Prague Blog and a Day in Dresden

Even though it was super early in the morning, as I boarded the train for Prague with my classmates I couldn't feel anything but excitement. I was so excited I stayed awake the whole two hour train ride while all my classmates around me dozed off. I had been to this beautiful city a few weekends ago when I first arrived in Europe having no idea what was going on, so I was glad that this time I would be able to properly visit it with people who knew the city well. Two of our Czech professors, Jan and Martin, accompanied us as basically our tour guides and, man, were we thankful for them. Not only did they plan a great weekend trip for us, they also kept us well informed about the history of literally every building we passed and were even the "saviors" for one girl in my class who got off the train at the wrong stop and wasn't able to get back on in time. Don't worry, they got a taxi and picked her up the second we got off the train at the right stop.

The Easter markets were decorated so beautifully

I realized quickly as we were walking to our hostel from the train station how lucky I was to be in this city during Easter season. They went all out for it. Throughout the city were Easter markets full of flowers, delicious festive foods, and intricately hand-painted eggs. These seriously were the most detailed and gorgeous Easter eggs I have ever seen. They make them by poking a hole out of each end of the egg with a needle and then they blow out the yoke so there is nothing left in the egg. They do this so the egg can't rot and you can keep the egg forever. I wanted to buy one as a souvenir, but knowing myself, I knew I would be returning to the states with beautifully painted eggshells rather than an egg, so I couldn't buy one. The Easter season brought with it a lot of tourists though, so this time in Prague we had to fight through crowds of people whenever we went anywhere.

We stopped at the Church of Our Lady Victorious to see the Child of Prague statue. This statue was a gift from Spain after a Spanish duchess got married to a Czech. The Carmelite sisters of the church routinely change the statue's clothing depending on the liturgical calendar. Green is Ordinary Time, purple is Lent, red or gold is Christmas and Easter, and royal blue is Feast of the Assumption. Upstairs in the church is a museum where many of its robes are on display. This statue has over 300 clothes made from countries all around the world. It is continuously receiving more and more donated robes for it to wear.

It was wearing purple for lent when we visited it

This is what the Child of Prague looks like close up. This picture was on a holy card I received in the church.

The night before we left for Prague, we saw the movie "Anthropoid" which is based on true events. It's about a group of Czech agents who had the mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich (one of Hitler's top men). After attempting to kill him (Heydrich later dies from his injuries in the hospital, so they were successful), they have to go into hiding in the crypt of the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methods while the Nazis searched vigorously for them. Sadly, they were eventually found, but they refused to go down without a fight. They were able to hold off hundreds of Nazi soldiers for hours before being killed. In the photo below, you can still see the bullet holes from where the Nazis shot at them and the window where they stuck a hose through to try to drown the men in the crypt. Seeing the movie before visiting this church really helped me visualize what occurred here and just how terrifying it was to live during this time. Literally anyone who was accused of helping these men (even if they didn't) were tortured and killed. This movie really impacted me because of how powerful and well done it was. The creators of the movie really took the time to make the set for the movie look EXACTLY like the inside of the church and crypt which all my classmates and I really appreciated.

The window of the crypt where the Nazis stuck the hose down

The next day we took on the long, steep hike up to the Prague Castle (my professors even went as far as to call it a "death march"). We got to walk across the Charles Bridge along the way which was so full of life. Halfway across the bridge there was a spirited band playing accordions so we all stopped to enjoy the surroundings and music for a bit. It was so neat to see the beautiful Prague Castle looming in the distance and have boats passing underneath while being surrounded by musicians, vendors, and swarms of enthusiastic tourists.

The Charles Bridge is to my left and the Prague Castle is the tallest structure in the background

We took a quick detour from the "death march" to go see the John Lennon Wall. After John Lennon was murdered, this wall became a site of anti-communism political graffiti where people created works of art and wrote words of peace like Lennon expressed while he was alive. The secret police kept re-painting it white, but were never able to successfully keep it white because of the steady flow of graffiti. Authorities have finally given up on trying to prevent graffiti on this wall it has become a wall full of Beatles' lyrics, peace signs, and everything in between. It was swarming with tourists, but we were able to sneak in to snap a few pics. What is so cool about it is that artists and tourists are constantly adding to the wall and changing it so that it looks different everyday. The wall will never look exactly like it does in all the pictures I took. Around this time the weather really took a turn for the worst and it was raining pretty hard on us. We ducked into a coffee shop and waited for the rain to stop before completing the last leg of our death march.

Climbing the seemingly never ending hill up to Prague Castle was really making all of us wish we had conditioned a little before the trip, but once we all saw the view, the complaining ended instantly.

You could almost see all of Prague from up there. We were all so in awe of the view that some of my classmates weren't closely watching their stuff. One girl was taking a series photos of her friend and in the photos you can first see her purse and it's closed, the next photo shows it open and you can see her wallet in it, and in the last photo her purse is still open with her wallet gone. This opened all of our eyes as to how diligently we need to watch our stuff so it doesn't get stolen. Luckily, she was able to cancel all the cards that were in her wallet and new ones are being shipped to her soon. Actually, a lot of people in my group haven't had the best luck in Prague. One girl got her phone stolen out of her pocket, another got her passport stolen out of her purse, and now this other girl got her wallet stolen out of her purse. As you can imagine, we have all been very paranoid about our stuff lately and I am literally checking my purse every couple of minutes to make sure everything is there.

After dealing with the whole stolen wallet fiasco, our group went inside the castle briefly. Though I still can't imagine living in such a building, it wasn't as grandiose as a thought it would be being a castle. What really impressed me was the St. Vitus Cathedral which is located in the Prague Castle complex. It is picturesque both inside and out.

St. Videl Cathedral

All the former Czech kings are buried in the Cathedral and the Czech Crown Jewels (the crowns, tiaras, bejeweled swords) are located in one of the towers. We weren't able to see the jewels because of how valuable they are, but it was just cool to know they were there. The stained glass windows were absolutely gorgeous and every inch of the Cathedral was intricately designed.

After we had finished our tour of the castle grounds, we were set free for the evening. A group of us made our way back to Old Town to see the Easter markets again and we discovered there were also carriage rides at night. It didn't take much convincing to get everyone on board to a carriage ride and soon enough the horses were clomping away (quick side note- the sound of their hooves on the cobblestone is so satisfying) through the streets of Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. It was very fun to just sit back and relax while the horses gave us a tour of the city at night.

The next day we headed off for a short day trip in Dresden, Germany. The main building we saw was the Dresden Frauenkirche. The Frauenkirche was a Lutheran church that was completely destroyed when Dresden was bombed during WWII. Several years later, funds were raised to rebuild the church using as many of the original stones as possible. All the original stones are the dark brown and black ones and the new stones are the light tan ones. By building it this way, they are preserving history and reminding everyone of what happened here.

Dresden Frauenkirche

Next, we went to the Dresden Armory Museum where we were able to see full-sized jousting knights on armored horses, ceremonial swords, lots of weapons, and textiles and outfits worn by royalty. It's just crazy to see all these items such armor and swords which were such a big deal in the past, but are rarely used now a days except in like costumes.

After going through the museum, we all met up in the main square and prepared to leave Dresden. However, just as we were about to go, police cars came barreling in, and officers started to block off streets. Then a bunch of armored police with assault rifles started showing up in the square. We all looked around trying to find the cause of all the sudden police, but then we started to hear them. There was a very large protest marching down the street and the police were trying to prevent them from going any further. There were at least 30 officers flanking them from all sides. They were singing in German so we couldn't understand them so we frantically asked our Czech professors what the protest was about. They only had to listen to the song for a little bit before announcing we needed to get out of the area quickly. We all looked around to see that the once bustling main square had emptied out except for the protest. After we were a little ways from the protest, our professors told us that the protest was singing the German anthem, but the Nazi way. Apparently, they were protesting against new laws that allowed more immigration into their country. I know immigration is a hot topic for many countries, including the US, but what blew my mind was how they were expressing some Nazi beliefs in their demonstration. In virtually every city I have been to in Europe so far, there has been some sort of memorial dedicated to the Holocaust. They are literally surrounded by this history everyday and know what that way of thinking can lead to. What scared me even more was that the protest was full of mostly young people that I would estimate to be around my age. I thought that this world was becoming more accepting and understanding. I'm not completely naive- I realize there is still a lot of hate, but to witness it first hand was really eye opening.

The last day in Prague we went to the Jewish Quarters where the oldest synagog in Europe is located. One of the synagogs we visited had the names of the 85,000 Jewish Czechs who perished in the Holocaust painted on all the walls. The video below shows just a couple of the painted walls.

We then visited the Jewish cemetery in the Ghetto where the graves were literally on top of each other in an attempt to fit everyone. Some of the graves were on mounds and it is because the graves are 6 to 8 bodies deep. The Jewish Quarters was a completely sobering experience. It's one thing to learn about the Holocaust from textbooks in the United States far from where it occurred, and then to come to Europe and see the outcomes in person.

My first class weekend trip was a complete success. Not only did I get to experience and appreciate the city of Prague better, I learned a lot along the way with great company.