Day 41 – June 25

Recovery Day

A very lazy day in Prague.  We walked around a bit.  That’s about it.  Prague is perhaps the most beautiful major city in Europe, and it used to be a kind of cheap “travel secret,” but that’s changed tremendously over the past decade.  I was in Prague a couple days two years ago when I studied in Austria, and it may just be coincidence or my imagination, but it seemed much more crowded this time, even though the weather was kind of lousy.  It’s still a wonderful place, though.  

In the evening, we did a bar crawl and got to know some of the least Irish Irish people I’ve ever met – one of whom had never tasted Guinness and another who doesn’t drink.  They were all really lovely people, nevertheless.  

Rainy Prague

Clock Tower and Church of Our Lady Before Tyn 

Jan Hus (A Church Reformer who tried reforming before it was even cool and was burned at the stake for it) and Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Another church - I can't name them all, okay!

Charles Bridge - crowded as ever

St. Vitus Cathedral

View over Lesser Town from Prague Castle

Day 40 – June 24

Distance: 1.5 miles

This morning I paid a visit to an old friend.  His name is Ludwig… Ludwig van Beethoven.  I met him on a stroll through Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery).  I was pleased to see that he was accompanied by his friends Franz Shubert, Joseph Strauss I, Johannes Brahms, among others.  I had taken the U3 out to its last stop and jogged the rest of the way out to the cemetery, which lies on the outskirts of the city and is absolutely massive.  It’s nearly a square mile (2.4 square kilometers) and more people are buried here than any other cemetery in Europe.  It even has its own bus line! The central “avenue” of the cemetery is lined with the “Ehrengräber,” or honorary graves – graves of famous composers, poets, authors, political figures, and generally anyone the city deemed important.  I came to see the composers and the old Jewish section of the cemetery, which has an eerie sort of beauty to it. 

Beethoven's grave

Memorial to Mozart - he's buried at nearby St. Marx cemetery

Brahms

Johann Strauss II's grave

Church in the middle of the cemetery

Jewish Cemetery

Jewish Cemetery

After a couple hours exploring the cemetery, I went back to the hostel to meet up with Curtis (he had gone to the Schönbrunn Palace Gardens while I went to the cemetery) before leaving to catch our Student Agency bus to Prague.  We pulled into Prague around 10:30pm and simply took the metro to our hostel, which happened to be at the end of Wenceslas Square.  We’ll be here for a couple nights before my parents and sister fly in on the 26^th.