Saturday, October 20, 2012

Wandering around Old Town & the Jewish Quarter

Believe it or not, especially people who know me well, I had NO PLAN for our days in Prague.  I knew there were a few things I wanted to hit over the course of the two and a half days but no planned itinerary in which to do it.  Yup, crazy.

We didn't rush to get up and out in the morning which was awesome.  After breakfast, at our awesome hotel Red & Blue Design Hotel (really nice, breakfast included, great location, amazing rate), we started our wander over to the Old Town section.  We strolled and had time to notice the little things like...
An 'old' looking scene incorporating a new mail slot

Fancy lamp posts

Pretty colored buildings

Graffiti...duh.
On our way to the Old Town Square, we popped into a little alley to see a David Cerny installation at the Artbanka Museum of Young Art.  Although we didn't go into the museum, I'm sure it was very cool.  David Cerny is a Czech artist known for his controversial sculptures.  Several of them are in Prague, and below are pictures of the ones we saw.  You can see a few more of them by clicking here
Installation at the Artbanka Museum

Yup, they are peeing in the map of the Czech Republic.

A Trabi car on human legs in the German Embassy gardens

Todd posing with the sculptures
I think this one is about Kafka
Our morning wanderings took us in and out of churches around the square...

...to the Old Town Hall to watch the famous Astronomical Clock do it's thing on the hour...
...to find an old meridian line...
...and to eat lunch at a place where beer was cheaper than both water and soda.  Proof is below.
After lunch, we visited the Jewish Museum in Prague.  The museum is actually a collection of six historic sites in the Jewish Quarter.
We weren't allowed to take pictures, but there are pictures on their website and if you click on the name of each synagogue below, you'll see pictures.  The Spanish Synagogue was gorgeous, totally unbelievable.  Our next stops were the Maisel Synagogue and the Klausen Synagogue.  The Pinkas Synagogue was jaw dropping.  All over the inside are the names of the Jewish victims along with their dates of birth (and death if known) organized by the community they lived in.  Picture below is from http://www.jennyjacobsson.com/blog.
Last stop was the Old Jewish Cemetery which had tombstones dating back to the 1400s.  The amazing but sad thing about this museum is that these buildings are still standing, because the Nazis were planning to create a museum of an extinct race.  The Nazis decided that Prague would be the location for this museum and thus had all the artifacts from synagogues they were destroying around Europe sent to Prague.  Hence, Prague has a huge collection of Torah shields, menorahs, screens and more and still has synagogues that are left standing post-World War II.  All in all this museum is amazing, and if you're in Prague, I strongly suggest a visit.

Post museum, we wandered over to an open air market where I had to try these potato-thingys that I saw people eating.
We also walked through the Powder Gate, originally on of the 13 gates into Old Town Prague.
A few more pictures below are from our afternoon wander home and our post dinner walk home looking at the castle and Charles Bridge at night...


Prague Castle at sunset

Prague Castle at night

Charles Bridge at night

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