Prague, Part Deux

I realized that besides the Sedlec Ossuary, I forgot a bunch of other things from our time in Prague, in my haste to get a post up. (Silly blogger.) For one, I forgot about the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle, which are basically what all tourists come to Prague to see!

View of the Charles bridge from the side

Prague Castle in the distance

The bridge is amazing, not only for all of the statues depicting saints along the way, but because it’s been around for over 600 years! It’s also PACKED with people during the day, and it definitely took awhile for us to get across, due to both the crowds and the buskers/vendors taking up room on the sides!

Once you FINALLY get across, and walk up the LONG ASS STAIRS to the top of the hill, you’re greeted by some beautiful architecture.

Beautiful

We also spent time at the Prague Jewish Museum – I had no idea that the city used to have one of the highest population of Jews before WWII. They had walls inside one of the synagogues inscribed with all of the names of the Jews from Prague who during the war, and it went on FOREVER. I mean, walls and walls and walls of names, cities and dates. (Sadly I couldn’t take any pictures.) Then we went to the Old Jewish Cemetery, which to me, was breathtaking.

I always feel that cemeteries are a very peaceful place, and when they have history like this behind it, it’s such a sacred placed to be in. I could have spent hours there just walking around the densely packed space. (That’s probably weird… oh well!)

Dave and I also took a boat out onto the Charles! We wanted to get a paddle boat, but the wait was half an hour and I’m impatient. So we took a row boat:

As you can see, I made Dave row most of the time (I tried for like 5 minutes). He wishes we would have waited for the paddle boat. 🙂 Besides the great views, and playing with the local ducks, we also got a look at the kick ass “Dancing House” along the waterfront, which is a Frank Gehry building (in part with a Czech architect as well).

Aptly dubbed b/c it looks like a pair of dancers, and was named with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in mind.
Wow this is becoming a long post! If you’re still reading, then yay! Cause now you can see the CREEPY Sedlec Ossuary!!

Seemingly okay from the outside, yes?
First of all, credit is due to Ashalah, because if she hadn’t visited the Ossuary during her solo trip to Europe, and then blogged about it, there’s no way I would have randomly decided to get on a train an hour outside of the city to see this place. IT WAS SO WORTH IT. (Thanks hun!)

The basic story (per Lonely Planet) is that the Schwarzenberg family purchased the monastery in 1870, and they allowed the local woodcarver to get creative with all of the bones that had been piled in the crypt. And we’re talking BONES. Bones of about 40,000 people to be exact. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

Part of the Schwarzenberg family crest

There was seriously so much more, but feel free to peruse the rest of the pictures in the Flickr set to see them. (SO MANY BONES!) If you’re ever in Prague, trust me, take the train ride out to Kutná Hora to see this. You won’t find anything else like it.

Next up – Berlin!!