I love chips! Hot chips yes but packets of chips or as I have to call them now, crisps are my favourite food group, (closely followed by icecream). Such is my love of the humble salty potato snack that I have a poster print of a girl hugging a human sized packet of chips complete with brunette hair, big bum and a turned in right foot (the girl not the packet of chips) framed and hung on the wall of our study in Sydney.
What has chip loving got to do with Prague I can hear you wondering? Well in Prague, in the Christmas market, I found the perfect chip. A fresh potato is put on what appears to be a potato holder on the end of an electric drill, it is then run through a blade that slices it into one very fine, very thin spiral of potato. This is plunged into a large vat of hot oil, then gathered out with a netted scoop and tossed into a waiting trough to be shaken with salt and served into a paper cone.
I honestly
had to fight the overwhelming urge to give this women a continuous line of
credit, sit cross legged on the cobbles and have her just keep my cone full. Oh, my mouth is watering just recalling their hot salty crispy lightness.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Ok, now what am I supposed to be talking about? Prague, wonderful, beautiful, enticing Prague. We arrived on New Year’s Eve and after a short bus ride and a metro trip we walked along the river into a stunning orange and pink sky sunset. We dumped our bag at our apartment in Old Town and went out to explore. I spent a few weeks in Prague several years back and I credit the city with a soul saving quality as the visit came at a crucial time in my life. It is my second favourite city in the world (so far) and I was keen to share the place with Ian on his first time there. Unfortunately a lot of other people seem to want to share the place these days too. But that is the price you pay at beautiful destinations the world over and it was New Year so we simply went with the flow.
When we first decided to go to Prague for New Year’s Eve, I pictured the two of us in Old Town Square in front of the famous Astronomical Clock (or Orloj) at midnight so that’s where we were as the people cheered and the fireworks exploded overhead. That clock has been in the square since about 1410 and over six centuries later we saw in 2018 k%$$%#g in front of it (for the squeamish amongst you, you can skip that bit).
Back to the fireworks…I’m from Sydney. In Sydney it is very hard for the average citizen to get their hands on fireworks, (just one too many blown up letterboxes or thumbless teens). On NYE Sydney hosts not one but two spectacular and world beating fireworks displays most notably on the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge and above the Opera House and the harbour, one at 9pm for the children and a second incredible display at midnight.
Many hundreds of thousands of people from Sydney and from all over the world flock to the many vantage points around the harbour to enjoy the spectacle. Well Prague hasn’t quite got the whole “midnight fireworks display” thing down. The fireworks we witnessed in Old Town Square on the stroke of midnight were just locals with a stash of rockets and a desire to share the fun. The large organised event takes place at 6pm on New Year’s Day on the banks of the River Vlatava but alas not in the skies above the stunning Prague Castle on the hill overlooking the town. Seems like a lost opportunity for an amazing spectacle if you ask us.
However, everybody, every Tomas, Jakob and Vojtech has a cache of fireworks that they let off anywhere and anytime. Essentially from the moment we set foot in the city on the afternoon of NYE and during the subsequent four days, rockets and crackers were the soundtrack of our visit. And let me tell you, those narrow Old Town streets make for very good acoustics or a deafening echo chamber depending on your proximity to the explosions. Hopefully no one lost digits or limbs and it certainly livened things up somewhat. We saw one guy with a backpack loaded with large rockets that would have looked right at home strapped onto Wyle E. Coyote’s back as he attempted to run down Road Runner. This young fellow was hoping for a seat in a restaurant and the waiter didn’t even bat an eyelid at his explosive cargo as he showed him inside. I had visions of a jetpack style lift-off if a stray spark had found its mark.
Prague is a beautiful city, largely undamaged during WWII due to the fact that Czechoslovakia was occupied in an act of capitulation which avoided destructive attacks by the invading German forces. The Czech Republic has had a very interesting history and as Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet Bloc from 1948 until the Velvet Revolution of 1989/90. In 1992/3 there was a peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They joined the EU in 2004 but still use their own currency, the Czech koruna.
We visited the Old Jewish Cemetery which opened in 1439 and closed in 1787. It is a relatively small space in the Jewish Quarter of the city and about 200,000 people are said to be buried there. The cemetery was only really big enough for 10% of this number and so the graves are up to twelve tombs deep. The tombstones stand higgledy-piggledy in a crowded jumble. The cemetery remains today because Hitler commanded that it be saved to serve as part of a museum after the extermination of the Jews. It is a very sobering place but also a peaceful walled haven in the city.
The Jews of Prague suffered the same fate as most of Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust and nearly 250,000 were sent to concentration camps and the vast majority of them were murdered there. There are several beautiful old Synagogues including “New” Shul which in the 13th century replaced an earlier building which no longer stood.
This is now known as the Old-New Synagogue. Gives a whole new relativity to the term “new”. We visited the beautiful Spanish Synagogue with its gilded and polychromatic parquet arabesque which is a really fancy way of saying that most of the internal surfaces are covered in golden and other many coloured mosaics in delightful scrolling patterns.
Prague Castle stands majestically on the hill across the river from Old Town. The most popular route to visit the castle is across the famous Karlův Most or Charles Bridge built at the end of the 14th century at the behest of Charles IV. It is flanked by a pair of towers and has thirty sculptures of saints that make a sort of saintly guard of honour for the many pedestrians that walk over the bridge daily. We watched the sunrise one morning from the bridge which was very pretty. (We may have even k#&@ed again!)
St Vitus Cathedral is inside the walls of Prague Castle. It is an impressive Gothic structure that contains the tombs of many Bohemian Kings and Holy Roman Emperors. There are many other buildings within the walls of the castle including a row of 16th century houses known as Golden Lane, named for the goldsmiths that once lived there. Unfortunately the medieval crossbow shooting gallery was closed for the winter which was a shame as I was hoping to show off my crossbow prowess to Ian.
The walls of the castle give wonderful views of the river and the city, both old and new, beyond. Ian climbed the Cathedral tower for more amazing views while I avoided the claustrophobic staircase this time as I still have vivid memories of the rising panic from the last time I did it.
We also attended a top of the classical pops concert in the gorgeous Mirror Chapel of the Clementinum. It was just divine. Assorted strings, the concert organ and a soprano belted out the best of the Baroque blokes, a bit of Vivaldi, Charpentier, Bach, Pachelbel and my personal favourite, Albinoni, plus some Mozart and Dvořák et al. This beautiful concert hall was built in 1724 and houses two 18th century organs, one played by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus on his visits to Prague. It was certainly a lovely venue with marvellous acoustics and excellent musicians from the Dvořák Symphony Orchestra.
We went up the Town Hall Tower and enjoyed more lovely views over the Old Town Square, the Castle and the new city. The sun broke through the clouds and cast a beam of light onto the castle that looked heaven sent. From inside the tower you can look through a window onto the twelve carved wooden apostles who make the parade above the Astronomical Clock every hour on the hour. The apostles will rotate no more for six months or so while the clock has an overhaul. The Clock Tower is currently covered in that pesky but necessary scaffolding but we did get to see the clock doing its thing before it falls silen
We enjoyed Czech beer, and of course the staples of all wintery Christmas markets, mulled wine and spiced hot cider. We ate slow barbequed meats, delicious spicy sausage hotdogs, potato gnocchi with smoked meat, wedges of cheese cooked on a hotplate and a wonderful dish of potatoes served in the pan they are fried in with mushroom, leek, bacon then topped with cheese. I revisited the delicious Czech dish of Svíčková na smetanĕ - tender sirloin with a spiced cream sauce served with bread dumplings and cranberry sauce.
Apart from the amazing chips in the market we also really enjoyed the heavenly Trdelník or chimney cakes, made by wrapping dough around a metal rod rotating over an open fire pit, then rolling the finished “chimney” in sugar and cinnamon. You can eat the hot crispy sweet delight as is, lined with Nutella or, best of all filled with vanilla icecream (topped with chocolate sauce if you wish). The Czechs really specialise in comfort food!
We caught up with my lovely Czech friend Pavel, his wife and one of his daughters and enjoyed a great pub meal and a reminisce over a Pilsner Urquell or two. He was pretty surprised to learn that the 15 year old Dominic that he took out for a meal in 2005 when he was there on a school orchestra tour, was married last year! J Pavel had some interesting insights into life in Romania and the impact of corruption rife throughout every aspect of society as he and his family lived there for several years before his recent return to Prague. It made pretty depressing listening and Ian and I remembered our taxi driver in Romania and his lament about the state of his country. (http://www.jigsawfallingintoplace.com.au/our-stories/travels-in-transylvania--.html)
Prague was beautiful, just as I remembered it and Ian was suitably impressed. We didn’t get to travel further afield into the countryside this time but we spent our time soaking up the old world charm. And trying to avoid permanent hearing damage from the enthusiastic amateur pyrotechnicians.
* Our Christmas/New Year holiday took us to three amazing destinations and we wasted no time or effort in getting out and about to see as much as possible. Ian has one of those gadgets on his phone that measures how far you walk each day and the grand total over the twelve days came to just over 150 kilometres (that’s over 93 miles for you non-metric types).