Prague Part 2

Prague day 2!  We hadn't spent more than one day in a place since Bucharest, so we were excited to explore more of Prague!  Our big plans for the day included 2 main things.  #1:  On our walking tour yesterday, Sarah had mentioned there were several Jewish sites around town where you could buy one ticket and get in to all of them, so we were going to check those out.  #2: Prague Castle!

We began our day at the Pinkas Synagogue.  It wasn't a functional synagogue anymore but more of a Holocaust museum/memorial, and a very unusual one at that.  One of the sparsest buildings, the walls were simply covered with the names of the victims of the Holocaust from the Prague area.  Eerie and mind numbing.  The upstairs of the museum had a bit more going on.  During the war, just outside of Prague,  there was a concentration camp, Terezin, which was kind of a 'model' concentration camp, a propaganda camp where Nazis used to take high ranking officials to show them how well the Jews were being treated.  It was all a facade of course; it was still a terrible concentration camp.  One prisoner, a former art teacher, used to take the children and find whatever scraps of paper they could and make art with it to remind them of the outside world.  That art was saved, and is now in the Pinkas Synagogue.  

We also went to the Jewish cemetery.  Because for hundreds of years the town would only allow them to bury their dead there, there are an estimated 12 layers of burials in some places.  We also went to the Old-New Synagogue, the longest active synagogue in Europe.  We also saw a strange sculpture of Franz Kafka, and the Spanish Synagogue, which had some crazy beautiful decor.

We stopped by Charles Bridge (built in 1357!) for some photos, and then over to the Rudolfium where the Czech Philharmonic plays to catch our tour of the Prague Castle!  On our tour, we learned that they came to Europe first to Prague via the Ottomans, then were later made famous by the Dutch since they were the ones who did the beautiful cross breeding. We saw the beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral, and doorways in the castle so large a horse and ride could walk through, so the king didn't have to go outside to see jousting.  (#spoiled ?) We went down adorable Golden Lane near the castle, where the houses were tiny and narrow and colorful, and Franz Kafka lived for a time!  We got some great views of the city from there and then were done!  Our last stop right before dinner was...a game store!  One of Jon and Katelyn's favorite games, Galaxy Trucker, is made by CGE, Czech Games Edition, and designed by a Czech man named Vlaada Chvatil.  So when in Prague...right?!  We got an expansion for Galaxy Trucker and the base game for Katelyn as a thank you for watching Gromit while we were gone.  That about wrapped up our trip!  We had dinner, headed back to our hotel, and flew out the next morning.  We walked 83 miles in 5 countries in 12 days, for an average of 7 miles a day, including a couple of travel days where we spent most of the day on a plane or train.  And I've now been to 29 countries as a 28 year old! After 2 years of planning and saving and a little over a week of experiencing, we've now gotten a taste of Eastern Europe!  It was an amazing trip spent with an amazing man.