Prague Day 2
I think after a while waking up to church bells would get pretty annoying, however, while I’m on vacation, the novelty and joy of the experience is certainly not lost on me. Having spent most of the previous day mindlessly wandering around the monastery and into town - I wanted to make sure I checked off a few items on the list that had been prescribed by several friends. First up was a trip to the old Jewish Quarter, and the Old Jewish Cemetery.
The Old Jewish Cemetery is fascinating - it was used from the 15th century until 1786 when burials within the city of Prague were banned for hygienic reasons. Part of what makes the cemetery so unique is that they don’t exactly have a lot of room - over time, as to not destroy the old graves, new layers of soil were added and the grave stones replanted, which is why it looks like the grave stones are literally on top of each other, because in many cases they are signifying graves that could be several layers deep. The whole cemetery is contained within restraining walls and sits above street level for exactly this reason. It seems weird to describe grave stones as ‘littering’ a landscape, but I cannot think of a better description of the oft haphazard organization of the stones. It was incredibly fascinating to take in.
Beyond the cemetery, there were a few old synagogues as part of the Jewish quarter in Prague, one of which became a very touching tribute to all of the jews from Prague killed in the Holocaust. The Jewish population in Prague was essentially all but wiped out during WWII, and this temple has all of the names, birthdates and birthplaces listed on the walls in remembrance. Not much else to say about that other than it was incredibly moving to somberly walk through and see more names than are comprehendible displayed on these walls.
Beyond the Jewish quarter, I wanted to spend some time in Old Town Square, taking a peek at both the Prague Astronomical Clock, and the Christmas market that was taking place in Old Town. The Astronomical Clock dates back to 1490, and is a really intricate piece of clockwork that both tries to show the position of the sun and the moon, as well as keeping accurate time. The old town square was lit up (figuratively and literally) with a Christmas market for the Christmas advent. There were blacksmiths making little metal toys, a caroling team, and as I have made a tradition of in each city I’ve visited, delicious street food for lunch. Below are some photos of some of the things I’ve described as well as some more ‘ad-hoc’ pictures that I took while doing extensive wandering throughout Prague. I really can’t recommend Prague enough, and its already on my “return to” list.
