You already know from my last postscript that I made it to Prague safe and sound. I had planned to explore a bit that night, maybe see a few of the sights, but it was raining and I was exhausted, so instead I asked for directions to the nearest ATM, got hopelessly lost anyway, found my way back, and eventually wound up back in my room with some rice cakes and dried fruit because the hostel, while amazing, is not in the most commercial area.
When I say amazing though, I mean amazing. For less than I’ve been paying for most of my hostels, I had a private room with a closet, dresser, coffee table, end table, mirror, sink, wall hooks, the whole shebang. Electrical plugs to myself. Even a window. These may seem like small things, but for hostel living they are the lap of luxury. Then to top it all off, the room came with free breakfast. That got progressively less amazing, starting the first day with apples and cucumbers, in addition to the breads, cheeses, cereals and yogurt, losing the apples the second day, and the cucumbers the third, but it was still good. And most importantly free. Even the showers were fantastic. Amazing water pressure, always clean.
I think my only possible complaint would have to be the pillow, which was flat, and the bugs. The bugs weren’t the hostel’s fault though. The entire place was spotless, Prague is just teeming with insect life - in this case, mosquitos. I made the mistake the first night of leaving the window open as the sun went down. By the time it was dark out there was a swarm. I closed the window, of course, but that still left me with an hour long hunting expedition to slay every beastie that had found its way into my room. The walls were no longer spotless when I was done, in fact Czech mosquitos are surprisingly substantial, but I only got two bites over the course of my stay, so I would say victory was mine.
I should have gone to bed early that night. In fact, I should have gone to bed early every night. Instead, I think the room to myself went to my head and so I took advantage. The wifi, contrary to what my attempts at wifi calls indicated, was fantastic. I caught up on the latest season of Big Brother, because it was mindless, and I needed some of that. I finished booking all my hostels until I get back to France. I even planned out sights to see in most of the cities I have left. Only Brussels and Munich remain, but I have time to figure those out yet.
Even with the late night, however, I woke up early the next day. It might have had something to do with not wearing my ear plugs even though that train station was right next door. I didn’t feel like I’d been woken up, but I definitely wasn’t fully rested. Maybe I was just excited? Regardless, I got up, had breakfast, and took the half hour walk into the old town to begin seeing Prague properly.
My first stop was the Old Town Square, complete with the famous astrological clock above which the twelve apostles admonish sinners at the top of every hour. I had planned to wander until my walking tour started, but I got lucky as I wandered past the Klementinum and wandered past a tour there just as it was about to start. The Klementinum was an old Jesuit college that was later converted into an observatory and then concert hall. The tour encompassed the Mirror Chapel, where they hold all manner of events, as well as the breathtaking Baroque Library and the old Astronomical Tower. We ended at the top of the Astronomical Tower where I, for once, was completely taken with a city view.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like views, but I don’t think I hold them in as high a regard as many. The view of Prague though might be my favorite to date. There’s shape to it, and character. It’s visually interesting, and not at all the same from one slice to the next. It was lucky that the only other people on the tour with me, a German couple from Columbia and their friend from Berlin, were content to stand and stare and photograph with me. I couldn’t stay too long though, as I did have the tour to get to, so I took some pictures and down we went.
As opposed to just the one walking tour, I actually did two, one on each side of the river. The first, led by an Austrian from Munich who had moved to Prague to escape compulsory military service, included much about the history of the city as a whole - the old kings of Bohemia as well as the political turmoil of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The various tributes to Kafka spattered around the city even inspired me to begin reading The Metamorphosis. Advance warning to anyone considering doing the same, avoid food while you’re doing it. I started the whole things over breakfast the next morning, and there is nothing less appetizing than a story about man who has suddenly become a cockroach.
The second tour was one of the castle district, led by an Australian Englishman named Callum. He took us up the castle hill by tram where we started our walk at Strahov Monastery. In addition to a library museum that, horror of horrors, I didn’t get to see, the monks of Strahov are known for making some of the best beer in the world. It wins international awards and everything. I decided, therefore, to try some despite my aversion to beer. It wasn’t half bad? Not that I would drink it on a regular basis, but for beer it was actually quite good. Plus it was called St. Norbert’s Special Beer, and I have been quite partial to the name Norbert ever since Hagrid named his dragon in the first book of Harry Potter.
The best part of the tour, however, was definitely the guide’s rendition of the World War II assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague and one of Hitler’s closest friends. You see, Callum had just finished an entire book on the assassination, and so he sat us down on a curb in front of the Foreign Ministry and proceeded to act out the entire thing in great detail, including the fallout that led up to a paratrooper shootout in the rafters and basement of an old church. It lasted forty-five minutes, but it felt like five at most. Or maybe that was just me and my love of history.
The castle itself is really more of a palace now, reengineered by the Habsburgs when its defensive functions became obsolete. It does feature the lovely St. Vitus Cathedral towering over the inner courtyard though, and a man who had been protesting the government seizure of his house for more than a thousand days. He had a counter and everything, and had clearly made friends with the tour guides he sees on a daily basis.
I was lucky over the course of the tour to make friends with an Israeli girl studying in Austria and visiting Prague with her friend from Barcelona. The friend, for obvious reasons, was on the Spanish tour, which meant Iris was, like me, alone. We began chatting over our St. Norbert’s beers and by the end of the tour she had invited me out on the pub crawl with them that night. Now, I wasn’t feeling quite up to a pub crawl, but it was nice to have someone to wander with for a bit after the tour. And when her friend joined us I even got to practice my Spanish!
Together we went to visit the Street of Gold, where one of the old kings had housed the world’s preeminent alchemists in the hope that working together they could find the formula for turning metal into gold. Then we wandered back to the town center via Charles Bridge where, my mother will be happy to know, they offered to take my picture.
At the town center we parted ways. I was enjoying the city so much, however, that I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night. If I wasn’t going on the pub crawl with friends then I definitely wasn’t going drinking alone, but it was Prague, a city known for its cheap alcohol and, especially, absinthe. So I stopped by one of the many absintheries for a taste. It wasn’t enough to have much of an effect, but the whole experience of watching them melt the sugar and then sipping at the strangely tasty yet toxic drink was a good one. I even made friends with a friend of the bar tender who found my fascination with the fire absolutely hilarious. That felt like a good end to the day, so I made the half hour trek back to my hostel for another late night of Big Brother and travel plans.
The next morning started at the Church of St. Michael, a church we’d passed on the first walking tour the day before while it was closed for lunch and apparently the most haunted building in Prague. Our guide had co opted several members of the group for an impromptu reenactment of a theif, caught by a statute of the Virgin Mary inside the church and forced to saw off his own arm - an arm that still hangs in the church. It didn’t look much like an arm from where I was standing, but neither am I an anatomist.
The rest of the morning was left to the Jewish Quarter of Prague. I visited three synagogues, a cemetery, a ceremonial hall, and a museum. The first synagogue was a memorial to the Jews of Prague who lost their lives in camps in World War II. More than 77,000 names were inscribed on the walls, sorted by location and family. Attached to the synagogue was a museum of children’s drawings from Terezin Camp about fifty kilometers northwest of Prague. A Jewish Czech artist had been teaching them and cataloging their work until her transfer to Auschwitz, before which she managed to preserve all of the work in two suitcases that she left behind at Terezin. It was certainly a moving exhibition, even with the tourists packed in like sardines.
After the synagogue, I headed around back to a cemetery overflowing with gravestones. Because the Jews were not allowed to build outward, even for the dead, they were forced over the years to start building up. The cemetery was twelve layers deep at some points, holding a mind blowing number of bodies for such a tiny space. I forget the number, and I don’t have wifi at the moment to check, but it was impressive whatever it was.
The cemetery was followed by the ceremonial hall with exhibits on the Burial Society, the second synagogue with exhibits on Jewish traditions, and finally the Spanish Synagogue, which was my favorite. They’re not sure who built the Spanish Synagogue, but it is so named for the obvious Moorish influences in the architecture and decoration. It was an amazing sort of mix between a synagogue and a mosque and had a few interesting exhibits on the history of the Jewish community in Prague besides.
Once I’d finished with the Jewish Quarter, I crossed the river again to explore the areas of the other bank that were not the castle. This included a stop by the John Lennon Wall, the Church of Our Lady Victory, and Petrin Tower. I’m not really sure about the story behind the John Lennon Wall. As far as I could tell it’s just a wall with a few murals of John Lennon’s face, but it was certainly attracting a lot of photoshoots. The Church of Our Lady Victory, however, was more interesting.
So the Bohemians won a battle ages ago that the king attributed to a doll they had taken with them to the front lines. Now, the doll is called the Infant Jesus and has its own church. It’s a Catholic church, but the people were kneeling around the altar clearly worshipping this doll. It’s become something of a cult with people making and sending the doll elaborate dresses from all over the world. They’re on display in a museum on the second floor of the church. It was by far one of the creepier things I’ve seen on my travels, but… you know, to each their own.
I didn’t spend long in the church before I headed around the corner to Petrinske Park, where I set out to climb the hill up to Petrin Tower. Petrin Tower, built by Gustave Eiffel, is like the little brother of the Eiffel Tower, unless you ask the Czechs. You see, they claim it is taller than the Eiffel Tower, but only because they include the height of the massive hill on top of which it is perched as well as the fact that Prague is something like a hundred meters higher than Paris.
It took a lot longer to get up to the tower than I expected, mostly because the path kept winding, even with the shortcuts I kept taking through the trees. But there were a lot of trees, so at least that was nice. No sooner has I made it to the top of the hill though than it started to rain. I had checked the weather report and brought my umbrella, so it wasn’t such a hardship, but it did mean I didn’t stay long, picking a random path and starting to make my way down.
Turns out it was a good path. It still took forever, but once I was out of the park proper it started leading me past various embassies, which is always fun for me, and eventually past the KGB Museum. I had seen the KGB Museum on Google maps, but it had looked a bit out of the way to make it worth planning a visit. Now that I saw it in person I realized why it was so out of the way. The ‘museum’ wasn’t more than a tiny shop front, clearly privately owned. I didn’t go in at first, a bit disconcerted by the unofficial quality of the place and the fact you had to enter by guided tour. I didn’t want to be the only person on a tour. I’d only gone a block further though when I saw a nice looking American couple enter the place, clearly excited. I figured as long as there was going to be a tour for them anyway, I might as well join, right? Well, I’m definitely glad I did.
The tour wasn’t any more professional than the museum itself, but the man who gave it more than made up for that. He was Russian, probably ex-military if I had to guess, but so passionate about the subject matter that all of us on the tour, eventually seven in total, couldn’t help but keep glancing sideways at each other and trying not to laugh. The museum was his own personal collection of weapons, gadgets, uniforms, gifts, and other memorabilia - and quite impressive for an individual to have accumulated. The personal touch also made the museum that much more enjoyable, allowing us to really engage the items on display. I learned a great deal about the technical details of twentieth century Russia, which is always good to know.
The rain had lightened up a bit by the time I finished at the museum, just a few sprinkles here and there. I made my way back to the city center where I poked my head in the window of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, which was closed, and moved on to the Sex Museum, because it was cheap and very Prague. Despite being fairly small, the museum was actually fascinating - particularly the exhibit of 1920s pornography that had all sorts of interesting cultural implications for gender dynamics.
On my way back to the hostel, figuring I could use some protein, I stopped for some of the best fish and chips I’ve had in my life, and eventually headed back for yet another late night. I told you it was a trend.
My final day in Prague I took a day trip out of the city to the tiny town of Kutna Hora, home of Sedlec Cathedral and Ossuary. The Cathedral, while a UNESCO World Heritage Sight and all that, wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It was pretty and old and they let you up in the attic, which was cool, but the main draw of Kutna Hora is definitely the ossuary.
For a number of reasons, including consecration with dirt from Palestine and lot of nearby battles during the Hussite Wars, there were a lot of people buried in Sedlec. At some point, however, they had to shrink the size of the cemetery, leading them to dig up a number of the bones and store them in cemetery chapel. Before long someone thought it wise to use them as decoration and over the years they have been rearranged a number of times, drawing tourists from all over.
Honestly, it felt like a smaller, more elaborate and less respectful version of the Paris Catacombs. That and it drew a much larger crowd of what I am going to call ‘undesirables.’ Now, I don’t know that they were Satanists, but they made me uncomfortable, and as far as I’m concerned that’s enough.
It was still a nice experience to get out to the countryside. The train station I ended up getting off at was literally a shack in the middle of nowhere. It was nice waiting for the train back though!
Upon arriving back in Prague I decided I didn’t need to do much more with my day. I wandered through a park by the train station, attempting to eat a sandwich at the feet of a random statute of Woodrow Wilson before I was driven away by a crowd smokers. I ended up having the sandwich while watching a pair of buskers on a guitar and flute before heading back to the hostel to make some phone calls, wash my hair, and pack up for my early train.
I’ve almost reached my destination, Dresden, Germany, and as usual it has been a pleasant journey. The train tracks run largely along the river, which was a lovely view. There was even a castle! Once the old Czech couple in my compartment got off at the first stop, I’ve even had the compartment to myself. I have taken advantage of that fact, along with the electrical plugs in the compartment, to put in my headphones and have a bit of a private dance party. I do not think I have been listening to enough music on this trip. That will have to change.
We are pulling into the main Dresden station now. I won’t be getting off for one stop more, but I shall leave you all here anyway. Hugs and kisses to all!
When I say amazing though, I mean amazing. For less than I’ve been paying for most of my hostels, I had a private room with a closet, dresser, coffee table, end table, mirror, sink, wall hooks, the whole shebang. Electrical plugs to myself. Even a window. These may seem like small things, but for hostel living they are the lap of luxury. Then to top it all off, the room came with free breakfast. That got progressively less amazing, starting the first day with apples and cucumbers, in addition to the breads, cheeses, cereals and yogurt, losing the apples the second day, and the cucumbers the third, but it was still good. And most importantly free. Even the showers were fantastic. Amazing water pressure, always clean.
I think my only possible complaint would have to be the pillow, which was flat, and the bugs. The bugs weren’t the hostel’s fault though. The entire place was spotless, Prague is just teeming with insect life - in this case, mosquitos. I made the mistake the first night of leaving the window open as the sun went down. By the time it was dark out there was a swarm. I closed the window, of course, but that still left me with an hour long hunting expedition to slay every beastie that had found its way into my room. The walls were no longer spotless when I was done, in fact Czech mosquitos are surprisingly substantial, but I only got two bites over the course of my stay, so I would say victory was mine.
I should have gone to bed early that night. In fact, I should have gone to bed early every night. Instead, I think the room to myself went to my head and so I took advantage. The wifi, contrary to what my attempts at wifi calls indicated, was fantastic. I caught up on the latest season of Big Brother, because it was mindless, and I needed some of that. I finished booking all my hostels until I get back to France. I even planned out sights to see in most of the cities I have left. Only Brussels and Munich remain, but I have time to figure those out yet.
Even with the late night, however, I woke up early the next day. It might have had something to do with not wearing my ear plugs even though that train station was right next door. I didn’t feel like I’d been woken up, but I definitely wasn’t fully rested. Maybe I was just excited? Regardless, I got up, had breakfast, and took the half hour walk into the old town to begin seeing Prague properly.
My first stop was the Old Town Square, complete with the famous astrological clock above which the twelve apostles admonish sinners at the top of every hour. I had planned to wander until my walking tour started, but I got lucky as I wandered past the Klementinum and wandered past a tour there just as it was about to start. The Klementinum was an old Jesuit college that was later converted into an observatory and then concert hall. The tour encompassed the Mirror Chapel, where they hold all manner of events, as well as the breathtaking Baroque Library and the old Astronomical Tower. We ended at the top of the Astronomical Tower where I, for once, was completely taken with a city view.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like views, but I don’t think I hold them in as high a regard as many. The view of Prague though might be my favorite to date. There’s shape to it, and character. It’s visually interesting, and not at all the same from one slice to the next. It was lucky that the only other people on the tour with me, a German couple from Columbia and their friend from Berlin, were content to stand and stare and photograph with me. I couldn’t stay too long though, as I did have the tour to get to, so I took some pictures and down we went.
As opposed to just the one walking tour, I actually did two, one on each side of the river. The first, led by an Austrian from Munich who had moved to Prague to escape compulsory military service, included much about the history of the city as a whole - the old kings of Bohemia as well as the political turmoil of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The various tributes to Kafka spattered around the city even inspired me to begin reading The Metamorphosis. Advance warning to anyone considering doing the same, avoid food while you’re doing it. I started the whole things over breakfast the next morning, and there is nothing less appetizing than a story about man who has suddenly become a cockroach.
The second tour was one of the castle district, led by an Australian Englishman named Callum. He took us up the castle hill by tram where we started our walk at Strahov Monastery. In addition to a library museum that, horror of horrors, I didn’t get to see, the monks of Strahov are known for making some of the best beer in the world. It wins international awards and everything. I decided, therefore, to try some despite my aversion to beer. It wasn’t half bad? Not that I would drink it on a regular basis, but for beer it was actually quite good. Plus it was called St. Norbert’s Special Beer, and I have been quite partial to the name Norbert ever since Hagrid named his dragon in the first book of Harry Potter.
The best part of the tour, however, was definitely the guide’s rendition of the World War II assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague and one of Hitler’s closest friends. You see, Callum had just finished an entire book on the assassination, and so he sat us down on a curb in front of the Foreign Ministry and proceeded to act out the entire thing in great detail, including the fallout that led up to a paratrooper shootout in the rafters and basement of an old church. It lasted forty-five minutes, but it felt like five at most. Or maybe that was just me and my love of history.
The castle itself is really more of a palace now, reengineered by the Habsburgs when its defensive functions became obsolete. It does feature the lovely St. Vitus Cathedral towering over the inner courtyard though, and a man who had been protesting the government seizure of his house for more than a thousand days. He had a counter and everything, and had clearly made friends with the tour guides he sees on a daily basis.
I was lucky over the course of the tour to make friends with an Israeli girl studying in Austria and visiting Prague with her friend from Barcelona. The friend, for obvious reasons, was on the Spanish tour, which meant Iris was, like me, alone. We began chatting over our St. Norbert’s beers and by the end of the tour she had invited me out on the pub crawl with them that night. Now, I wasn’t feeling quite up to a pub crawl, but it was nice to have someone to wander with for a bit after the tour. And when her friend joined us I even got to practice my Spanish!
Together we went to visit the Street of Gold, where one of the old kings had housed the world’s preeminent alchemists in the hope that working together they could find the formula for turning metal into gold. Then we wandered back to the town center via Charles Bridge where, my mother will be happy to know, they offered to take my picture.
At the town center we parted ways. I was enjoying the city so much, however, that I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night. If I wasn’t going on the pub crawl with friends then I definitely wasn’t going drinking alone, but it was Prague, a city known for its cheap alcohol and, especially, absinthe. So I stopped by one of the many absintheries for a taste. It wasn’t enough to have much of an effect, but the whole experience of watching them melt the sugar and then sipping at the strangely tasty yet toxic drink was a good one. I even made friends with a friend of the bar tender who found my fascination with the fire absolutely hilarious. That felt like a good end to the day, so I made the half hour trek back to my hostel for another late night of Big Brother and travel plans.
The next morning started at the Church of St. Michael, a church we’d passed on the first walking tour the day before while it was closed for lunch and apparently the most haunted building in Prague. Our guide had co opted several members of the group for an impromptu reenactment of a theif, caught by a statute of the Virgin Mary inside the church and forced to saw off his own arm - an arm that still hangs in the church. It didn’t look much like an arm from where I was standing, but neither am I an anatomist.
The rest of the morning was left to the Jewish Quarter of Prague. I visited three synagogues, a cemetery, a ceremonial hall, and a museum. The first synagogue was a memorial to the Jews of Prague who lost their lives in camps in World War II. More than 77,000 names were inscribed on the walls, sorted by location and family. Attached to the synagogue was a museum of children’s drawings from Terezin Camp about fifty kilometers northwest of Prague. A Jewish Czech artist had been teaching them and cataloging their work until her transfer to Auschwitz, before which she managed to preserve all of the work in two suitcases that she left behind at Terezin. It was certainly a moving exhibition, even with the tourists packed in like sardines.
After the synagogue, I headed around back to a cemetery overflowing with gravestones. Because the Jews were not allowed to build outward, even for the dead, they were forced over the years to start building up. The cemetery was twelve layers deep at some points, holding a mind blowing number of bodies for such a tiny space. I forget the number, and I don’t have wifi at the moment to check, but it was impressive whatever it was.
The cemetery was followed by the ceremonial hall with exhibits on the Burial Society, the second synagogue with exhibits on Jewish traditions, and finally the Spanish Synagogue, which was my favorite. They’re not sure who built the Spanish Synagogue, but it is so named for the obvious Moorish influences in the architecture and decoration. It was an amazing sort of mix between a synagogue and a mosque and had a few interesting exhibits on the history of the Jewish community in Prague besides.
Once I’d finished with the Jewish Quarter, I crossed the river again to explore the areas of the other bank that were not the castle. This included a stop by the John Lennon Wall, the Church of Our Lady Victory, and Petrin Tower. I’m not really sure about the story behind the John Lennon Wall. As far as I could tell it’s just a wall with a few murals of John Lennon’s face, but it was certainly attracting a lot of photoshoots. The Church of Our Lady Victory, however, was more interesting.
So the Bohemians won a battle ages ago that the king attributed to a doll they had taken with them to the front lines. Now, the doll is called the Infant Jesus and has its own church. It’s a Catholic church, but the people were kneeling around the altar clearly worshipping this doll. It’s become something of a cult with people making and sending the doll elaborate dresses from all over the world. They’re on display in a museum on the second floor of the church. It was by far one of the creepier things I’ve seen on my travels, but… you know, to each their own.
I didn’t spend long in the church before I headed around the corner to Petrinske Park, where I set out to climb the hill up to Petrin Tower. Petrin Tower, built by Gustave Eiffel, is like the little brother of the Eiffel Tower, unless you ask the Czechs. You see, they claim it is taller than the Eiffel Tower, but only because they include the height of the massive hill on top of which it is perched as well as the fact that Prague is something like a hundred meters higher than Paris.
It took a lot longer to get up to the tower than I expected, mostly because the path kept winding, even with the shortcuts I kept taking through the trees. But there were a lot of trees, so at least that was nice. No sooner has I made it to the top of the hill though than it started to rain. I had checked the weather report and brought my umbrella, so it wasn’t such a hardship, but it did mean I didn’t stay long, picking a random path and starting to make my way down.
Turns out it was a good path. It still took forever, but once I was out of the park proper it started leading me past various embassies, which is always fun for me, and eventually past the KGB Museum. I had seen the KGB Museum on Google maps, but it had looked a bit out of the way to make it worth planning a visit. Now that I saw it in person I realized why it was so out of the way. The ‘museum’ wasn’t more than a tiny shop front, clearly privately owned. I didn’t go in at first, a bit disconcerted by the unofficial quality of the place and the fact you had to enter by guided tour. I didn’t want to be the only person on a tour. I’d only gone a block further though when I saw a nice looking American couple enter the place, clearly excited. I figured as long as there was going to be a tour for them anyway, I might as well join, right? Well, I’m definitely glad I did.
The tour wasn’t any more professional than the museum itself, but the man who gave it more than made up for that. He was Russian, probably ex-military if I had to guess, but so passionate about the subject matter that all of us on the tour, eventually seven in total, couldn’t help but keep glancing sideways at each other and trying not to laugh. The museum was his own personal collection of weapons, gadgets, uniforms, gifts, and other memorabilia - and quite impressive for an individual to have accumulated. The personal touch also made the museum that much more enjoyable, allowing us to really engage the items on display. I learned a great deal about the technical details of twentieth century Russia, which is always good to know.
The rain had lightened up a bit by the time I finished at the museum, just a few sprinkles here and there. I made my way back to the city center where I poked my head in the window of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, which was closed, and moved on to the Sex Museum, because it was cheap and very Prague. Despite being fairly small, the museum was actually fascinating - particularly the exhibit of 1920s pornography that had all sorts of interesting cultural implications for gender dynamics.
On my way back to the hostel, figuring I could use some protein, I stopped for some of the best fish and chips I’ve had in my life, and eventually headed back for yet another late night. I told you it was a trend.
My final day in Prague I took a day trip out of the city to the tiny town of Kutna Hora, home of Sedlec Cathedral and Ossuary. The Cathedral, while a UNESCO World Heritage Sight and all that, wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It was pretty and old and they let you up in the attic, which was cool, but the main draw of Kutna Hora is definitely the ossuary.
For a number of reasons, including consecration with dirt from Palestine and lot of nearby battles during the Hussite Wars, there were a lot of people buried in Sedlec. At some point, however, they had to shrink the size of the cemetery, leading them to dig up a number of the bones and store them in cemetery chapel. Before long someone thought it wise to use them as decoration and over the years they have been rearranged a number of times, drawing tourists from all over.
Honestly, it felt like a smaller, more elaborate and less respectful version of the Paris Catacombs. That and it drew a much larger crowd of what I am going to call ‘undesirables.’ Now, I don’t know that they were Satanists, but they made me uncomfortable, and as far as I’m concerned that’s enough.
It was still a nice experience to get out to the countryside. The train station I ended up getting off at was literally a shack in the middle of nowhere. It was nice waiting for the train back though!
Upon arriving back in Prague I decided I didn’t need to do much more with my day. I wandered through a park by the train station, attempting to eat a sandwich at the feet of a random statute of Woodrow Wilson before I was driven away by a crowd smokers. I ended up having the sandwich while watching a pair of buskers on a guitar and flute before heading back to the hostel to make some phone calls, wash my hair, and pack up for my early train.
I’ve almost reached my destination, Dresden, Germany, and as usual it has been a pleasant journey. The train tracks run largely along the river, which was a lovely view. There was even a castle! Once the old Czech couple in my compartment got off at the first stop, I’ve even had the compartment to myself. I have taken advantage of that fact, along with the electrical plugs in the compartment, to put in my headphones and have a bit of a private dance party. I do not think I have been listening to enough music on this trip. That will have to change.
We are pulling into the main Dresden station now. I won’t be getting off for one stop more, but I shall leave you all here anyway. Hugs and kisses to all!
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