More Stuff

Well, it's been a while since my last post, so I suppose it's high time for another one. I might have to be a bit selective in what I put up here; there is a lot to document. I am in Olomouc at the moment, which has been called "The Prague of the East" or something along those lines. It is really beautiful here, and it feels a bit like a smaller scale, less populated Prague. It is nonetheless jam-packed with historical things, which I would no doubt be out seeeing were it not for some rather crummy weather. Last night I saw a movie projected onto the wall of a castle. Will Smith has never looked so portentous. However, I will leave the photos of Olomouc for another day. Without further ado, here is some more of Prague(and its environs). Actually, I think this post will be restricted to the town of Kutná Hora, which means something like Cowl Hill.


Lindsay, Julia and I visited it in our first few days in Prague. It is about an hour east of the capital. It was founded in 1142 with a monastery, and about a century later miners started to work in the mountains, seeking the silver which was known to be there. For a period of time the city was a huge economic and cultural power in the area, competing with Prague itself. Floods, the Plague, and a series of fires led to the town's economic downfall, and the mines were abandoned at the end of the 17th century. The town, as well as Sedlec, the site of the bone ossuary, are now an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our trip started at kostnice Sedlec, the bone ossuary at Sedlec. The ossuary contains the bones of 40-70 000 people, arranged into chandaliers, crests, weird dangly bits hanging from the ceiling, etc. The cemetary was apparently generously sprinkled with dirt from Golgotha in the late 1200s, and as a result it become a very desirable place to be buried.


This statue was immediately outside. I see so much of this gold/metallic plated stuff in statues and building ornamentation. It's kind of growing on me...


Also outside. There were a number of elaborate graves around the ossuary. The building here is the Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých, or Cemetary Church of All Saints. Work was started on it around 1400.



Immediately inside was this staircase leading down into the ossuary proper. The space was quite small. We were told by a very friendly van transportation provider that the property that the bodies were buried in became too valuable to be used to bury all the dead bodies as a result of the Plague, and thus the ossuary staff(?) decided to bring the bones inside. I think they washed the bones first, probably for the best. Then in 1870, a woodcarver named František Rint was hired to arrange the bones.


I'm no bone specialist, but I think these are skulls and femurs? The cage in front of the bones prevented me from touching the bones. Shoot! I really wanted to get as close as I could to them.




These arches really arched my interest! Every peek around another corner piqued my curiosity! I'll stop now. But honestly, I kind of like how these bones look. The French folks at the hostel expressed mild to radical disgust at a bone ossuary, but I felt no such compunction.


And here is the crest of the family that owned the land, I suppose.



The famous chandelier, that apparently contains examples of every bone in the human body. I didn't have time to check the veracity of this claim. My picture here is fairly awful, but should you so choose, there are many fine examples of this specimen all over the world wide web.

The van operator then took us to Chrám svaté Barbory, which, when painstakingly rendered in English, means something along the lines of St. Barbora's Church. The church was constructed between 1388 and 1905, and is a very good example of Gothic style. It was meant to be far larger, but as the wealth from the town's sivler mines ebbed away, the design was significantly reduced in scale. The eponymous Barbora apparently gave ghostly directions to some miners who were trapped in a mine, who were saved as a result of her intervention. Thus, she is now the patron saint of miners.


The view from the front. I get the sense that we are a bit ahead of tourist season, as there seems to be a great deal of construction going on in the town, and on the church itself.


If my memory serves me correctly, these are flying buttresses. Art majors, can I get a witness?



And the inside. Very large, with frescoes, stained glass windows depicting medieval life, lots of things that I have no idea about. But, very nice nonetheless.






And, our departure from the church. Lindsaz and I took a circuitous route through the town of Kutná Hora, leaving many rocks left unturned, but enjoying the place a lot, in spite of inclement weather.





I LOVE buildings that look like this.



Lindsay and I both liked this decoration on the side of the building. It's a bit weird.

Well, that about sums up Kutná Hora.

For those wondering, I am doing very well here, and I always feel a bit uneasy upon entering a new place, but I have greatly enjoyed my experiences in Prague, WWOOFing, and now here in Olomouc. I look forward to seeing you all again very soon, but I am also making the most of my time here. There is really far too much to see in the amount of time I have here, and every person I talk to seems to have some new place I simply must see. My plans are to spend about 3 or 4 more days here in Olomouc area, then about 5 days near Liberec, which is north of Prague, and then the last 6 or so days in the country in Prague.

I will try to make a longer post over the next few days here, but internet is still more expensive than I would like. I didn't know how good I had it in Prague at the hostel with free internet.

Well, all the best all, hope everyone is well.

Tak, Ahoj! Čau!

Post 1: The Prague Chronicles

So, I have finally mustered up the time and patience to try posting here on the blog. This city is amazing, and I already have a certain sense of familiarity with it, as I learned when I returned after having spent a day in Cesky Krumlov to the south. The cobblestone bricks that are somewhat visible in the picture below are rampant throughout the city, and on any given day you usually see workers repairing or replacing some section, somewhere.



I arrived here about a week ago, and proceeded to meet up with Lindsay and Julia at the Chili Hostel, which is in a fairly convenient and somewhat central location, though Praha is so big that it's kind of pointless to talk about anything being really central. This view is from the room we occupied for the first five nights of our stay. Below that Lindsay looks on optimistically beside the front entrance.



It took me a bit of time to get comfortable meandering around Prague, but at this point I already have a feeling of familiarity with the city, though I still don't really mind getting lost. This is a good thing, as it occurs with alarming regularity on any given day. Our first night in Prague, the three of us went out for pizza to celebrate. Pizzerias are in all honesty maybe the most plentiful restaurants we see in the city. Observe Julia's suitably tough demeanor, and Lindsay's obvious attention to detail in the markers of her gang affiliation.


I have developed what some would think is an unnatural proclivity for narrow alleyways, and I will not be surprised upon coming home if no less than 50% of my photos involve such places. Prague is rife with little nooks and alleys, and one of my favourite things to do here is just walk around looking for weird places seemingly in the middle of nowhere.




I am certainly a sucker for big ornamented monoliths, and there are a great many structures along the Vltava (Moldau) to keep my camera clicking like a metronome to a presto tempo. I have not gone through the city with a guidebook, so I am not positive about all the buildings here, but based on my extensive research post fieldwork, I have deduced that the building below is Narodni Divadlo, or State Theatre.


I think that this is Univerzita Karlova v Praze Filozoficka Fakulta (Department of Philosophy at Charles University in Prague). I could be wrong. I think I am wrong based on google maps. I will try to update this when I am less spatially confused.


Here I am, tickled pink to have had my photo taken beside the Vltava. Thanks Lindsay!


View across the Vltava to Hradany, which encompasses an entire area known as the Castle District. It is supposedly the largest castle complex in the world, with buildings from the 8th century. I have not yet visited it, but fear not, before I return home I will ensure that I have borne witness to its gorgeousness.




Just so you all know, these photographs do not do any sort of justice to these places; they are absolutely ridiculous. The first time that I saw Hradcany from afar, I literally got goosebumps. And it was a very hot day, so they were not as a result of that. Everything is so ornate, it is very hard to know what to focus on.


I don't know if it is visible here, but there is a lot of goldleaf or something like that on a lot of statues; the people will be made of stone, but they will have gold weapons, halos, staves, etc. It is unusual, to me anyways. I am also amazed at all the various styles of art and stuff that are all so close together; baroque, art nouveau, neo-classical, gothic.


Oh, here are more of those cobblestone things.


These next two pictures are from Staromestske Namesti (The Old Town Square), which is arguably the most famous part of Prague. I culled out what I thought were hideous photos, but I think that might just have been an ugly monitor. I will also make sure that I post some more pictures in the future. This square includes Prazsky Orloj (Prague Astronomical Clock), which is insanely old, having been built in the 1400s. Also there is Kostel Matky Bozi pred Tynem, (Church of the Mother of God before Tyn) another building with ridiculously complicated history and age, which I may describe in greater detail at a later time. Most likely when I have a picture to accompany it. The square is always full of tourists, and it is here that lots of tours start. There are horse drawn carriages that seem a bit out of place amongst throngs of cars and trucks, but to their credit, the animals are cool as cucumbers.


Ah, a pizzeria! That's unusual! I haven't seen one of those for probably about 20 seconds.


Gotta love those colours. Everything fits together so well, a bit like lego.


Gah, places like this make me want to strap on my walking shoes


In the interests of not making this blog atrociously huge, I have removed the vast majority of the pictures I took this week, and this post doesn't include Kutna Hora's bone ossuary, or the medieval town of Cesky Krumlov, but those will have to wait for another day. Please ask questions if you want to know about something, now that I am writing I can't really imagine what people would like to know about.

People are surprisingly nice about my bumbling attempts at Czech, and I have had at least two or three conversations that instantly became about 10 shades friendlier when I gurgled out some non-English. I am kind of looking forward to the next leg of my trip. I will be doing WWOOFing (working with a family on an organic farm in exchange for food and accomodation) in a place that is far more rural, and I am hoping that English won't be spoken too much, so I'll be forced to speak Czech.

I will try to post here somewhat regularily, but I really don't know if I'll have too much opportunity when I'm out of the city centre.

Feel free to send me a note! I will try to respond individually, but I can't make any promises; time seems to lfy by here and I have suprisingly little time to attend to computer related stuff.