Prague, Czech Republic, Europe

I didn’t get much sleep on the bus last night, maybe an hour or two. I was so impressed with the tv system they had that I didn’t want to go to sleep. I don’t usually have my own tv like that at hostels so I wanted to take advantage of it while I could. We pulled in to Prague’s main train station at 6am, and I was happy to see that I had another nice weather day. I walked about a mile to find my hostel for tonight and dropped off my bags. I was in and out by 6:45am, which felt really strange. I am usually still in bed until at least 8:30am, so to be on the street at 6:45am was bizarre. Nothing was open. I wasn’t even sure what I could do at that ungodly hour.

I found a viewing point on top of a hill not too far from my place, so I walked up there to find out that the view wasn’t all that good from there anyway. I did get to see the TV tower though, which is really cool looking. It is a weird shaped tower, but the weirdest thing is that there are a bunch of statues built onto the building that looks like people crawling on the building. It’s pretty cool looking. I went into the city center and found a little cafe that was open for breakfast and grabbed a bite to eat.

The one place I really wanted to visit today was the Bone Church in Kutna Hora, about an hour outside of Prague. I went online to find out what time it was open and what trains I needed to get and the timing worked out perfectly. I got to the train station, bought my return ticket, and only had to wait about ten minutes for the train. I got on and a Spanish family (father, mother and daughter) sat next to me. I ended up chatting with them for the hour ride to Kutna Hora and ran into them a few times during the day in the town as well. The father (Juan) gave me his business card and said that I can visit them in Pamplona when I’m in Spain at the end of this month, so that was really nice.

I checked out a few different sites in the city including the Sedlec Ossuary (Bone Church), Cathedral of Assumption, and Cathedral of St. Barbara. As expected the Bone Church was by far the most impressive of anything I saw today. It was a normal church with a graveyard, when about five hundred years ago so dirt from Palestine was spread at the graveyard so everyone wanted to be buried in this holy ground. So many people were buried there that they ended up having to dig up the bones of 40,000 people and keep them in the church, or Ossuary, to make room for new people to be buried. The men in the church decided to build the bones into pyramids and make designs like a coat of arms and a chandelier. It is incredible. Ossuaries are not allowed any more for health reasons, so this might be one of the only ones I ever get to see, and it was very impressive.

I went to the Cathedral of the Assumption only because it is the oldest cathedral in middle Europe (founded in 1142), but it wasn’t very impressive to see. I spent a little bit of time there and then went into the old town. I walked around the city for a bit and checked out the Cathedral of St. Barbara, but again, it wasn’t that impressive. The outside of the building was pretty nice looking, but the inside was forgettable. I think that’s one of the problems with travelling so much and seeing so many things, my standards are really high now.

In the early afternoon I headed back to Prague and checked in to my hostel and took a rest for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fall asleep, but the rest felt good anyway. I went into the city tonight and had dinner at my 37th Hard Rock Cafe, and it was an excellent meal. My waiter found out that I visit all these HRC’s when I’m travelling so he got me a free HRC luggage tag for my backpack. I thought that was a pretty cool move.

I walked around the city for a bit after dinner and then the tiredness really hit me. I came back to the hostel around 10pm and I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow I have half the day in Prague, and then catch a bus up to Dresden. Fingers crossed for good weather again!