Prague to Salzburg

Prague to Salzburg

My foot and ankle were finally small enough that I could get my tennis shoes on yesterday, which was a good thing since it rained all day and my feet would have been very wet and unhappy otherwise.  We headed back across the Charles Bridge and visited the area of Prague that had been the Jewish Ghetto for centuries.  Our first stop was the Old Jewish Cemetery where the stones are crammed in every available spot.  This is because Jews weren’t allowed to leave that area until the 1800s, so for centuries, they had to bury their dead all in this cemetery, piling the bodies one upon another.

 

 

After that, we went into the Old New Synagogue, which is the oldest continuously functioning synagogue in Europe.  It dates back over 700 years, and its medieval heritage shows in the stone interior.  Photographs are not allowed, so I’m afraid I can’t share.

After that, we got some ice cream at a place recommended by our guide on Wednesday (Angelato’s, which was very very good) and then happened upon a large outdoor market selling everything from fruit to soap, and of course any number of tourist chochkies.  I also made my way back to this street, which is one of the oldest in Prague and the one the kings used to process up and down.

 

Above a number of the doors, you’ll find carvings of various things, which our guide told us was how the postal system used to work.  Because most people were illiterate in the medieval period, they would hand the letter to the guy and say, “take this to the house with the three violins.”

 

Prague is full of musicians (you see them walking around carrying instruments on their back all the time), and every time you walk by a church or other type of historic building, someone is handing you a flier advertising a concert for the evening.  After an early dinner, we attended one here, which you can see isn't too shabby:

 

 

The lead violinist had hair the color of carrot juice, but she played sublimely and her violin had one of the richest, sweetest tones I’ve ever heard.  When we returned to our hotel room, there was this cake and a nice note waiting for me wishing me a happy birthday for the next day.  All in all, not a bad way to spend our final night in Prague and my final night of being 39.

 

This morning we said goodbye to the fabulous breakfasts (my favorite was their scrambled eggs with truffle oil/shavings, followed by a small pot of homemade raspberry yogurt that just might be the best yogurt I’ve ever eaten in my life) and breakfast views we’ve been enjoying the last several days. 

 

Now we are on the train to Salzburg.  Note to those of you who might find yourself in the main Prague train station:  if, while you’re looking at the screens listing the trains, a man in a semi-official looking outfit offers to show you to your platform and helpfully rolls your bags with him, a tip isn’t sufficient and you should grab your bags back and tell him “No!” in a firm voice.  But we didn’t know this.  Once we arrived (pretty much chasing after him vs. asking him to perform this service for us), he demanded 150 crowns ($7.50).  I gave him about a third of that and told him that’s all I had (and it was) ready to refuse him anything further, but my brother is nicer than I am (and we were both caught off guard), so he shelled out the rest.  “Congratulations,” I told him.  “We just got scammed.”  I guess no European trip is complete without something like that for an American, and it could have been worse.  We are now enjoying a train compartment to ourselves after having a brief detour on a bus from one station to another in the middle of the Czech Republic due to a repair they were making on the tracks.  Other than the fact that the bus reeked of Eau de Stale-European-Body-Odor, it was interesting to get a few glimpses at the small towns we drove through.