Miluju Praha

After a bus ride full of Tylenol PM, sleeping, snacks, and passport checks, we were in Prague. At 5:45 in the morning, but at least we made it. Luckily for us, the ticket office for Eurolines opened bright and early at 6:30 AM, so we hung around, got our tickets with no problems, and were then off to find our hostel. Once we found it, the lovely people at the hostel let us grab some coffee and tea, take a shower, and then enjoy some free breakfast. Honestly, that shower may have been one of the greatest things of my life. We were then ready to go, showered, fed, and well-slept. We were off towards the Old Town Square, where we would meet up with the free walking tour at 11. We wondered around the streets, stopping in some shops until we made it to the square. Old Town Square, as we were informed during our tour, is always filled with some sort of festival, whether it be for Easter, Christmas, or just because they wanted to have a festival. It was lovely, filled with booths full of delicious foods and neat merchandise, with the Town Hall on one side and two massive churches on the others.

We then began our tour, with our hilarious tour guide, Michael. He first took us to the infamous astrological clock, which has a range of crazy moving parts. Not only does it tell regular time, but it informs you of the astrological time, the day of the year, the season, and the phase of the moon. On the hour, the little figures move a bit, but we always missed the supposedly underwhelming experience by a few minutes. However, we did frequently catch the trumpeter who announces to the town on the hour the changing of the hour from the top of the tower.

We were then off the National Theatre, an incredibly famous theatre where Mozart performed one of his operas and received and amazing response. He said it was “the best day of his life.” We then moved on to the Wenceslas square, where there were more stands and booths set up. There, we also learned a bit more about the Communist rule in the city after the Nazis were ran out of the town. I found it interesting to hear about the time when Prague was under rule of the Nazis and Communists, because it’s a country often forgotten as facing major hardships during that time. Our guide was also very passionate about the topic, which made if even more interesting to learn about.

We then made our way to Powder gate and the Municipal House. Powder gate is one of two gates that still remain from the old town wall that used to surround the entire city. The Municipal House was paid for by the people, and is also where Vin Diesel sat during the movie XXX (I’ve never seen it, but I figured maybe someone would be interested). Across the street was a theatre called Divadlo Hybernia. It was then down to the House of the Black Madonna, an example of Cubism Architecture. Attached to one corner is the Black Madonna, of which the house is named. A long time ago, most of the population was illiterate, so street signs were far from helpful to them. Instead, one would put a symbol on their house in order to give someone an idea of where they lived.

We wound around a few more smaller streets, as it seems all of the streets could barely fit one car (though I honestly rarely saw cars) until we found ourselves at St. James’ Church. The story goes that one night a thief was walking by the church and saw the doors wide open. He went inside to steal the Virgin Mary’s gold necklace. As he did so, she came to life, grabbed his hand, and then froze again. The thief pulled and twisted and turned, but he could not get his arm from her grip. A while later, a priest walks by and asks the thief what he is doing. The thief explains and crying that he repents, asking the priest to help him by cutting the arm off. The priest beliefs him and runs down to the butcher shop to get a knife. The thief explains that he doesn’t want his arm to be cut off, but for the Virgin Mary’s to be chopped off. The priest then replies that if the Virgin did that to the thief for stealing the necklace, he can’t imagine what’d she’d do if he chopped her arm off. So off went the thief’s hand, and instantly the Virgin awoke and rearranged herself to her original position. The thief was sorry and spent the rest of his life as the caretaker of the church. His arm was embalmed by the priest and hung in the church, where it still hangs today. It was rather disgusting to see, actually, but I find the story rather marvelous.

We then headed to the Jewish Neighborhood, called Josefov, met, first, by Franz Kafka. We saw three synagogues there, there first of which I can’t remember the name. The second was the New Old Synagogue, which, allegedly, was built on a foundation of stones from the original temple in Jerusalem. We then made a stop at the Jewish cemetery, which was rather interesting. Because, in the Jewish faith, you are only allowed to bury in the ground, when the cemetery filled up and the people were denied more land, they were forced to pile more earth on top of the already existing graves and bury atop the dead. This happened many times, causing, at some points, the graves to be ten people deep. In addition, the tombstones are stacked one after the other and tend to lean in various directions. The last synagogue we saw was the Pink Synagogue, which is no longer used for services, but has been turned into a memorial for those who died and were affected by the Holocaust. Our guide informed us that one portion is filled with drawings from children held in a nearby camp who, taught by a famous Czech artist, drew pictures of things they feared and things that made them happy. The drawings of fear were destroyed by them and the happy ones kept close to remind them of the good in life. These are the drawings hung up in the museum.

Our last stop on the tour was the Rudolfinum, where many performances, mostly of classical music, are held. The building also holds more significance, because it is one of the reasons the citizens of Prague were able to free themselves from Nazi rule. Once they had heard of the defeat of Hitler, the citizens began to form a resistance plan. They ran the Nazis into the basement of this building, where they were trapped for a long while. Eventually, both sides began to dwindle on supplies, and the resistance seemed as if it were about to lose. They had heard word that the Americans were close, but when they contacted them for help, the US could not come, for the line they had drawn separating where the Americans and Soviets would liberate towns was in between Prague and the city in which the Americans currently stood. However, a few traitors of Stalin fighting with the Nazis did not want to get caught by the Soviets, so they again became traitors and began firing on their fellow soldiers. This allowed the resistance to pick up momentum, and the city was liberated by the people before the Soviets could get there.

From there our tour ended, and we headed back to our favorite spot, Old Town Square, to grab a bite to eat. I got this mix of potatoes, cabbage, and bacon, while the boys just got giants slabs of ham. In addition, we each tried Trdelnik, a traditional and delicious pastry (I’ve had a bad influence on the group with my continual pastry eating). It was the off to Charles Bridge, Prague’s most famous bridge. There lies the other remaining city gate. The bridge is lined with beautiful statues on either side. Below these statues are tons of local dealers selling artwork and jewelry and various musicians playing. A few of the statues, people were rubbing parts of it, but we weren’t quite sure why they were doing this.

We then began the trek up the hill to castle. Somehow we found ourselves right on time for the changing of the guards. It was not as elaborate as others I have seen, but it is still interesting to see how different cultures go about similar activities. Now, this castle is not a castle in the British form of the word. It was more like a small community with a giant Cathedral in the middle. The castle is now mostly used as government buildings, but the Cathedral is still in use. Outside of its amazing stained glass windows, the Cathedral was ok, but then again, I have ones like the Sagrada Familia and St. Peter’s Basilica to compare it to. The best part of the castle was definitely it’s amazing view. You could, rather clearly, see most of the city, which was pretty cool. There also seemed to be an abundance of newlyweds taking pictures on the castle grounds.

As the sun began to set, we headed back towards town to grab some dinner. We went to a lovely restaurant in Old Town Square (surprise, surprise) where I tried some Czech wine, traditional Czech roast beef and potato dumplings, and a plum roll for dessert. There was a small concert going on in the square, so we sat outside so we could listen and enjoy the spectacular colors filling the sky as the sun was setting. That night we went on a pub crawl, where we went to four different bars and clubs. We met and hung out with kids our age from London, Berlin, Brazil, and Denmark, which was pretty cool.

The next morning we woke up, got some breakfast, and after working through some fun problems with my bank, we headed into town, first making yet another stop in Old Town Square. This time we hit up the shops to buy some souvenirs and gifts. We also got some cheap lunch. It was then off to see the John Lennon Wall. On the way there, we wondered through a park, which just made us all wish it was summer. We made it to the John Lennon Wall, which is a wall where anyone and everyone has the right to right, draw, paint, graffiti or hang whatever they want to express themselves. It was created after the Communist rule to help encourage people to say or show what they felt about certain things. I thought it was absolutely amazing. After taking way too many pictures of the different graffiti and artwork, we each signed our names and I wrote a quote from Ferris Bueller’s day off (yea, it was necessary). We topped it all off with a little Rockchalk KU!

We then made our way to the Fred and Ginger Dancing building, an unusual modern building in Prague. Due to limited time, we couldn’t spend too much time looking at it before we had to head back to the hostel to grab our stuff. We then sadly said goodbye to Santiago, who headed back to Leeds, and hopped on our bus to Berlin.

Obsessed with Prague’s Old Town Square,
Jessica

Land of Gaudi

At 7 am, all bright and early, we arrived in Barcelona. We threw our things into a locker and decided to just roam around the city a bit since we had some time to kill until the Eurolines office opened. We found ourselves at a rather nice park, which began with an arch called Arc de Triomf. Despite the overcast weather, the park was lovely. There was a gorgeous fountain, though it wasn’t turned on. Finally the office opened, we got our tickets to Prague with no problems (FINALLY), and were off to find our hostel to dump our stuff and explore. Our first day we decided to invest in a metro day pass so we could see everything that was a bit farther away. We started at the Park Guell, which was designed by Barcelona’s most famous architect, Gaudi. It was a pretty interesting to see a park that was designed by someone who thinks in such a unique way as Gaudi. The park is on the north end of the city and sits on the side of hill, so the farther up you venture, the better view of the whole city you have. At the entrance, there’s a staircase that has some statues and other smaller buildings, but there were so many crowded into this area that we just kind of breezed by it. Under this giant walkway are a series of tons of columns with decorations covering the ceiling. Interestingly enough, all of the outside columns actually leaned out. Most of the park was a series of pathways that lead to various different types of terraces and lookouts that all reflected the same idea, but all had their own individuality. Eventually we made our way to the top of the park, where we could see the entire city. It was awesome. There were also various different musicians playing throughout, some of whom were incredibly talented. After we’d had our fill, It was back down the hill and onto the metro to the next stop.

Next up, by the far the highlight of Barcelona in my eyes, was the Sagrada Familia. Even with all the hype I had heard of the massive cathedral, I still found it absolutely inspiring and marvelous. The building is still going on, and has been since the 1890s. Honestly, though, when you see how massive it is and how much more needs to be constructed, you really cannot blame the ongoing work. We first did a full circle of the entire building. Right now, just the two side facades are complete, while the main one is completely covered as they are working on it. Each façade depicts different important series of events from the Bible. We then entered from the side depicting the crucification of Jesus. In front of the church they have a small model in which they show what has already been built and what still needs to be constructed. It was kind of insane to see just how more massive the cathedral will be when completed.

Finally we walked through the giant bronze doors and into one of the craziest spaces I’ve ever stood in. It’s actually incredibly difficult for me to attempt explain the inside of this church. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were typical elements of a church, the cross floor plan, incredibly vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, domes, but these all took everything you were familiar with and twisted them into this new world. Maybe it’s just because I’m an architectural engineering major and buildings completely fascinate m e, but we literally spent hours in that church and I just kept finding new and different elements that completely threw me for a loop. The church wasn’t incredibly colorful itself. Simple colors were used, with only the details containing those colors, but all of the stained glass windows held the brightest, vivid colors that just lit up the blank slate they were cast upon. Not all of the windows held their true colors, yet, so I can only imagine what it will look like when it finally complete. As I said, all of the stone possessed simple, somewhat bland colors, but they were all carved in ridiculous ways. For example, the staircases on either side of the alter (literally the most amazing stairs I’ve ever seen in my life) had the most beautiful circular detail carved into them. Structurally, the most amazing thing about the church would have to be the way the columns support the weight of the roof above it. These columns are not like any other column in the world…literally. To start off, Gaudi literally invented his own column (I will save those non-arches from the details, but if you’re interesting, I highly recommend you look it up). On top of having this crazy new column base, he designed the columns to split apart and lean in various different directions. From what I read, this method actually allowed the more weight to be supported and for the weight to be better supported. I could probably go on for days about this marvelous structure and still never really give a good idea as to what it really is like to be inside of it, truly experiencing the space. I do know one thing, I made a vow that before I die I will go back and see the complete Sagrada Familia. It was that remarkable.

After marveling for hours, we were hungry. It was off to find some paella. Unfortunately, we had some trouble finding a really authentic place, but we had it. I got one with scampi (basically giant shrimps), oysters, and calamari in mine. It was quite scrumptious. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel so we could rest for the next day of awesomeness.

The next day was our conquer-the-entire-city-of-Barcelona-in-one-day day. We started by headed south of our hostel towards the Parc de Montjuic, where we saw the Placa d’Espanya, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalynya, the Pablo Espanyol, the Torre de Calatrava, the Arnella Olimpica, the Estadi Olimpic de Montjuic and the Castell de Montjuic. We just kind of roamed around the park that morning, running into all of the things to look at. When we got to the Olympic park, where they held the Olympics during the 1990s, we were allowed to go into one of the stadiums. Turn out there is an American Football team that plays there, the Barcelona Dragons. We then headed up a giant hill to see the Castell. Although the castle itself was rather lame, the view was rather nice, as you could see the the city again.

After the park, we went to meet up with one of Santiago’s friends who is studying in Barcelona for the year. We went to meet her at the statue of Christopher Columbus (though that is not his real name). She then took us along the port and up to the beach, where we grabbed some food from this good wok place. The waves in Barcelona were much larger than any of the other coasts we had visited. There were even some surfers trying to catch a wave or two. We then roamed back into the city and walked down Las Rambles, Barcelona’s most famous street. Down this street, there are loads of stands and shops with people selling things ranging from flowers, food, souvenirs, and pieces of artwork. During the entire walk down the street, though, my bag was practically glued to my body, as the street is also incredibly famous for pickpockets.

After our tour down the street, we headed to two more Gaudi buildings. On the way, we walked past the Obama bar, where you can sit down and have a beer and picture with Barack Obama. We made it to the first of the two on one street, called Casa Batllo. It kind of looked like something out of Candyland. It was far too expensive to get in, but the pictures on the stand outside made it seem remarkable. We then headed down the block to Gaudi’s other building, “la Pedrera” Espal Gaudi. This one if far larger, and far less detailed, in my opinion. In this one, though, you could peek through the front doors and see the front lobby, which looked pretty crazy, as well. Overall, when it comes to Gaudi, I appreciate his style and think it is unique and intriguing, but I know I would never design anything that looked a thing like his stuff.

We then headed back to the hostel to get ready to go out on the town. Santiago’s friend had given us the name of a good place to go on a Monday night. It was expensive to get in, and just about anything else, but its just part of going to Barcelona, going out. The club played music for just about any type of music lover, which was awesome. Again, the music was mostly American, except now probably about half of the people didn’t even understand what they were listening, or even singing, to, which was hard to grasp. But it was a fun night.

The next morning, we got up and did the fun, old laundry, to make sure we all had non-smelly clothes for the rest of the trip. After all of that was sorted, we had a fun visit to Vodafone where, after about an hour of waiting and attempting to get the phone voucher to work, Quinn left with his phone still having practically no money left on it. With only a little time left in the day, we went to the station to drop our stuff off. We headed to the beach, walked by it for a bit, then found a cool place next to the port to grab some lunch and a drink. I tried sangria, which was just ok, honestly, and a delicious smoked sausage and cheese sandwich. As we were walking back towards the beach, we saw the sun setting behind the city, which was beautiful.

After it was completely dark, we walked over to the Torre AGBAR, a large skyscraper that they actually light up at night in a variety of colors. From far away, it looks pretty cool, but up close it is even neater. The façade is made of this corrugated metal which has small glass panels placed atop it, causing the light to reflect in different ways. 

Finally it was time to head back to the bus station to board our super exciting 30 hour bus ride. Honestly, though, with the help of some awesome Tylenol PM, the bus ride wasn’t too bad. I got a lot of sleep and got to see some beautiful countryside. There was an slightly scary moment on the Swiss border when they made get off the bus to go through his stuff (silly Mexicans). He was fine, but there were two guys on our bus who didn’t get to continue on the journey. We made it to Prague feeling good, not groggy or tired. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad of a deal.

Your Gauidan Barcelona Expert,

Jessica