Prague: A Spiritual Journey through Time

My mom and I in Prague's Old Town Square.

Two weeks ago, my mom and I met up in the Czech Republic for a weekend getaway.  Knowing that she would not be able to make it across the Atlantic to Seville before May, my mom decided she could simply not bear being away from her first-born for five months.  Also, I wanted one weekend to be pampered after countless weekends spent in grungy hostels around Europe.


DAY ONE

A lime green corner building in Prague's New Town district.

I arrived at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Malá Strana district of Prague.  The peaceful hotel was in a prime location as it was removed from the city center, but extremely convenient.  My mom greeted me as soon as I exited the cab and we dropped my luggage in the room before strolling across the Vltava River.  Since we had both been traveling since the early morning, we decided to do some simple sightseeing and get a feel for the city.  Thus, we ventured into the Nové Město, or New Town, to take in some architectural sights.  Prague's New Town is only relatively new compared to Staré Město, or Old Town, and the other districts in Prague.  In fact, New Town was founded in the mid-14th century by Charles IV and it retains many baroque and Gothic buildings dating back to the Middle Ages.  Additionally, New Town is populated by unusual, unique buildings, accentuated with pastel paint jobs. So, one can walk down an entire city street among aqua blue, dull pink and brilliant yellow structures all in a row.  Yet, New Town is also cluttered with many newer administration buildings and offices.  One such example of this modern architecture is the Dancing House, an office building designed by Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry.  The building is composed of large glass windows and it appears to be twisting and contorting itself due to some unseen force.  The modernistic and nonconformist design stands out among the old, imposing churches that inhabit New Town.

My mom and I in front of the twisted Dancing House.

The traditional Czech fare at U Fleků.

After browsing all that New Town had to offer, we stopped at U Fleků, a traditional Czech beer hall, for lunch.  Aside from serving customary Czech cuisine, U Fleků is widely known for being the Czech Republic's smallest microbrewery.  The hall's interior is furnished with dark wood benches and tables, and we arrived to see an amiable, elderly Czech man serenading patrons with his accordion.  Needless to say, U Fleků provided a true Czech dining experience, and my mom and I were delighted by the frothy dark beer and our orders of potato pancakes with horseradish and sausage and cabbage with sour cream and mustard.  Later in the day, we crossed back into Malá Strana to take a funicular up Prague's Petřín hill.  Looming over Prague atop the Petřín hill is a tower that seems to be a Czech imitation of the Eiffel Tower.  Though much smaller in size, the tower provides a grand view of Prague.  With our bird's eye view, my mom and I discussed and mapped out our plans for the next few days in one of Europe's most enchanting cities.

The view of the Vltava River from the Petřín Tower.

The Vltava River at night.

After descending Petřín, we washed up and made our way for dinner.  My mom and I had only been in Prague for 12 hours when we unknowingly started a trend: each day, we would unfailingly consume a hearty, customary Czech lunch and then enjoy a savory dinner of a foreign, imported cuisine.  That night, we dined on delicious grilled shrimp and veal osso buco at an Italian restaurant, while sipping red wine on the edge of the Vltava River.  It was a luxurious finish to a relaxing day, but we went to bed early, bracing ourselves for the highly active day ahead.


DAY TWO
In the morning, we gorged ourselves on the included buffet breakfast at the hotel before heading for Old Town.  In typical motherly fashion, my mom had gone through all lengths to plan a fun-filled, educational and exploratory trip to Prague.  Thus, our morning began with a guided tour of the former Jewish quarter of Prague, Josefov.  Josefov was the Jewish ghetto where the Jews of Prague were confined for centuries.  Before the establishment of the ghetto, Jews had been persecuted through pogroms and other attacks.  The ghetto garnered wealth in the 16th century, reaping benefits due to its Minister of Finance, Mordecai Maisel.  Maisel spread his wealth through philanthropy and chartered the construction of the Jewish Town Hall, which still stands.  Our tour of the Jewish quarter was led by a sweet, elderly Czech woman with a funny speaking intonation.  She led us through the winding, cobblestone streets of Josefov wearing her skirt and plastic sandals in the 50 degree chill.  Yet, despite her quirky disposition, our guide was very insightful and interesting.  With our small tour group--which also included some gregarious, rambling, incomprehensible Scottish chaps and their wives--we surveyed many holy sites, kept intact for centuries

Our tour's rendezvous point in Old Town, with the Powder Tower on the left.

Before entering the Jewish quarter, we passed through Old Town Square.  The Old Town Square is home to the Church of Our Lady before Týn, a late Gothic church with a grayed stone facade and two robust towers.  The church is also notable for being the burial site of Tycho Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer and mentor to Johannes Kepler.  As we continued through the square, we also stumbled upon a large patina statue of Jan Hus.  Hus is remembered for being a religious philosopher and predecessor of Martin Luther and the subsequent Protestant Reformation.  Hus and his followers, known as the Hussites, supported church reform through the institutionalization of new laws regarding the ethics of clergymen and the Eucharist.  As a religious dissenter, Hus was burned at the stake and immortalized through his own martyrdom.  He is a very popular figure in Czech history and his monument stands starkly in the center of one of Prague's most visited squares.  Two other notable buildings in the square are the St. Nicholas Church, yet another breathtaking religious relic, and the Prague Astronomical Clock, the world's oldest functioning astronomical clock.  The clock, which dates back to 1410, shows the current time, but also keeps track of the zodiacal signs with its two round clock faces.

Monument to Jan Hus with the St. Nicholas Church in the background.

Maisel Synagogue.

When we finally arrived in Josefov, we immediately made our way to the Jewish Museum.  The Jewish Museum is a series of historically important and holy sites that house collections of Jewish artifacts from all over Bohemia and Moravia.  Originally, the Jewish Museum was started in the early 20th century by two Jewish historians to act as a safehouse for Jewish relics as the government of Prague underwent an urban renewal project in Josefov.  Later, the Nazis took ownership of the Jewish Museum, intending to document and preserve the history of an extinct people.  Yet, the Nazi plan backfired as the museum now stands as a moving testament to Jewish resilience and solidarity.  We began at the Maisel Synagogue, home to many holy items with origins in the 16th century and earlier.  After perusing the small museum, we followed our group across to the Klausen Synagogue, a synagogue with many artifacts relating to important life events like circumcision, bar mitzvahs, funerals and weddings, and the Pinkas Synagogue.  The interior of the Pinkas Synagogue has been remodeled since its inauguration in the 16th century.  The inside is lined with the names of the 80,000 Czech Jews who were victims of the Holocaust.  Inside, candles flicker and crackle as, in solemn silence, Jews and non-Jews alike share in remembering a lost generation.  The most harrowing and eerie aspect of the Pinkas Synagogue is its top level, which displays the artwork of children who were in Terezín, a Jewish deportation camp outside of central Prague.  The innocence of the animated figures combines with unbelievable realism to capture the horrors of ghetto life in colored etchings.  Each piece shows the byline of the artist, as well as their respective date of birth and date of death.  To see that the large majority of the naive authors of these raw, emotional works were struck down before they had a chance to grow and enjoy adulthood is devastating.

The Old Jewish Cemetery has tombs from the 15th century.

The Pinkas Synagogue connects to the adjacent Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague.  This cemetery is the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in all of Europe.  The first tomb dates back to the early 15th century and the cemetery was in use for hundreds of years until the late 18th century.  Since there was no other designated space for Jews to bury their dead, the cemetery is overflowing with thousands of gravestones stacked right next to each other.  Furthermore, as for the dimensions of the graves themselves, the burial areas go twelve caskets deep so as to conserve space for all of the dead during the Jewish confinement in Josefov.  The tombs are remarkable to see, with elegant Hebrew inscriptions as well as symbolism to identify the bodies.  For example, two hands on a tombstone signify that that person was part of the Cohanim whereas the image of grapes refers to a person with many children. Among the notable buried are Mordecai Maisel and Rabbi Loew.  Rabbi Loew was a famous Jewish mystic and scholar during the 16th century.  He is most widely recognized as the creator of the Golem in Jewish folklore.  As the story goes, Rabbi Loew, having been well-versed in the Torah portion that describes God's creation of Adam, was able to construct and control an enormous monster out of clay, known as the Golem, to protect the Jews of Prague from anti-Semitism.  More mystery envelops Rabbi Loew's tombstone itself: his son wanted to be buried next to his father but did not find enough space for his own gravestone.  Thus, overnight, Rabbi Loew's tombstone was rumored to have stood up and walked two paces to the left to provide Rabbi Loew's son with sufficient space.  The Old Jewish Cemetery was an incredibly spiritual and historical site and was certainly a highlight of our tour of Josefov.

Interior of the Spanish Synagogue.

Next, we made our way to Prague's most aesthetically accomplished synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue.  Constructed in the Moorish Revival style, the synagogue's interior is gilded and covered in intricate geometric designs.  The style of the synagogue reminded me of the elaborate mudéjar structures which are scattered throughout Andalusia.  As we ended our tour, we stopped in front of the Spanish Synagogue, where there is a existential sculpture dedicated to Prague's most renowned hero, Franz Kafka.  Kafka, who was a Czech Jew, is pictured riding upon the shoulders of a large man without a head or hands.  The sculpture is an allusion to one of Kafka's many brilliant short stories and our tour group also went past the quaint building where Kafka spent his childhood.

I stand next to the monument to Franz Kafka.

The Charles Bridge gets very busy at daytime.

With much of the day remaining, my mom and I decided to explore the remainder of Old Town on our own.  We walked down Charles Street and saw hundreds of kitschy shops selling marionettes, ceramics, t-shirts and toys along the way to the Charles Bridge.  The Charles Bridge is a purely pedestrian stone bridge that was built in the 14th century as the sole means of crossing the Vltava to travel between the Prague Castle and Old Town.  The bridge has seen many great floods as well as a large battle during the Thirty Years' War and it opens to a large tower on the Malá Strana entrance.  Flanking both sides of the bridge are large verdigris and stone statues accented with gold leaf.  All of the statues represent important religious figures, ranging from Jesus on the crucifix to John of Neponuk (pictured to the right), the Czech Republic's patron saint.  Adding to the beauty of the bridge is its view on all sides of Prague.  Peering over one ledge of the bridge, we had a clear view of the Prague Castle, roosting regally on a hilltop.  On the other side we were able to see the Vltava flow between the riverside districts of Malá Strana and New Town.  We crossed the bridge and descended some steps to explore Malá Strana.  There, we stumbled upon a crowd of tourists that had gathered in front of a wall smothered in graffiti.  The wall was covered with pictures of The Beatles and lyrics from popular songs.  My mom identified the wall as the Lennon Wall.  Since the 1980s, back when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were collectively known as Czechoslovakia and were under the thumb of the communist Soviet Union as part of the USSR's "Iron Curtain," dissenting youths began protesting communism in the form of graffiti tagging. This artistic, rebellious movement was ironically referred to as "Lennonism," a play on "Leninism," a term that describes Russian communist Vladimir Lenin's political theory.  So, the graffiti artists embraced their title and covered a wall in Malá Strana in a vibrantly colored monument to John Lennon and the values of peace and equality he conveyed through his lyrics and actions.  That night, my mom and I went to an awesome Italian restaurant for a savory steak dinner.  I felt like true royalty, which was quite befitting considering the next day's activities.

The Lennon Wall sticks out among the old architecture of Prague's Malá Strana district.

DAY THREE

View of the elevated Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge.

The changing of the guard at Prague Castle.

On our third day in Prague, we trekked up a large hill to get to Prague Castle.  The Prague Castle is an enormous royal complex overlooking Prague and has been the headquarters of many Czech monarchs, a Nazi general, Russian communist puppet leaders and several democratic presidents.  Within its walls lie many palaces, churches, museums and gardens.  At the very moment we arrived, we heard the euphonious sound of brass ring out.  My mom and I followed the noise intently, and stumbled upon the Czech changing of the guards in front of the main palace.  Though the changing of the guards happens each hour and is not as organized nor as disciplined as the famous changing of the guards at the Buckingham Palace in London, it was very exciting to watch.  Plus, the Czech guards on duty in front of the palace are equally good at remaining completely frozen at their posts.  From that point on, we meandered around the rest of the Prague Castle grounds looking at different architecture.  We passed through the 12th century Strahov monastery, by the facade of the Sternbersky Palace with its pyramidal optical illusion and into the Loreta.  The Loreta is an important pilgrimage destination for Christians as it was supposedly built with the same dimensions of the birth home of Jesus.  Inside are ornamental Italian sculptures and lavish, gilded altars.  The intense beauty of the interior was worth seeing, but the house itself did not live up to its hype as one of the must-see sites of Prague.

Sculpture of an angel outside the Loreta.

I pose in front of St. Vitus Cathedral.

After promenading around some more within the castle walls, we stopped inside St. Vitus' Cathedral, a huge Gothic cathedral with booming towers and a sooty, dark exterior.  Like much of the architecture in Prague, St. Vitus' has been largely untouched and well-preserved for centuries.  Construction began in the 10th century and the building was considerably enlarged to resemble its current self in the 12th century.  Furthermore, the cathedral is the burial place of many Bohemian monarchs and Holy Roman Emperors and is decorated with large stained glass images and glorified sarcophagi.  We had seen the majority of the Prague Castle region, so we decided to start walking down the hill from a different direction.  On the way, we passed St. George's Basilica, the spot with the title of oldest surviving church in Prague due to its date of erection: 920.  Stopping on the slope of the hill, we sat at an outdoor wine bar for a light lunch and a wine sampling.

St. George's Basilica has a warm, red facade.

Since it was the late afternoon, we decided to make our way back towards the hotel.  Yet, on our way, we came across the Wallenstein Palace, the former residence of Albrecht von Wallenstein.  Wallenstein was a decorated military man who garnered his heroic image and his grand fortune through his leadership during the Thirty Years' War.  He built his large palace and the surrounding gardens, intent on usurping the power of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.  Sensing his treacherous and devious ways, Ferdinand II had Wallenstein assassinated in 1634.  Wallenstein's luxurious palace, however, remained in his family's hands for centuries, until the end of WWII, when it was converted into a political assembly house.  Now, the Wallenstein Palace is used as the seat of the Czech Republic's Senate.  The palace is a befitting spot for the Czech Senate; the ceilings are covered in epic frescoes and the white walls are covered by sprouting pillars of gold leaf.

My mom sits in the garden in front of the Wallenstein Palace.

Upon entering the Senate building, my mom and I had the same shocked reaction to the lackluster security check.  Inside there were but two elderly receptionists and one unarmed, frail security guard.  Additionally, since we had entered right behind a Czech tour group, the security did not even search our bag or make us walk through the metal detector.  Just the day before, my mom and I were walking towards a beer hall for lunch when a man came rushing past in a pressed gray suit, wielding a briefcase.  An American man pushing a stroller in front of us did a double-take, peering at the man with the briefcase as he continued in the opposite direction.  "That was the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic!" the man with the stroller exclaimed to us, feeling the need to immediately pass this interesting revelation on to the nearest group of people.  Our interest piqued, my mom and I snapped our heads around as the Prime Minister's backside diminished from view.  The American whipped around and zoomed down the road towards the Prime Minister with his young daughter in tow, resembling a hungry man in a supermarket racing towards the last box of Entenmanns's cookies.  Obviously, my mon and I had many questions, namely, How could the Prime Minister bustle down the street without any security or protection? and How did that random American father recognize the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic?  To return to my account of the Wallenstein Palace, the Senate building's security was also laughable.  Interestingly, the Czech Republic does have a history of political assassinations, including the notorious defenestrations of Prague, when religious radicals killed and injured politicians by defenestrating them, or throwing them from high windows, in the 15th and 17th centuries.

Ceiling decorations in the Wallenstein Palace.

That night, we reprised our Italian dinner, going to another Michelin rated restaurant owned by the same people who owned the Italian steakhouse of the night before.  This night, however, we opted for some light, but delectable, gnocchi.

DAY FOUR

Princip's cell at Terezín.

My last full day in Prague happened to be the most spiritual, powerful day of the entire trip.  My mom had planned another guided excursion, this one to Terezín.  Terezín is a retired military fortress an hour outside the center of Prague.  The fortress was originally constructed by the Habsburgs at the culmination of the 18th century to protect Prague from invaders and, later, to house political prisoners.  In fact, during World War I, Gavrilo Princip was incarcerated at Terezín.  Princip is best known as the Serbian revolutionary who assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife.  These murders are historically remembered as the last two straws that broke the camel's back and catalyzed the outbreak of WWI.  Princip died in his cell at Terezín from tuberculosis in 1918.  Yet, Terezín's grisly role during WWII defines its past character.

Main square of Terezín.

After the Nazis marched into the Sudetenland, the outer region of Czechoslovakia that contained a lot of ethnic Germans, and continued on to eventually occupy all of Czechoslovakia, Terezín was converted into a Jewish ghetto and deportation camp.  In other words, Terezín, or Theresienstadt, as the Nazis called it, was used as a ghetto to hold and confine Jews before transporting them in cattle cars to Auschwitz, Treblinka and other extermination camps.  All in all, 80,000 Czech Jews who had been held in Theresienstadt were killed.  Though an extreme number, when put into perspective, Theresienstadt is only responsible for the deaths of about 1% of all of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.  Yet, it provides a snapshot in time of the horrible, merciless actions of Nazi perpetrators.

The Theresienstadt school for Jewish children is now a museum commemorating Holocaust victims.

 My mom and I boarded a bus from Old Town for a day of learning, solemnity and remembrance.  Coincidentally, a kid I recognized from Tufts was a part of our fifteen person tour group and, while we exchanged names and niceties, we both understood that our trip to Theresienstadt would be characterized by a period of introspection and reflection as to the atrocities of the Holocaust.  Neither my mom nor I had ever been to a deportation or concentration camp, but we were prepared for a rewarding, though grounding and melancholic, experience.  Our guide, Petr, first led us into a small museum crafted out of the former Jewish boys school, where we watched a movie with actual footage of ghetto life in Theresienstadt.  The footage had been captured by Nazi film crews during WWII.  All of the film was focused around community wide events, like a big youth soccer match in the town square, and leisurely activities, like playing cards or sewing.  We learned that the Nazis had captured footage during organized events and manipulated viewers by adding in dishonest narration as to the standard of living in the camp.  In other words, the Nazis used the same footage as propaganda to prevent any source of outcry from the Czechs who, on the Nazi extermination list, were one of the next groups to go after the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and handicapped.  The video was reedited with a true account of life in the ghetto, spliced with dark animated images representing the broken spirit of the Jewish inhabitants of Theresienstadt.

When the video ended, we ascended a flight of stairs to the museum exhibit which had many pictures and placards describing the institution of Nazi anti-Semitic policies and the evolution of Terezín to Theresienstadt.  The museum was extremely informative and deeply saddening.  We read descriptions of ghetto life from individuals who would never make it out alive.  The conditions of the ghetto were appalling: Jews lived by the hundreds in cramped rooms with no light or heat and one shared bathroom.  Food rations were extremely slim, consisting of crusty, moldy bread and cold potato soup.  Friends outside of the ghetto were allowed to send packages to the Jews in Theresienstadt, but these packages were often confiscated or destroyed.  Our group heard one such anecdote in which a group of Nazi guards forced the receivers of a package to eat a crushed concoction of the package items, which included bathing utilities and toothpaste.  Furthermore, many Jews in the ghetto were afraid to request packages because they did not want to expose their loved ones and friends to Nazi persecution.  In the end, although Theresienstadt was a deportation camp without any tools for mass murder like gas chambers, more than 30,000 people died at the camp itself due to disease, malnutrition and other causes.

A cell for Nazi political prisoners that mimics the Jewish ghetto habitats.

Yet, the museum also highlighted the spread of culture and education among the Jews of Theresienstadt.  Many talented Jews formed orchestras and held concerts while the younger Jewish residents continued their education, nonetheless, the schoolhouses were extremely small and jam-packed with students.  The Jews helped fix their own water and plumbing systems and even created a firefighting troop.  From the museum, we moved to a cemetery that commemorated the 80,000 Jews who passed through Theresienstadt and died during the Holocaust.  At Theresienstadt, the Germans originally buried the Jews, but began to run out of room.  Thus, they formed a crematorium, not to kill Jews, but to conserve territory in the burial process.  Our group walked through the cemetery, with its uniform tombstones and its large Star of David monument, towards the crematorium and autopsy room.  There were four ovens in which bodies were cremated and two autopsy tables.  The small, sinister room showed the utter dehumanization of the Jews by the Nazis.  Not only did the Nazis set up internment ghettos with horrible conditions, they disrespected the death in a grotesque, violating manner.

Jewish cemetery with a monument to remember the victims of the Nazis.

The ominous sign over the entrance of Small Fortress.

 Our final stop on our trip to Theresienstadt was to Small Fortress, part of the original outline of Terezín that the Nazis used as a political prison.  There, we saw the horrible conditions of political prisoners, while also touring solitary confinement cells used as an intimidation tool and a cruel punishment for disobedient Jews of the ghetto.  The cell of Gavrilo Princip was marked with a "1" and we were able to see the small, dark, cramped and dank place where prisoners like him were kept.  Like the Jews, prisoners were forced into cramped quarters and forced to work.  Above the entrance to Small Fortress, the Orwellian phrase "ARBEIT MACHT FREI," or "WORK MAKES YOU FREE," screams out.  As we now know, the German phrase is a boldfaced lie as all prisoners and Jews who came through Small Fortress worked until they died or were deported.  We also explored the residential town occupied by the German enforcers and their families.  The juxtaposition of the Nazi village and the ghetto was truly eye-opening.  The Nazis lived in luxury, with plumbing systems and yards and freedom.  A house that contained a Nazi family four could have held hundreds of Jews if the ghetto conditions were translated.  Finally, we boarded a bus back to Prague.  Overall, our tour of the deportation camp was overwhelming, but valuable.  It is extremely difficult to fathom the extent of the atrocities of the Holocaust, especially when all of your knowledge comes from textbooks, non-fiction and lecturing.  By actually going to a purgatory for Jewish victims, my mom and I were able to share in their memory and we found solace in our people's ability to overcome adversity and succeed in the modern world.

We arrived back in Prague in the late afternoon and went to another beer hall for cabbage, beer, potato pancakes, fried cheese and some more greasy Czech foods.  After lunch, we went back to the hotel where we decided to end the day on a high note.  My mom treated me to my first ever professional massage and I was pampered like a prince.  Our last night in Prague ended at a cute restaurant and bar called Carmelita, where we enjoyed a tomato and mozzarella salad, an oil and garlic spaghetti dish and some Merlot.


DAY FIVE

My mom and I catch a gust of wind on the Charles Bridge.

My mom's flight left several hours before mine, but, in her last kind act of maternal love, she was able to secure late check-out and a room service breakfast for me.  I scarfed down some eggs and a couple of pastries and jetted back to Seville.