The Truth about Good King Wenceslas…

Oh the things you learn on tours of cities…the useless pieces of knowledge that most people in this world care nothing about. I have a mind that remembers the most useless points and locks it way to be pulled out later (and usually really awkward) moments in my life. BP is always telling me that I know the oddest and most pointless information of anyone she knows…

Please allow me to share some of this knowledge now…did you know that the famed King Wenceslas from the Christmas carol wasn’t a real king, he was a duke in the region of Bohemia-which is in modern day Czech Republic. And…they don’t know if he was in fact good or not, he only ruled for about 5 years and was killed in his early 20s. He is called today Saint Wenceslas and is the patron saint of the Czech people. I’m told that most people in Prague have never even heard the famous carol about their beloved saint.

This Christmas was definitely an interesting one! I was in Prague from the 23^rd to the 26^th with two of my au pair friends from Zürich. None of us could make it home for the holidays so we decided to go away together. This year it really hit me hard not being with my family for Christmas. I didn’t expect it to be that way because last year wasn’t so bad. Though, last year I was with two of my best friends and they are like family to me so I guess I just didn’t think about missing everyone so much as I did this time. It was a really nice trip…though it just felt like Christmas didn’t happen at all this year.

When we arrived we tried to map out what we wanted to see of Prague and I’m happy to say in the end we accomplished it all! We knew that a lot of things would be closed or closing early because of Christmas so we tried to plan around it. It did surprise me to find that the real holiday for the Czech people is the 24^th. There are still a lot of places closed on the 25^th but nearly every place was closed up or closed early on Christmas Eve. On the 23^rd we arrived quite late into the city so we decided to go for a late meal and then just walk around and enjoy the city at night with all the Christmas lights and decorations. The markets were all set up, though deserted at that time of night, and beautifully decorated!

We slept in for a bit on Christmas Eve and finally got going around 11AM that morning when we set out in search of food. We found a very traditional Czech restaurant and I ordered the goulash, which was AMAZING! We were attempting to make a walking tour around 1:30 but got lost on the way and ended up in the Jewish district, the former ghetto from pre WWII times. Needless to say, we were so caught up in looking around there that by the time we made it to the tour meeting point we were too late…so we stopped to reassess our plans for the day. It was decided that we’d just walk and shop and take pictures instead of trying to plan any other appointments, as everything was closing up early that day anyway. We made our way over to the river and crossed a bridge to the other side. Along the way we popped into little shops or stopped to look at the work of a street vendor and bought basically all our souvenirs that afternoon. We took a lovely stroll along the river and then headed back to the other side via another bridge, and this time a quite famous one, the Charles Bridge. Construction of this bridge was finished in the early 15^th century and around the year 1700 thirty statues, fifteen on each side, were placed on it, making the bridge quite lovely to look at. During most of the day it is packed with people crossing to and from the Old Town and the Prague Castle, but early in the morning or late at night it is very peaceful and beautiful sight! We walked through the Old Town Square and had a look at the famous Astronomical Clock, which dates back to the year 1410, as it chimed the hour. We were very tired, hungry, and cold so we headed back to the hostel for some rest. Later that evening we went into the Old Town Square for a Christmas concert. It was about an hour of classical style music and the words were all in Czech, it was a wonderful performance!

On Christmas Day we started out a little earlier and left the hostel about 9AM. We made our way to the Castle and bought the standard two day ticket. We walked around there for a few hours seeing the sights and freezing to death (I’m told the high day was around -3C which is 26F). I will say we were fairly miserable because we couldn’t feel our toes and fingers! Then we headed over for our second attempt at the walking tour of the city and this time we were successful. We had a great guide who told us all the pointless facts of the city and why things are named the way they are. In the two hours, he took us into several areas of the city and we saw things we wouldn’t have seen without the tour. (Check out the pic of Wenceslas riding the upside down horse…). After the tour we took a few minutes to call our families from a call center, which was nice. I managed to catch most everyone together around lunch time at my grandmother’s house. We then enjoyed an awkward meal at, what turned out to be, a REALLY nice restaurant. I think we were all out of our elements and felt a bit out of place so we couldn’t even enjoy the meal properly. Later that evening we thought it’d be fun to go on a ghost tour, as Prague is supposedly the most haunted city in Europe! The thing was a complete joke…hehe…not scary at all but we had the best time laughing at some of the dumb questions people would ask our guide.

We decided to top off the evening in the best way we knew how and we went in search of a wine cellar that is recommended in my travel book. By then we were old pros and navigating the city so it didn’t take us long at all to locate the street and building we were looking for. When we entered the place we thought it seemed pretty dead…not many people and only about 4 stools by the tiny little bar. But over in the corner there was a small staircase leading underground and what we found there really amazed me! It was a labyrinth of caves and probably 200 people. It was quite loud and I’m not sure how you can’t hear it upstairs. We sat for a while having our own private conversation and after about an hour a local guy came up and asked if we could play foosball with him and his friends because they didn’t have enough people. We stayed for quite a while playing and socializing. It was the perfect end to the day and when we finally arrived back at the hostel at 1:30ish we fell into bed from the sheer exhaustion of the day!

Now on to the 26^th-the day we went home! We still wanted to see more of the castle and buy a few last minute souvs so we knew we needed to be on time that day, for everything! We left the hostel around 8:30 and made our way straight over to the castle. After seeing a few more sights and exhibits there we finally got to enter the building I’d been waiting on the whole trip-St. Vitus Cathedral! This church is built inside the castle, I guess you could say it’s in the courtyard area, and it’s enormous! Its beautiful Gothic architecture is the first thing you see when you are looking at the Prague castle. We also were able to witness the changing of the guards at the castle gates, twice…once from the outside and once from inside the castle. It’s an interesting experience from both directions. On the view from the inside we got to see quite an interesting series of events. Picture this: guards marching very ceremonially and according to tradition, not a thing out of place on their uniforms. A very attractive guard has just finished his hour long duty and is now marching back into the headquarters within the castle when he spots some young girls, whom I believed to be Americans, standing over to one side…so what does he do?? He winks at them, which I’m sure is not allowed and the girls let out the loudest giggles which echo around the square and the guard’s face goes bright red! I tell you…it made my day. I didn’t actually see the winking but my friends did, I just found the whole series of events to be quite comical! (and NO…we weren’t the girls…but he was cute and I wouldn’t have minded…hehe…). We had one last stop to make on our way back to the hostel to collect out bags. We were recommended by the hostel staff and also my guide book to visit a place called Bohemia Bagel. We’d gone by every day we’d been there and they were closed, all except the last day. We decided to make it our lunch stop and am I ever glad we did! They served American style breakfast and they served it all day! I had gravy and biscuits, eggs, AND bacon!!! It made the happiest girl in Prague for the hour I was sitting in the café. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is going to be visiting Prague!

Overall my trip was excellent, not a proper Christmas, but still a great trip! I want to go back to Prague and see more of it and the bohemian countryside around it. Perhaps I’ll make that a goal for my big trip at the end of my stay, or as Sara would call it…my Grand Tour!

I’m headed out on the 31^st to Zermatt, Switzerland to ring in the New Year. I plan to spend the first day of 2008 sledding down a mountain near the Matterhorn. I can’t wait to get up there and take some great pics to share with all of you! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and I will write again in 2008…

Love you all!

LuLu