Last day in Prague

Brian and I decided to spend our last day in Prague checking out all the fun places we drove past on our bike tour before our afternoon flight to Brussels. We decided to revisit the Jewish Quarter because we wanted to do a little more exploring. 

While in the Jewish Quarter, we found a great Bohemian Crystal Shop. Originally, we thought these shops, said “Bohemian” meant Hippies made them. We were wrong. They say Bohemian because they are made by people from Bohemia. Bohemia is a region in the Czech Republic. All of the crystal we saw here was so beautiful and very reasonably priced. They had some crystal that had hand paintings that appeared to have gold flaking on it. 

We got some additional views of the Synagogue, as well as some other views of the old Jewish cemetery our tour guide told us about. Apparently it used to be at street level but overtime they buried so many people there and just kept stacking them on top of one another and building the ground up. People were buried here from 1439-1787. The numbers of grave stones and numbers of people buried there is uncertain. It is estimated that there are approximately 12,000 tombstones presently visible, and there may be as many as 100,000 burials in all. 

After checking out the Jewish Quarter again we went to see the St Charles Bridge. This was very neat, but a little crowded. Compared to almost everywhere in Paris it wasn’t crowded but so far in Prague we had not have too many crowds up until the bridge. There were many interesting statues along the bridge on both sides, which were very cool to look at. A lot of them had religious influences. There were artist along the bridge as well as great street music being played. 

 

One thing that was hard to see, and this is how it has been in every city in Europe, where the homeless people. For some reason it was harder for me to see them in Prague because 25+ years ago there were no poor people due to communism, yet that was the only positive thing communism does (Not allowing there to be any homeless people). 

What makes it so hard is that unlike here in the US where the homeless people just sit there (which is also hard to see), here they are on their knees and they sit like that begging all day, with their heads down, almost like "in shame". Most of them, once you give them money or food, they pray. There were others who the entire time they were reciting the Lord ’s Prayer or doing their rosary. 

After doing the rest of our sightseeing we decided to have a quick lunch at the Beer Restaurant close to our hotel and then head to the airport for our flight to Brussels.