Day Eleven: We Paid for That?!

Holy crap, no one move: we woke up this morning, and no one had stolen any of our food!  I was flying, angels were crying, and pigs were singing or something like that.

Anyway, so like in in Budapest, we dedicated a whole day to the exploration of Castle Hill and all it had to offer, and with good reason: a lot of old-timey stuff sat within the old walls of the castle, like St. Vitus’s Cathedral, Golden Lane, the castle. . . . So I walked clear across town again (Verity, still dealing with toe problems, took a similarly-complicated public transportation path as yesterday), across a way calmer Charles Bridge (I almost liked it!), and met up with Verity again outside of the church that closed on us our first day in Prague.  After a quick standing-on-the-street-corner-with-a-giant-map tourists’ interlude, we found the path up to the castle and began climbing stairs.

Just looking at them makes me tired again.

Cue the Lamb Chop theme song, because that flight of stairs seemed like it was never going to end.  However, I am the Stairmaster, and when we finally huffed and puffed our way to the top, we leaned against a wall while a street “performer” played random notes on a violin that were probably supposed to be romantic, and we overlooked the city.

Oh wow.

Sigh.

Even though Prague Castle Hill is lower in elevation that neighboring Petrín Hill, the view from where we stood wasn’t even in the same ballpark.  Maybe it was because the weather was absolutely beautiful, and it definitely wasn’t cold and rainy, but the surrounding landscape popped.  Unlike both Vienna’s and Budapest’s castles, the only other central European palaces with which I can compare Prague Castle Hill and of course the castle itself, this one seems relatively well integrated into the surrounding area.  It’s like the buildings around the hill feel like they can sidle up to the castle, like the royal residence itself is approachable, and so everyone gets along very nicely: an entirely different aura than most other capital city castles I’ve seen.

But maybe that has to do with the castle’s history.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world at an average diameter of 420 feet and a total surface area of 18 acres and dating from the 9^th century when, granted things were a lot more squished to protect from attack. It’s been neglected, sacked, sieged, burned, and reconstructed numerous times since, as the various architectural styles of the buildings inside the castle walls can attest.

We snapped pictures of the guards outside the Czech president’s building before passing underneath and heading to the more historically preserved part of Castle Hill.  St. Vitus’s Cathedral sprang up out of nowhere: no grand courtyard in front, no winding road, nothing to allow sufficient space for the cathedral’s ego to breathe a bit.  Just bam: cathedral!  The original St. Vitus was constructed on this site in 925, but this is version numero three, built in the 14^th century, and it honestly hasn’t changed much since.  Before entering, we paused just to make sure we didn’t have to pay.  We saw a sign advertising that if you wanted to truly visit most anything on Castle Hill, you had to select from a kind of buffet menu of three, five, or all the sites within the castle walls, but all we wanted to do was see everything, so we didn’t buy tickets and entered into the free part of the cathedral.

Czech guards.

St. Vitus's Cathedral.

 

The interior reminded me of Stephansdom Cathedral in Vienna, although less crowded and less on acid.

Yep, we're herded cows.

Very cathedral-like.

They herded us poor, non-payers into a roped off area right next to the door, barring the vast majority of stained glass windows from us as well as the organ — which of course made me think it was absolutely fantastic, but every time I felt tempted to buy a ticket, I reminded myself that it was just a cathedral, and if I hadn’t been told that I absolutely had to see St. Vitus’s organ, I could skip it.  But I couldn’t leave without a little learning, so when I overheard a guide speaking in English, I pretended to scroll through my pictures while I listened in like a creeper.

Apparently there are extremely narrow walkways just below the upper windows used originally by either the priests or royal family, I couldn’t quite hear.  The cathedral used to allow tours up there, but since the passages are so narrow, and people today are so not, they’ve stopped that practice.

We walked around the outside, having yet another conversation about old buildings looking clean instead of brand-spanking new, before wandering past St. George’s Chapel (entry fee required), the main part of the old castle (entry fee!  It’s a museum now, so I understand), and down some traditionally winding streets before finally finding Verity’s main goal on Castle Hill: Golden Lane.

The right kind of clean!

As a tourist attraction, on paper, Golden Lane sounds perfect: a bit of old town Prague charm filled with tiny houses and shops and vomit-inducing cuteness.  Again, sounds great in a book.  Until you get to the entry to Golden Lane and they charge an entry fee to walk on the street.

Hmm.  Okay.  The books made it seem that Golden Lane would be worth a tiny price, so we investigated at the nearest ticket agent, wanting to know if we could buy a ticket just for Golden Lane and skip the tourists’ buffet.  But no, we had to go for the buffet; entrée only wasn’t an option.

If you can taste my bitterness, then you’re a fraction of the way there.

So.  Okay.  We bought buffet tickets that included entry into not only Golden Lane but also the rest of St. Vitus’s Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica, Old Prague Castle Museum, and another site that we had no interest in seeing, and so I immediately forgot about it.  What increased my bitterness exponentially was being cut off at the gate to Golden Lane by a ginormous group of Asian tourists, so to say that Golden Lane and I did not get off on the right foot would not be so much the right idea as a veritable understatement.

The lane is cute: tiny houses with low ceilings and displays depicting the Way Life Used to Be with artifacts and plaques saying what each house’s function was.  Number 22 was Franz Kafka’s 2439834^th house in Prague, but we couldn’t really get near it because of the Asian tourists.  However, none of them are original: they had been destroyed at one point and only reconstructed when the city realized that they could make a ton of money by commercializing the idyllic little lane.  After a while, the cuteness stops being cute and starts being cloying, especially when the educational displays morph into shops that sell overpriced souvenirs.  In accordance with that morph, my bitterness increased.  We paid to see a row of stores where you buy things?  Who the hell thinks up this stuff?  And why weren’t any of the guide books honest that the “small entrance fee” 1) wasn’t that small; 2) wasn’t just for the lane; and 3) entirely wasn’t worth it?

Kafka's house!

Golden Lane. I won't say anything else, 'cause I'm still bitter.

By the time we walked out of the lane, we were openly mocking every display, including the dungeon at the foot of the lane and under the castle, which looks like a slightly more atmospheric Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments Lite.  More praying than hoping that the rest of our paid visits would be worth our money, we soldiered on to St. George’s Basilica.

Which I’m sure would have been entirely delightful if it had told me anything about itself.  At the time, I only learned that it costs 50 CZK/€2/$2.70 to take pictures in each of the chapel and the castle.  After the fact, I learned that it was originally built in 920, was reconstructed 1142, and is the oldest surviving church on the castle hill.  Also, the interior and exterior don’t match.  A cheery bright coral in color with yellowish trim, the exterior looks like it belongs more to a Baroque manor house than a medieval monastery (it was added in the 17^th century, so not far off), and the inside, well, looks like it should, complete with crypt and a chapel added in only the 19^th century.

Needless to say, I took me some clandestine pictures.  So sue me, Interpol: this Prague Castle Ticket was a rip-off.

The outside of St. George's Basilica.

Inside of the basilica. Come and get me, Interpol.

Old Prague Castle Museum was vastly more interesting than anything we’d seen so far, though that admittedly wasn’t hard to accomplish.  As aforementioned, though the original castle was burnt, reconstructed, looted, reconstructed, fell out of use, and reconstructed again (the last time during the reign of Maria Theresa in the last half of the 18^th century), the information on each room actually existed.  The plaques were informative, even if all we could see were empty rooms and plastic copies of the Czech crown jewels.  Vladislav Hall or the Great Hall was impressive, a gaping, cavernous room with vaulted ceilings and echoes of slippered feet and horse hooves lingering in the corners.  I could see a royal family holding court in that room, foreign dignitaries with their bustling entourages filling the space with vibrancy and color and light.

Throne room. And the no pictures sign. I'm so freaking French.

Vladislav Hall.

(See how I didn’t mention the fact that we could only visit half of the castle museum?  Or that we tried the half we couldn’t visit first?  Whoops.  Just did.)

By this point, we were laughing to keep from crying again, letting the bitterness flow in the form of muttered sarcastic jokes instead of letting it stew.  As a last ditch effort to save the morning, we tried the paid part of St. Vitus’s Cathedral, and I felt like a VIP when I showed my ticket at the barrier and got to be one of those people I stared at earlier.

The organ was ordinarily impressive, hidden in one of the side naves, the frescoes around the altar and side chapels entirely adequate.  Turning the corner around the choir, we came upon the 19^th century tomb/mausoleum of St. John of Nepomuk, which seemed out of place in both location and decoration, but it sparkled with the reverent elegance due to the region’s patron saint.  St. John of Nepomuk was thrown off Charles Bridge into the Vltava because he wouldn’t betray secrets told to him in confession, and apparently he’s reached cult status in Central and Eastern Europe, and he’s a protector from floods.  And then the crypt was closed for “reconstruction reasons.”  Awesome.

The organ. Eh, kinda worth it.

St. John of Nepomuk is in there!

In conclusion, about Prague Castle Hill, see what you can see for free, because it’s pretty enough, and you can see enough to get an impression; to pay 250 CZK/€10/$13 for the rest is a rip-off of massive proportions.  Unless it’s your last day, and you have some Czech crowns to throw around and don’t want a Prague key chain.

For lunch, we sought out a restaurant we had heard about our first day in Prague called Bohemian Bagel which, surprisingly, sells bagels sandwiches and breakfast all day!  As walking and bitterness makes a girl hungry, we both ordered a bagel sandwich and goulash soup — the latter to assuage any guilt over eating non-local food — and I amused myself by eavesdropping on the couple next to us.  They were both Americans in the Prague area teaching English, and they sounded like they were in it for the long haul, notably because they were talking of buying a car.  Coming from a person who definitely doesn’t drive stick on a continent where it’s the norm, that’s huge.  But the fact that nearly every conversation I overheard in that restaurant was in English made me think.

I really enjoy teaching English to my French students, even if I want to drop-kick them out the window sometimes, but I’d never before truly seen myself as a teacher or even settling myself into a teacher-like role for a prolonged amount of time.  However, being a TEFL-certified teacher, doing contract jobs around the non-English speaking world . . . There are times when I think I could tackle that job, when I could be that adventurous, that daring, that self-assured that I could go wherever the wind blows until I find a place to settle (France) and set down roots or get too homesick and move back to the States.

Then I remember that I need my friends/family or other people who care about me, that I need a little sensation of roots gripping the soil beneath my feet in order to feel comfortable.  I need to feel a sense of at least semi-permanence, of stability in order to feel happy and at ease.

But it’s still a possibility.  Pourquoi pas?  Why not, right?

Anyway, after a prolonged lunch, we realized we had seen everything on our lists — once again in less time than we’d budgeted — and searched for something to fill our afternoon and tomorrow until our train to Bratislava.  Rod the Receptionist had suggested a day trip to Kutna Hora, a nearby suburb that featured a church made entirely of bones.

Sweet.

So we found the nearest tourist office and asked if making the trip in a half day either today or tomorrow would be feasible.

Shot.  Down.  Apparently it takes almost three hours just to get there whether one takes public transportation or the guided tour, and we didn’t think a six-hour round trip was worth it if we were only going to blitz the bone church.  Disappointed, but glad we had asked instead of diving in head first, we exited the office of tourism and tried to figure out what else we could do with our time.

One of my maps had top 10 lists of attractions, museums, and things to do on a rainy day, plus it highlights sites of interest on the map itself.  There were a couple of sights left to see on Castle Hill itself, and as we were already there, we thought why not do what we originally planned on doing and spend the whole day on Castle Hill!

While wandering up an incline in search of the Loreto, a church with pretty bells that was supposedly also pretty inside, we came upon a tourist’s overlook of the city.  Although I liked Prague well enough before that moment, I hadn’t truly understood why everyone raved about it.  Budapest, to me, seemed like a friendlier, homier place even if Prague was verifiably livelier and more vibrant.  I liked (and still do, I think) the sound of the Hungarian language better, but with a view of Prague like this . . . Okay, Prague had me hooked.  Red roofs winking in the warm(ing) late winter sun, patches of green resiliently trying to break through, and fluffy pillow clouds all combined to show Prague at its best — and not its tourist trap worst.  I suppose all big cities have their tourist traps, but usually when you waltz into one, you still enjoy the experience even though your wallet might not.  Here, on the side of the road, standing on a bench next to a stone wall, I did enjoy the experience, and I let my bitterness go.

So pretty.

Until I learned 1) we had to pay to get into the Loreto (no thank you!), and 2) our search for the Monument of Victims of Police Torture turned out to be a giant failboat.  Oh well.  Apparently we were close to the Old Castle Stairs and the castle gardens, and so Verity led us on a search that actually bore fruit.  While we couldn’t enter the castle gardens (“I bet they’re real pretty in the summer”), we did see the Belvedere and the gardens behind that building, and so we wandered those and decided to use them as a lookout point, surveying for the heretofore unfindable stairs.

Loreto.

Best idea all day.  Contrary to Rod the Receptionist’s statement that the best view of Charles Bridge came from the park next to it, and the best view of Prague came from Petrín Hill, I firmly believe the park next to/behind the Belvedere is light years better than both of them.  With locals walking both their dogs and babies through the park on their leashes (yes, you read that correctly), and an unfettered aerial view of all the major tourist attractions, you get the best of both worlds without the claustrophobia-inducing crowds.  Verity and I were so enthralled that we spent almost two hours in the park, just looking down at the city and talking.

View fom the hill.

View of Charles Bridge from the hill. So much better than the other park.

Gorgeous park.

The only problem: getting back down.  We must have tried at least four different ways to get down from the hill as well as find those damn Old Castle Stairs.  Instead, we found a building that we had seen from the Jewish Quarter yesterday and dubbed Shiny Thing; it was actually a pavilion built for the 1871 Jubilee that was moved to its current location and turned into a ridiculously expensive restaurant.  Entirely happy with our accidental find, we still wanted to find our way off of Castle Hill and to those stairs before darkness fell.

Shiny Thing/Jubilee Pavilion

View from the pavilion.

Of course, we found both on accident.  A corn on the cob/waffle stand, around a corner, and BAM: massive flight of stairs!  We took a billionth look at the map; Old Castle Stairs!  The New Castle Stairs must have been the ones we used to get up to the castle.  Interesting.

Old Castle Stairs.

We snapped pictures, meandered back across the river towards Old Town, gathered sustenance, and stopped off for more hot drinks in the same café by the astronomical clock while waiting for a socially acceptable hour to eat.  No bar again.  Man, we’re getting old in our young age.  But tomorrow will be our last day in Prague, and we want to really clear out our lists while we have the chance, and that requires sleep.  Or so I keep telling myself.

I asked the receptionist (a female this time) about morning tours tomorrow, and she raised her eyebrows in disbelief.  “There are not many cheap tours in the morning,” she said after rattling off information that was on the posters around the hostel.  “They expect backpackers to get drunk and sleep all morning.”

Awesome.  Way to paint us all with the same brush, guys.  Because absolutely zero backpackers travel just to travel, see the sights and cultures.  All of us want to get wasted and spend the day in the hostel sleeping and the night in a bar and/or club.  Yup.  That’s me.

But she told me about a free tour with a local guide that came in two parts — both morning and afternoon — that broke for lunch, and I could split off from the group then.  Perfect.  My plans for tomorrow are set.

Bonus: when we returned that night, the Argentinian boys had left the Nutella.  That means they really did want me to keep it!  Yay: Jewish Nutella!