Czech Mate

Easy overnight trip from Krakow to Prague and staying at Miss Sophie’s Hotel which has been one of the best places so far with a roof top apartment so lots of room and the breakfast is limited to 10 people per session so the cook can make your breakfast for you. We have extended another two days.

Prague is a lovely city and we started the day with a free walking tour that went for 3 hours through the city, the old town, new town (only 500 years old) and the Jewish quarter. It is a beautiful old city with a maze of small lanes that open out onto town squares. In the main old town square got to see the lighting of the Christmas tree, which was fabulous with coordinated LED’s to classical music (they love Mozart here). They also had a Christmas market here. 

One of the items we wanted to see was the astrological clock made in 1410 that we had seen in a documentary or QI that looked wonderful and wondered if we would see it one day. Well, we have seen it strike at least four times and the mechanisms must have amazed people of its day.

There are lot of Christmas stalls opening in the town squares selling hot wine, sausages and lovely doughy thing called Trdelnik which are cooked on rollers and rolled in sugar and cinnamon. You can also get a hot sausage with roll and either a half or full bottle of champagne from the street vendors. May be an opportunity in Melbourne for such fine fare.

Visited the Royal Castle that overlooks the city and great medieval fortress with two churches in there. The castle and churches have been restored and the artwork is wonderful and we spent a full day there going through the galleries and churches. We returned the following day to do the main cathedral as it was closed for Mass on the Sunday, plus there were more tour groups than you could point a stick at.

Went to the Church Our Lady of Victorious where the Infant Jesus of Prague resides and a museum there is dedicated to him. The dresses for the statue are amazing with hand-embroidered garments that have been made since the 16^th century. The disappointing part is that I worked out he has more outfits than I do at the moment.

Spent a day re-walking the tour route and exploring more buildings and castles. Prague has many Art Nouveau buildings in parts and visited the museum to see some of Alfonso Mucha’s works, which are very nice. There was also a Salvador Dali photo exhibition so who knows, we may even go to Spain.

 

 

Also visited the John Lennon wall, every place seems to have a 

monument to him or the Beatles from Ulaanbaatar to here. Saw our motto for the trip “Travel is the only thing you can buy which makes you richer.”

 

Headed out to Kutna Hora, which is 75km out of Prague to see the Kostice Ossuary, the Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady, Jesuit College and Church of St Barbara’s.  Well, the Ossuary was a bit macabre.  The cemetery was overflowing due to an Abbott going to Golgotha Jerusalem and bringing back some soil, which he scattered over the cemetery. Rumours spread that bodies buried in the special soil decomposed in 3 days so everyone was dying to get in. Add the plague and the Hussite wars and there were more bodies than the cemetery could hold. An enterprising half blind monk decided to do something with the bones. Not being the creative type he called in a carpenter (as you do) to fix the problem. So with, an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 bodies to use he created chandeliers, altars and other wall art with the bones. Whatever was left over they just buried again. I found the ossuary very disturbing and rather reminiscent of The Killing Fields. This was not helped by Michael singing the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone etc.

 

 

 

The Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady was built as part of a monastery. It was a bit bare as the brothers had to focus on their prayers so even leadlight glass was seen as distraction.  There again there were two skeletons of St Felix and St Vincent up the front dressed with bones exposed and wax faces, just creepy as reliquaries. Not sure you really want to be a Saint, as they seem to spread your body everywhere as relics.

 

Headed off to the Jesuit College that was now a modern art gallery - should have left it as a college.  (I must add that I am the wrong person to show modern art to).

St Barbara’s was nice with the traditional lead lights, high ceiling and beautiful art work. Nice day out of the city.

 

Spent a day on the other side of the river going to St Loreto Church, which there again had two full skeleton reliquaries of St Felicissimus and St Marcia. They also had a treasury of art works including a 2.3kg Diamond encrusted monstrance, which is priceless, and looking at the size of the diamonds could see why. After that headed of to Petrin that has a smaller scale of the Eiffel tower and walled part of the city defenses.

As mentioned the Christmas decorations are now coming out and the Intercontinental Hotel had a Ginger bread village with train. This may be something Paul would like to work on for next year’s family event.

 

Absolutely loved Prague even with a touch of snow, but now have to head off to Vienna. (It is a hard life).