Day 5: Prague

If I could explain how I feel right now as I am typing this out at our hotel, I would say I am exhausted; in a good way. Let me just say that we walked 26,000 steps and 10 miles today! Yay. During our first and only full day in Prague, we basically walked through the entire main part of the city and tried to explore as much as we could. First, we traversed through the Prague castle with a very nice tour guide who told us all about the history of the castle and the St. Vitus Cathedral, which was massive and very beautiful. We learned many interesting things from her, such as since so many people visit the cathedral now, they stopped having weddings there, and also she taught us a quirky trick to remember the date of the St. Charles bridge, which was to count all the odd numbers before 10, so 1-3-5-7-9, which is the exact date it was built, so the bridge was built in 1357, on the 9th of July at 5:31 (You basically go up and then back down the list of numbers). After the fun tour of the castle and the bridge, we traversed back to the main square when we got some free time to eat lunch, in which most people ate some traditional Czech food and enjoyed the churro ice cream they have called trdelník. We then walked around some more exploring the Jewish memorials and history around Prague, which was a very eye opening experience as we learned a lot about the history of the Jewish population in the country, as we went to many of the synagogues; including the oldest synagogue in Europe which was built in the 14th century and has been standing ever since, as Prague was the only capital city in Europe to not get bombed in World War II. We also saw many cool statues as well, like the one of Sigmund Freud hanging off a pole above the street. We then saw a memorial about a Czech student, Jan Palach, who lit himself on fire and passed away to protest the Soviets, which was also very interesting to hear the story about. Finally, we ended our day with a nice trip to a kids playground where we all had fun going through the obstacles and sliding down the slides, which was really fun and a nice end to the day. Thank you all for reading my part of the blog post.  

Over and out,
- Kenny

I Prague one of the most unique, beautiful cities in the world. It was the only capital in Europe that wasn’t destroyed in WWII. I took hundreds of photos of the architecture; which included the Prague Castle, the city center, etc. The incredible amount of detail in each of the shops and cathedrals was astonishing and very different than our modern architecture. It was incredible to see the buildings from periods that we learned about in Euro (baroque, medieval, renaissance, classical etc.) Prague has many buildings, aspects, and food that are unique to the city. We all enjoyed Trdelník, which is ice cream within a doughnut like cup with cinnamon on the outside. One of my favorite sites was the Charles Bridge. It had a gorgeous view of the city and the river Vltava. Although the statues were replicas, walking across a bridge made in 1357 (on July 9th at 5:31 am) was a very surreal experience, I didn’t  think that things made over 600 years ago could still be standing, let alone as stunning as that bridge was. Being a medieval city, it has a ton of history. A history that we have learned much about already. We saw a street so narrow that it can only fit one person at a time and needs a traffic light to be regulated — very characteristic of medieval cities. There were also various statues and memorials that eternalized the historical figures and events that made an impact on society throughout Prague’s existence.  Prague was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia, was under Nazi then Soviet control, and now is the capital city of the Czech Republic. We saw statues of Jan Hus and the very church he preached in before he was burned at the stake. There were also memorials of the existentialist author Kafka, including an amazing memorial made from kinetic architecture, where his head spins in a bunch of different ways. There were also memorials to the 70,000 Jews (estimated) taken during the Holocaust and to Jan Palach who self immolated during the Prague Spring in 1969.Overall, Prague was an beautiful city with an immense history that was absolutely amazing to see and experience. It was amazing to see what we’ve learned be applied to real life. Thanks for reading! 

Benna Li 

“Saturday, June 1: Today was one of the LONGEST but best days yet. We finally got to experience all the best things Prague has to offer. The first thing we did for our full day in 
Prague was visit the Prague Castle. Being able to see the detailing and architecture up close and right in front of us was incredible and like nothing you can get out of a photograph. We first got to see the changing of the guards, which happens every hour on the hour. We then got our tickets and went further behind the castle walls. While it used to be for the king and his royal staff, it now serves as the official office of the President of the Czech Republic. It had amazing pastel colors, and the art reflected the time period of which different parts of the castle were built. We went into the St. Vitus Cathedral and saw the beautiful stained glass, sculptures and statues, as well as experiencing what is the burial place of many Archbishops from history. Back in parts of the castle was a long room originally used for jousting tournaments, meaning we got to exit using the stairway that they used to move the horses 
into the castle. We next got to explore The Golden Lane, which was originally a small street of shops that once served Prague Castle. Some of these old buildings have survived and have little shops or museum-like displays of medieval life. House #22 was where the existentialist author Franz Kafka wrote for a period of time. This section was really fun - the houses were very small, we had to duck to get in some of the doorways. We saw a pub decorated just as it was back then, and also what seemed to be a movie theater. This lead right into the Castle Prison where we could go down into the basement to see the medieval dungeon. On the way down there is a skeleton chained to the stone ceiling - we think it was real!!! After exploring, we made our way down the side of the castle back to Old Town Prague for lunch. Being up that high gave up the opportunity to see a rooftop view of Prague on our way down from the castle, which was an amazing way to see the city that we hadn’t experienced yet. The whole city looks unreal - like a movie set. It’s hard to believe that there were people who walked these streets hundreds of years ago exactly where we are walking, or that a huge castle like 
Prague Castle was actually used by a real King! I’m so excited for what’s next! Thanks for reading!”

Taylor