Saturday, September 10, 2011

Prague - Day 2

September 10, 2011

Another day of sightseeing and getting lost on the streets of Prague. We walked through Wenceslas Square and then headed into Old Town Square and gawked at the astronomical clock with the thousands of other tourists and then continued across Charles Bridge and all the way up to the castle. The views were incredible and although the palace was immense, it felt cold and undecorated compared to Versailles. I suppose after seeing Versailles, everything looks ugly. We did go into the humongous St. Vitus Cathedral and it was stunning. The stained glass windows were so vibrant and the inside was so large you could see the dust particles of the centuries floating within the vaulted ceilings.







We walked out of the cathedral and made our way back down the hill when we spotted signs for the St. Wenceslas Vineyard. Prague actually has grape vines growing in the city. It was very neat to see and we tried some of their partially fermented wine called Burcak. It was sweet and delicious and tasted like the perfect melting of wine and beer into one.



Next we wandered back across the Vitava River to the Jewish Quarter. We saw the Jewish Cemetery through the tiny slats in a barred door. It was extremely creepy because all of the tombstones are stacked on one another. The cemetery is thousands of years old and the Jews were not permitted to buy additional land so they just made layers of graves, 12 layers actually. I would have loved to walk around it a bit and channel my inner ghost hunter but it was closed. Anyone else know that Saturday is the sabbath for Jews and everything stays closed? We did but I suppose it was poor planning on our part and never knowing what day it is! Unfortunately, we missed out on a lot of the Jewish sites but I suppose it is yet another reason to return to Prague.


We wandered around the town a bit more when Natalie started feeling very ill. Luckily we were able to go back to the hostel and have her rest a bit before our night train to Budapest. I'm hoping that this night train is not anything like the last!

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