Czechia: When You Are Tired of Prague, You Are Tired of Life
One of the most visited places in Prague is the Charles bridge. You might recall our brief introduction to him in our last blog: he started the building of St. Vitus Cathedral. The bridge was started in 1357. Legend has it that Charles himself laid the first stone at 5:31am on 9 July 1357. Why so specific a time? He thought it had special significance because it is a palindrome (it reads the same backwards and forwards) - 1357/9/7 5:31. This building below is the tower on the East side of the bridge.
It took 45 years to complete the bridge, and then after another 250 years they decided to add some statues to decorate the bridge. Most of the 30 or so statues are religious in nature, including this one that is a quotation of Isaiah 6:3: "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of Armies"
The tower on the old town side was designed by our old friend Peter Parlor of the St. Vitus Cathedral fame. If you look closely you can see his signature design - net vaults. Through the arch you can see an old church, the Church of St. Salvator that was built in 1587 and welcomes you to the old town of Prague.
In the list of surprising things that the Czech republic continually throws up, is.....hiking. Known more for beer, sportsmen and history, the Czech's have a secret national hobby. And it is hiking. Czech republic has 36,000km (24,000 miles) of color coded hiking trails, maintained by the Czech hiking club, a private organization. And, as if that wasn't surprising enough, they have been doing this since 1889.
This time, they introduced us to mushroom picking. These were pretty huge AND tasty, as you can see below. We stayed in Prague with a lovely family and had a great time hanging out with all of them. It is just amazing how you can meet people from a totally different background and culture and feel like they are your long lost relatives. Which in a way, they are, of course.
The hike was fabulous. It was not far from Prague, but we were plunged into a beautiful forest, just popping out occasionally to savor a view of a beautiful river, or overlook some lush valley, or in one particularly memorable moment, to enjoy a cup of hot wine at a tiny restaurant where our party of 6 filled up the entire dining room.
Eventually we emerged from the woods into a beautiful old castle - the rather excellent castle Křivoklát that dates back to the 13th Century.
The bridge is a popular place and there are lots of people walking across, and lots of entertainment. The entertainment bizarrely includes a number of blues-playing bands - actually Prague has a strong history of playing the blues.
It took 45 years to complete the bridge, and then after another 250 years they decided to add some statues to decorate the bridge. Most of the 30 or so statues are religious in nature, including this one that is a quotation of Isaiah 6:3: "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of Armies"
The tower on the old town side was designed by our old friend Peter Parlor of the St. Vitus Cathedral fame. If you look closely you can see his signature design - net vaults. Through the arch you can see an old church, the Church of St. Salvator that was built in 1587 and welcomes you to the old town of Prague.
So we shouldn't have been surprised when our good friends, Tomas and Jana, invited us to go on a hike. Especially since we have been hiking together before, metaphorically picking gertrudes nostril. Jana, in fact, once told me the words that are the title of this post: "When you are tired of Prague, you are tired of life."
This time, they introduced us to mushroom picking. These were pretty huge AND tasty, as you can see below. We stayed in Prague with a lovely family and had a great time hanging out with all of them. It is just amazing how you can meet people from a totally different background and culture and feel like they are your long lost relatives. Which in a way, they are, of course.
The hike was fabulous. It was not far from Prague, but we were plunged into a beautiful forest, just popping out occasionally to savor a view of a beautiful river, or overlook some lush valley, or in one particularly memorable moment, to enjoy a cup of hot wine at a tiny restaurant where our party of 6 filled up the entire dining room.
Unlike Prague castle, we were the only people in the place, so we wandered around happily, explored, and had a picnic lunch (beer and sandwiches!) in the courtyard.
One thing I love about these old castles is the little passageways and cobblestone paths. I could happily spend days taking pictures in these places.
I don't really have a picture, but I have to mention another of my favorite Czechs: John Comenius. This is a man to whom we all owe a huge debt. He is sometimes called the 'Father of Modern Education'. He was a philosopher, theologian and pedagogue. His ideas were quite radical at the time: using pictures in textbooks, using native languages instead of Latin, teaching simple first then gradually moving to more complex, lifelong learning, equal opportunities to education for the poor and women. In addition to his home country he worked in Sweden, England and Poland. In short, this was a man worth getting to know. Read more about him here. He is remembered by having his picture on the 200 Koruna note.
On our last evening we went out with Tomas and Jana to a genuine Czech restaurant. They brought out this tremendous carved wooden platter of food - duck, roast potatoes, gravy and dumplings. It was wonderful.
Our waiter was quite memorable, and kept on showing up at our table to point out bits that we should definitely taste. He singlehandedly persuaded us to have desert because 'he had made it himself' and he looked so depressed when we said we were full that we had a change of heart and tried it. In the end, he insisted on taking a picture of all of us together.
The next day, we sadly said good bye to all our friends (with a brief interlude for some Kenyan dance lessons) and clambered into our train for our onward trip to a place I have been before, but I would be happy to visit again and again and again - Italy!
