Central-Eastern Europe Trip, Day 3, June 21st, 2010

We started the day off on a guided tour of the old town with our local guide Marketa. We walked the Charles Bridge as a group, passed by the Mayor’s hall and explored the old town square. The mix of different types of architecture on our walk (Baroque, Rococo and Gothic styles) was nice to see.

The Astronomical Clock.

St. James Church. A man’s (who, according to legend, was trying to steal the statues and lost his hand) hanging hand was at this Church.

The Velvet Reveloution leader spoke from this balcony.

Along the way we also saw the Astronomical Clock from up close. There was also St. James Church, with a rather troubling artifact of a hand of a man hanging from one of the walls. As we walked towards Wenceslas Square afterwards, we discussed the Velvet Revolution- the non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that brought back democracy to the people after communist rule.

800 year old market.

The group split off around the early afternoon to get lunch. Tobia and I went to a small restaurant not too far from the 800 year old market to grab an Italian lunch. We were still a bit tired, so checked back into our room to rest for a little while afterwards.

Not much later, we met up with Martin, our tour guide for the afternoon. He took us through the Jewish Quarters to see the cemetery as well as some Synagogues. Along the way, we saw Franz Kafka’s birth place. The first Synagogue we entered was Pinkas Synagogue, it had the names of all Czech Jews that perished in the holocaust painted on its walls. Following that we saw the Jewish Cemetery. We also saw the Spanish Synagogue whose interior was quite bright and it seemed very precisely built and decorated.

Kafka was born here, right around the Jewish Quarter.	Jewish Quarter.	Maisel Synagogue.	Pinkas Synagogue.
Old Jewish Cemetery.	Spanish Synagogue.	Statue of Saint John being thrown off the Charles Bridge. He was killed for not divulging the Queen’s confessions to the King.

I’ve always wanted to do this.

After the tour was over, we tried going to St. Agnes Monastery, but it was closed so we could only see it from the outside. Walking through town, eventually we decided to eat dinner at the same place as our welcome group dinner the previous night.