Prague

After grabbing a few last photos and a Game of Thrones book (in English, since we could find it in Budapest), we headed for Prague. Our hostel wasn’t entirely a hostel – more like a hotel in disguise; it was incredibly nice….and cheap. They even had a more-or-less sports bar downstairs which was great for meeting people, and had good food. Our first night we arrived pretty late, so we just grabbed a few brews and appetizers downstairs and called it a night. The next morning we headed into the city centre, and it’s just neat to see all the old buildings – literally ALL the buildings are old and have some quality architecture. The first thing we stumbled upon was an outdoor market. There was a man with a forge, anvil, and hammer shaping metal into all kinds of interesting things, people selling food and locally-made beer, unique jewelry, other hand-made goods, and even a man blowing glass. Very cool. We headed farther into town where there was a large clock tower, and a man who trumpeted out of the top of the tower every hour. Turns out you can go up into the tower and get quite the view of Prague, and a lesson on the workings of clocks. After that we meandered over to the Jewish Cemetery. Downstairs they had several rooms where the walls were filled with the name of every Jewish person from Czech Republic who died during WWII. And outside was the most overcrowded graveyard I have ever seen, literally placed one on top of another. It really impressed the magnitude of the Holocaust on you, and this was only one relatively small nation. Upstairs they mixed sadness with a bit of hope:  there was a man in the Jewish ghetto who had the children express their feelings, hopes, and dreams through pictures to help them deal with what they were experiencing. Some of those pictures lasted through the war and were displayed upstairs, along with the names and ages of the children who drew them. It was really rather moving. We had a late lunch in the main square and headed back to the hostel. Our amazing hostel also hosted a pub crawl every night, so we decided to make and evening of it. We met quite a few interesting people, though none actually from Prague. It’s still fun to meet other travelers, though, and in the end we spent most of the night with some American radiology students from Chicago, which was quite entertaining to Niamh who’s actually from Ireland.

We had a bit of a lie in the following morning, then had to switch rooms, and had to run to the train station to reserve tickets for our train to Krakow the next day, so we didn’t actually get very much done. But travelling as much as we have, it’s nice every now and again to have a day off. We were getting ready to head to dinner when we met our new roommate Gavin from Australia, so we invited him to come along as well (downstairs…..to the bar….again). We got to chat with him a bit and compare travels, and then a great band started playing. They’re not what I would necessarily choose to listen to at home, but man could they play – and they had a trombonist who was deadly. Prague actually reminded me a bit of Bratislava, just a bit bigger and with a lot more going on. I would definitely recommend the city – and especially the hostel – to anyone travelling this way.