prague 3

Well last left off about Friday, and since I felt as if I had seen most things on Friday I couldn’t think of anything incredibly pressing to rush out for on Saturday so I took it to sleep in a bit until about 9. Like in Vienna where I had made an agenda for day #2 AFTER walking the city  from side to side on day #1. I had made a reservation for a guided tour and transportation to Terezin.but that would not be until 1:00 so I had the time to take Saturday morning relaxing. Had thought about going to a Schacharit service but sleep prevailed. Because the hostel again did not serve breakfast Saturday morning, I decided to look for some place to have breakfast. So shower, ready and downstairs at about 9:30, I walked into the Old Town Square looking for some place to sit down because I had seen a sign the previous day advertising breakfast for 55 CZK which is little more than 2 Euros. However I went to the restaurant and read the menu and did not see anything listed under 100 CZK so I headed off to find somewhere else. Also wanted some place a little less high key than a restaurant right in front of the famous astronomical clock where people gather in huge crowds every hour on the hour to watch the clock give its little puppet performance. Fortunately around the corner on my way to the square I had passed a few storefront eateries and decided on one that had just 1 person sitting in it as I am a firm believer that few people in a small place guarantees you quick and personal service. I sat down and on the menu were 3 breakfast specials, a continental, a wellness, and a full breakfast. Knowing that I usually do not need anything too big for breakfast and it was already 10am, I ordered the wellness breakfast which included granola, fruit, coffee, juice, and yogurt. Good enough, I read my book Freakonomics, had a few more cups of coffee and was up and out so I could attempt the 1 hour Old Town Frommers tour. It happened actually to start down one of the streets toward some old tower that remained from the times of Prague being an encircled, walled-in city. It was a decent tour for a bit until I got lost and couldn’t find a street where a church was on. At this point it was close to 11:30, and I had wanted to be by the clock at  12 to see the clock performance in daylight as I had only seen it in darkthe night before. Around 11:45 I gave up the tour and watched the performance but also wanted to get to the top of the clock tower that I had heard was such a great view. On Friday I climbed the 300 or so stairs of the Prague Castle Vitas Church tower but thankfully the clock tower had elevators all the way to the top. I never thought I’d have problems climbing high things which I don’t  (i.e. the paulinskill viaduct) but the space element is key. In this twisting stairwells this is 1 way up and 1 way down that is shared and going up is ok because you see what is ahead of you but going down turns into a dizzy episode and the steps almost begin to blend together so as if you go too fast. I wonder if when t he Statue Of Liberty crown opens again if I will be able to do it!So I saw the view from the clock tower and it was magnificient of course but I had realized that I did not have my Terezin tour ticket in my bag so I would have to go back to the hostel to my room to get it, so I did not want waste any time and headed back at about 12:30, did not want to miss the tour. Fortunately it was right on the bed close to where I had left it I guess I had simply forgotten to put it in the bag or my coat pocket. With the ticket I made it to Narodni in time for the tour and got on the small bus. There turned out to be 5 people including me, 2 French guys, and a Spanish couple. Between the 5, there were 3 native languages and 2 tour guides in addition to the driver. The Spanish couple had their own guide an Czech man who happened to also speak fluent Spanish. Then the French guys and I had our own guide who alternated between speaking to them in French and to me in English. When the lady was talking to the French guys I was able to listen in to the Spanish guy and was pleasantly surprised with how much I could take away from it. The ride to Terezin was about an hour, we got there around 2, walked past the National Cemetery outside the Small Fortress and entered inside. I was put with an English tour group for the time, and we saw the Men’s side of the camp, including the bunks, the Isolation cells, and offices. It was sobering to say the least and they did not allow video recording so I took several photographs. If someone asked me which was more striking Terezin or Dachau, I am not sure because they both had their own elements. Whereas Dachau was a big transit camp and was mostly for political dissidents, I guess Terezin because they lumped all the people in the town too at the ghetto and there were more Jews it was possibly more personal. But the vastness of Dachau was impressive too.After the small fortress tour, the English tour group went to watch the Terezin propaganda film, but since we had limited daylight hours we still needed to see the Large Fortress or the actual town as well as the Ghetto museum. Our first stop was at the cemeteries, it was Saturday so we probably should not have been there but there were no gates, there was a cremation house. After the cemetery, we saw the train tracks from the trains that used to bring all the people to Terezin as well as the old station. Then because I had heard about a small room inside a courtyard in the ghetto that had been converted to a makeshift synagogue I told the tour guides Id like to see it and fortunately we found it at Dlouha 17 and it was still open. As soon as we walked up to the door of the house, they opened it for us. There was no one else there and we walked to the back of the courtyard and you would not have guessed that there was a prayer room in the back. Apparently after the ghetto it had been used as a food storage room and the walls had been painted in Hebrew phrases in red and white, it was truly a wonder, though damaged ove rth eyears from the elements and flooding. It was only discovered about 15 years ago and just recently leased by the Terezin Memorial Foundation from the owners. After the synagogue, we walked around the block to the Market Square and then to the Ghetto museum. Inside the museum I was treated to my own personal showing of a 1965 Czech documentary about the use of the town and camp as propaganda with the Red Cross. I still have yet to watch the full 20 minute Terezin film but I have found a copy on Google Videos. After the museum it was time to head back and was already dark out, everyone was pretty much silent for the trip, but I do remember that the old Spanish-speakign Czech guy was informing the Spanish couple about Jewish holidays and traditions with quite impressive comprehension that I wondered if he himself happened to have been Jewish, talking about Pesach and Rosh Hashana mostly. We got back to Prague and they dropped us off in Wenceslas square right by my hostel at around 6:30, we all bid farewells, and I decided to make my way to the Frommers’ recommended  Czech bar restaurant that was described as having hearty portions and looking like a Bohemian hunting lodge inside. Walking via my GPS, I ended up on some small streets and realized how small the city of Prague is by seeing a restaurant I had seen the night before with  a Budweiser sign. I knew this was not the American Budweiser because the logo was different so I decided to find a liquor store to buy it. I had already bought Absinth the night before (which as I write this I still have yet to open or drink). I found a little convenience store and inside were 2 asian girls. I went to look for the beer shelves and right on the top I found a 6 pack of 17-oz cans, the only pack within sight so I picked it up and bought it for a bit more than 200 CZK which is  about $11. You may say this is expensive for a 6 pack but it was not a 6 pack of 12 oz bottles or cans. There was an extra 30 oz amidst those 6 cans which is like another 2-3 beers. By paying 200 CZK I bought 102 ounces, so I paid about 2 CZK per oz which is about 11 cents. If it had been a 6 pack of 12 oz cans, that would be only 72 ounces. Eh I just did some math and it comes to be  that it was rather expsneive but hey Czech Budweiser is a hell of a lot better tasting than American Budwesier. So I stuck the 6 pack in my backpack and went to the find the Frommers restaurant but when I got to the address, it was dark and empty levae it up to an internationally renowned travel guide to suggest a place to eat that goes out of business in a tourist haven like Prague.