant hill to the entrance of the castle (I get why castles were built on hills in the olden days, but why are there no funiculars to the top now-a-days?) we were awarded with one of the best views of Prague central - all the red brick roofs and gothic steeples amassed below us. There were real palace guards standing stick still at the entrance to the castle and a mini “old” food village out front serving Prague specialities of potatoes, sausage, and schnitzel.
Unfortunately we only had about 3 hours in the morning to explore because Pavel was taking us to his parents for lunch, so we didn’t get to go inside the castle. With about 5 miles of walking accomplished, we headed off to lunch and it was amazing. Pavel’s parents made svickova a kledniky - cream sauce over dumplings. Traditionally it’s served with beef, but grandma made chicken just for us. This meal probably had to be one of the most amazing and delicious meals I’ve ever tasted. It was accompanied by wine and coffee and various encouragements to try everything in the liquor cabinet, but after 2 helpings and a giant slice of homemade cake, my belly was protesting. Czech people know how to cook and how to host meals - it’s like they think you will starve to death if you don’t have a third helping of dessert. Too bad I don’t have two stomachs.
After lunch, Pavel was kind enough to drive Robby and I an hour away to see the Bone Church in Kutna Hora. We paid, not realizing how small the Church was - only 3 small rooms, but the bones were fascinating. Apparently 30,000+ skeletons were dropped off at the Church in the 1300’s due to the Black Plague and the religious wars. No one knew what to do with the bones until the 1800’s, when blind monks decided to rearrange the remains into geometric shapes. In 1870, a woodcarver named František Rint was commissioned by the landowners of the time, the Schwarzenberg family, to decorate the chapel with the bones and create “a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death”. 4 bone pyramids, a coat of arms, a chandelier, and various other objects now adorn the Church, all created from the bones. Eerie and interesting, but I do wonder if the souls are trapped because their bones are separated.
The town of Kutna Hora is also home to the 2nd most famous Church in Prague, the Church of St. Barbara. The town was founded on the backs of silver miners. The streets ran rich with silver, giving the townsfolk lots of money to construct amazing buildings. This three peaked gothic church, with numerous gargoyles and pointy spirals, started being built in 1388, but was not completed until 1905; mostly due to the mines drying out and a few wars and plagues decimating the workers and the funds. Luckily the town still held the belief that the church would be finished for some generation of their families, so we were able to see the masterpiece. Unfortunately for us, there was an organ concert happening when we arrived, so we didn’t get a chance to go inside. Oh well.
After our long day, we went home, had dinner, and called it an early night.
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Woke up early to catch the metro to Prague central again, but we were stopped at the front door by Pavel - apparently Robby’s brand new walking shoes for this trip smelled so delicious that one of Pavel and Jana’s 3 giant Czech wolf dogs found it irresistible and dragged it into the dirt outside for a new chew toy. The whole heel was missing and what was once bright maroon was now a smudged brown-purple. So instead of catching the early bus, we got to visit the Prague mall. Now Robby has an awesome pair of Sketchers, who knew they made comfortable and actually cute shoes; times are changing.
With new shoes in hand, we went exploring the city. We walked along the waterway that borders the castle and past 2 of the gothic bridges. Since we’d bought all day transportation passes, we decided to just hop on a random bus and it turned out to be an awesome decision as we got to drive through a fancy rich neighborhood with large beautiful Victorian and gothic style mansions. The bus wound up at the top of Stroahov Park next to the old and semi abandoned Stroahov Stadium. It was built for synchronized gymnastics in 1926 with room for over 250,000 spectators and bigger than 3 football fields, making it the biggest stadium in the world. It was pretty much abandoned in the 90’s and is mostly used today as Sparta Prague’s soccer training fields.
We tried to break into the crumbling ruins, but all the gates were locked, so we gave up and walked past socialist high rise housing blocks and found ourselves just above the Petrin lookout tower and the Stroahov Monastery with a library. The library had a cabinet of curiosities with dead animals husks, some gems, and Egypt relics. The library part with the books was only one room with colorful religious reliefs painted on the ceiling, but that room was only accessible by a super pricy tour, so we stood behind the velvet rope and took pictures with the other 90% of the tourists.
Afterwards, I rewarded myself with my old time favorite Good Humor Twister popsicle (an ice cream bar I’ve been trying to find in every country I travel to, but apparently it’s only in Eastern Europe) after walking down the mountain and to the entrance of Prague Castle. About this time my Fitbit hit 17,000+ steps, plus it was hot and humid, so I really did deserve the yummy treat.
The last stop for the day before meeting back up with Pavel, was the second tier tour of the castle which included The Royal Palace, the Basilica of St George, St. Vitus’s Cathedral (super pretty and grand inside, I highly recommend), and the Golden Road - small houses that used to be shops and living quarters for the working folk at the Castle. Prague Castle is quite magnificent and I didn’t see it last time I visited Prague (12 years ago), so I was glad I went this time. The city is commercializing everything and all the sites are becoming paid tourist traps. So it was nice to explore the history before it gets potentially farther ruined by long lines of selfie driven, heel wearing, absent-minded millennials.
Pavel is a renaissance man- he knows a little bit about everything, can get you anything, and knows everyone. Being in the know has its advantages as Robby and I were treated to a private tour of the parrot rehabilitation center at Charles University in the Botanical Gardens. Essentially we got to stand in the bird cage and have numerous Cockatoos and Parrots jump on us, peck us, and even have a fight on my head. Slightly scary because those birds have some claws, but equally thrilling when a birdie pecks your shoulder until you come close enough for her to walk on it. The birds are all either given to the center by family member of dead owners or because they have psychological issues like pecking all the feathers out due to anxiety or jealousy. My favorite was Olivia because she was still managing to find a way to pick at her “cone of shame” and get to her feathers. She’s one determined birdie.
We finished the evening with a homemade meal and actually slept through the night, having been exhausted by over 10 miles of walking. Until tomorrow....
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