We arrived in Prague in the afternoon, dropped our bags and headed out to explore. Our accommodation, whilst quite nice is a little far from town so we had to catch a tram. We caught it across the river and had a look around the local area including Charles Bridge. From there we caught the tram up the hill and then walked through the castle to get to the Monastery for the sole purpose of the fact that they brew their own beer (when in Czech visit a brewery!). It was worth the journey up the hill as the food was very good, Damien especially enjoyed his dark beer ice-cream which tasted like chocolate. 
The following morning we dragged ourselves out of bed in order to eat as much as we could for the buffet breakfast before the 11am city walking tour. This plan backfired heavily as by the time we made it too the town square we both had stomach aches from overeating. We persevered and li
stened as our guided showed us some of the sites of Prague city. He explained that the Astronomical clock was voted ‘the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world’ (runner up is the glockenspiel in Munich, been there too) and that the city has been part of many different countries and under the political control of many different governments. Up until 1989 it was under communist rule but this was over through when the Berlin wall came down. He told us of the velvet revolution when all the citizens stood in the street shaking their keys to symbolize that they were taking back their freedom.
The jewish quarter was very interesting as it has been inhabited by the jewish population for centuries. Originally it was basically swamp land but one government decided to clean it up. They did this by leveling all the existing buildings which raised the height of the soil by a couple of meters. This can be seen where there were a few key buildings left, they are now about 6ft below the street level. Another interesting point was the Jewish cemetery. The Jews were only allowed this one small space to bury their dead, so when there were more deaths they had to burry these people on top of the already existing graves. The height of the cemetery ground was actually about two-three meters above the street level and some research has shown that there are up to 11 graves stacked on top of each other.
We also heard the story of the Gollum who is said to be stored in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. Gollum was a clay creature created by a rabbi to protect and assist the Jewish people. He held a word of power in his mouth written on a piece of parchment. Each Friday the rabbi would remove this piece of paper in order to give the Gollum his Sabbath, his day of rest. One Friday the rabbi was nursing his sick child and forgot to attend to the Gollum and the Gollum became enrage that he was being denied his day of rest. The Gollum ran around town creating chaos, crushing houses and ripping out trees from their roots. Finally someone ran to get the rabbi to deal with his creation. The rabbi decided that the Gollum was to emotionally unstable to be trusted and was put to rest forever in the attic of the Synagogue. During the war a German soldier heard this story so he went into the attic to see if it was true, however he was never seen again, were not sure if this is a romance story, and they are living together happily, or whether the Gollum ate the soldier bones and all. 
After the tour we headed back into the old town of Prague. It is very beautiful, many nice old looking buildings. It is also full of tourists. When we arrived there was a medieval festival with men dressed as warriors and women in traditional dress dancing. We had hoped to watch the clock on the hour, however got there a few minutes late and missed the big spectacle. We looked at the powder tower and returned to St James Church to have a look inside. Hanging from the roof is a human arm (skeletal). The story behind this was that once upon a time a drunk thief snuck into the church one night. He saw a statue wearing a lovely gold necklace and thought to himself, I might have that. He climbed up to the top of the statue and as he grabbed the necklace, the statue came to life and grabbed him by the arm. He was now trapped being held by a stone statue. All night he prayed and made promises to the statue and god, I’ll be good, never steal again, never drink again, but nothing happened. Next morning a monk walked in and saw the exhausted man up on the statue, the monk told him off, before trying to help free the man, they used oil and butter to try and slide his arm out, but nothing worked. Finally the thief suggested that they cut the arm off, too which the monk replied ‘oh good, I was hoping you would suggest that’. Five minutes later the monk had returned with the saw and lined it up with the thief’s arm. The thief cried ‘stop stop, I meant cut the statues arm’. The monk thought about this briefly but decided that if the statue had imprisoned this man for trying to steal the necklace, what would the statue do to him if he tried to cut the statues arm off! And so the thief lost his arm. As soon as the thief was free he ran away as quickly as he could, but as he did the statue released his arm, it fell to the floor. The monk didn’t know what to do with the arm since the thief was long gone. Eventually he decided to hang it next to the doorway in the church as a warning to any other thieves, and to this day it still hangs there! 
Late afternoon we headed back to the hostel for a nap intending to head to a local concert later that evening. We were tired from walking all day and our nap turned out to be a long one. We ate dinner near the hostel and never made it to the concert.
Having had a good rest, we were up at a reasonable hour for a day trip to Kutna Hora. We had contemplated doing this as part of a tour but in the end opted to do it ourselves. The town of Kutna Hora is about an hour’s train ride from Prague. As we boarded in a hurry, coffee and cookie breakfast in hand we met a couple (Praire and Jeremy) from Florida, who we ended up spending the day with.
The main attraction and first stop for the day was the Ossuary / Bone Church. As the name suggests, this place is a church and you may have worked out from the name it also contains some bones. How many bones? I think the answer is Lots and Lots of bones, Human Bones. As you enter the church you proceed down a flight of stairs, the walls are decorated with bones in various patterns. To the left and right are bone towers each 2-3 meters high. In the middle of the room is a bone chandelier and the back of the church has more towers and a bone shield.
The story? Well again it involves a monk! Here is my take on it anyway. There has been a church and cemetery on the site for a long time, around 1280-1320 ish. After a hundred years or so it was burnt to the ground by some not very nice people, the Hussites. It was built again, a few hundred years pass and then for reasons that I don’t know, someone decided that the land was no longer to be used as a cemetery. The bones were dug up and stored in the church. Now our monk friend liked things to be neat and tidy so he started to pile the bones up. He did this until he had 6 towers of bones (the bones are actually stacked, no rope or glue t support), as well as some pretty unusual wall decorations. The church contained the bones of 40,000 people, when he was done stacking, the left over bones were taken back outside and re buried. So that’s it, it’s a bit eerie but strangely compelling.
Our entry ticket included a few other churches in town so we visited these, Cathedral of the 
Assumption of Our Lady and the glorious gothic St Barbara’s Cathedral. We ate a bbq lunch in one of the nearby pubs, which was so good, walked around town for a bit before heading to the Silver Mine. We had a guided tour of this which was interesting as it had a museum showing the equipment used in the mine years ago when it was operational. It also included a walk through some of the tunnels to get a feel for what it was like down in the mines. The funniest part was the fact that they dress you in a white coat, safety helmet and torch, and then walk the whole group through the middle of town to the entrance to the caves. 
After the tour we headed back to Prague. We had been past a brewery restaurant yesterday afternoon and thought it would be a good way to relax with Praire and Jeremy after a big day. Unfortunately we forgot where we actually saw it, so had to settle for just any pub in town. We ate dinner and then farewelled our new friends as they had a night train to catch. We stayed a bit longer before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel. 
Our final day in Prague we were keen to spend a bit more time looking at the sights, after a sleep in. Our hostel , the Czech Inn, is nice but a bit big, is not near the centre of Prague and doesn’t have kitchen facilities. We walked from the hostel, found some breakfast and then visited a church which was near to the hostel. Then like the first night we took the tram up to the castle. While they call it Prague Castle, it looks more like a palace, and is really just a series of buildings on top of a hill. It is very nice and has lots to see and do, there are numerous museums. We were walking through some gardens when we discovered a birds of prey display. This was interesting, there were about 10 birds including falcons, owls and an eagle. The centre of the castle is a big gothic church which we visited. There were also some nice views of the river and the Prague old town. 
Walking down from the castle was quite an easy stroll. We looked at shops some tourist some not so much. This led us to Charles Bridge. This is a famous bridge and possibly Prague’s biggest attraction. At both ends there are towers with arches to walk through. The bridge itself has many statues lining both sides. In between the statues are tourist markets selling all sorts of souvenirs and hundreds of tourists taking photos! After crossing the bridge we ventured into the old town again hoping to see the clock chime on the hour, but again just missed it. Wait another 58 minutes, stuff that! We headed to a brewery restaurant for dinner, the one we couldn’t find last night. It is a big place and when we sat down we found out that they were serving one of the generic big company beers. Not good enough, so upon enquiry we found out if we head upstairs to a smaller dining room the serve the micro beer in there. Good move, not only were we in a long narrow room with low arched ceiling but the beer was good. We ate traditional food, goulash and stroganoff, which was also very good. After dinner we went for a bit of a night walk along the river, the old town and castle looked nice at night all lit up with flood lights.
Next morning we were up early as we had a 9am bus to Berlin. Yes we took the cheap option and took the 4hr bus, which actually isn’t much longer than taking the train. It was fine, as far as bus rides go, we slept, ate and then arrived in Berlin just after midday.
The following morning we dragged ourselves out of bed in order to eat as much as we could for the buffet breakfast before the 11am city walking tour. This plan backfired heavily as by the time we made it too the town square we both had stomach aches from overeating. We persevered and li
stened as our guided showed us some of the sites of Prague city. He explained that the Astronomical clock was voted ‘the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world’ (runner up is the glockenspiel in Munich, been there too) and that the city has been part of many different countries and under the political control of many different governments. Up until 1989 it was under communist rule but this was over through when the Berlin wall came down. He told us of the velvet revolution when all the citizens stood in the street shaking their keys to symbolize that they were taking back their freedom.The jewish quarter was very interesting as it has been inhabited by the jewish population for centuries. Originally it was basically swamp land but one government decided to clean it up. They did this by leveling all the existing buildings which raised the height of the soil by a couple of meters. This can be seen where there were a few key buildings left, they are now about 6ft below the street level. Another interesting point was the Jewish cemetery. The Jews were only allowed this one small space to bury their dead, so when there were more deaths they had to burry these people on top of the already existing graves. The height of the cemetery ground was actually about two-three meters above the street level and some research has shown that there are up to 11 graves stacked on top of each other.
We also heard the story of the Gollum who is said to be stored in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. Gollum was a clay creature created by a rabbi to protect and assist the Jewish people. He held a word of power in his mouth written on a piece of parchment. Each Friday the rabbi would remove this piece of paper in order to give the Gollum his Sabbath, his day of rest. One Friday the rabbi was nursing his sick child and forgot to attend to the Gollum and the Gollum became enrage that he was being denied his day of rest. The Gollum ran around town creating chaos, crushing houses and ripping out trees from their roots. Finally someone ran to get the rabbi to deal with his creation. The rabbi decided that the Gollum was to emotionally unstable to be trusted and was put to rest forever in the attic of the Synagogue. During the war a German soldier heard this story so he went into the attic to see if it was true, however he was never seen again, were not sure if this is a romance story, and they are living together happily, or whether the Gollum ate the soldier bones and all. After the tour we headed back into the old town of Prague. It is very beautiful, many nice old looking buildings. It is also full of tourists. When we arrived there was a medieval festival with men dressed as warriors and women in traditional dress dancing. We had hoped to watch the clock on the hour, however got there a few minutes late and missed the big spectacle. We looked at the powder tower and returned to St James Church to have a look inside. Hanging from the roof is a human arm (skeletal). The story behind this was that once upon a time a drunk thief snuck into the church one night. He saw a statue wearing a lovely gold necklace and thought to himself, I might have that. He climbed up to the top of the statue and as he grabbed the necklace, the statue came to life and grabbed him by the arm. He was now trapped being held by a stone statue. All night he prayed and made promises to the statue and god, I’ll be good, never steal again, never drink again, but nothing happened. Next morning a monk walked in and saw the exhausted man up on the statue, the monk told him off, before trying to help free the man, they used oil and butter to try and slide his arm out, but nothing worked. Finally the thief suggested that they cut the arm off, too which the monk replied ‘oh good, I was hoping you would suggest that’. Five minutes later the monk had returned with the saw and lined it up with the thief’s arm. The thief cried ‘stop stop, I meant cut the statues arm’. The monk thought about this briefly but decided that if the statue had imprisoned this man for trying to steal the necklace, what would the statue do to him if he tried to cut the statues arm off! And so the thief lost his arm. As soon as the thief was free he ran away as quickly as he could, but as he did the statue released his arm, it fell to the floor. The monk didn’t know what to do with the arm since the thief was long gone. Eventually he decided to hang it next to the doorway in the church as a warning to any other thieves, and to this day it still hangs there! Late afternoon we headed back to the hostel for a nap intending to head to a local concert later that evening. We were tired from walking all day and our nap turned out to be a long one. We ate dinner near the hostel and never made it to the concert.Having had a good rest, we were up at a reasonable hour for a day trip to Kutna Hora. We had contemplated doing this as part of a tour but in the end opted to do it ourselves. The town of Kutna Hora is about an hour’s train ride from Prague. As we boarded in a hurry, coffee and cookie breakfast in hand we met a couple (Praire and Jeremy) from Florida, who we ended up spending the day with.
The main attraction and first stop for the day was the Ossuary / Bone Church. As the name suggests, this place is a church and you may have worked out from the name it also contains some bones. How many bones? I think the answer is Lots and Lots of bones, Human Bones. As you enter the church you proceed down a flight of stairs, the walls are decorated with bones in various patterns. To the left and right are bone towers each 2-3 meters high. In the middle of the room is a bone chandelier and the back of the church has more towers and a bone shield.The story? Well again it involves a monk! Here is my take on it anyway. There has been a church and cemetery on the site for a long time, around 1280-1320 ish. After a hundred years or so it was burnt to the ground by some not very nice people, the Hussites. It was built again, a few hundred years pass and then for reasons that I don’t know, someone decided that the land was no longer to be used as a cemetery. The bones were dug up and stored in the church. Now our monk friend liked things to be neat and tidy so he started to pile the bones up. He did this until he had 6 towers of bones (the bones are actually stacked, no rope or glue t support), as well as some pretty unusual wall decorations. The church contained the bones of 40,000 people, when he was done stacking, the left over bones were taken back outside and re buried. So that’s it, it’s a bit eerie but strangely compelling.
Our entry ticket included a few other churches in town so we visited these, Cathedral of the 
Assumption of Our Lady and the glorious gothic St Barbara’s Cathedral. We ate a bbq lunch in one of the nearby pubs, which was so good, walked around town for a bit before heading to the Silver Mine. We had a guided tour of this which was interesting as it had a museum showing the equipment used in the mine years ago when it was operational. It also included a walk through some of the tunnels to get a feel for what it was like down in the mines. The funniest part was the fact that they dress you in a white coat, safety helmet and torch, and then walk the whole group through the middle of town to the entrance to the caves. After the tour we headed back to Prague. We had been past a brewery restaurant yesterday afternoon and thought it would be a good way to relax with Praire and Jeremy after a big day. Unfortunately we forgot where we actually saw it, so had to settle for just any pub in town. We ate dinner and then farewelled our new friends as they had a night train to catch. We stayed a bit longer before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel. Our final day in Prague we were keen to spend a bit more time looking at the sights, after a sleep in. Our hostel , the Czech Inn, is nice but a bit big, is not near the centre of Prague and doesn’t have kitchen facilities. We walked from the hostel, found some breakfast and then visited a church which was near to the hostel. Then like the first night we took the tram up to the castle. While they call it Prague Castle, it looks more like a palace, and is really just a series of buildings on top of a hill. It is very nice and has lots to see and do, there are numerous museums. We were walking through some gardens when we discovered a birds of prey display. This was interesting, there were about 10 birds including falcons, owls and an eagle. The centre of the castle is a big gothic church which we visited. There were also some nice views of the river and the Prague old town. Walking down from the castle was quite an easy stroll. We looked at shops some tourist some not so much. This led us to Charles Bridge. This is a famous bridge and possibly Prague’s biggest attraction. At both ends there are towers with arches to walk through. The bridge itself has many statues lining both sides. In between the statues are tourist markets selling all sorts of souvenirs and hundreds of tourists taking photos! After crossing the bridge we ventured into the old town again hoping to see the clock chime on the hour, but again just missed it. Wait another 58 minutes, stuff that! We headed to a brewery restaurant for dinner, the one we couldn’t find last night. It is a big place and when we sat down we found out that they were serving one of the generic big company beers. Not good enough, so upon enquiry we found out if we head upstairs to a smaller dining room the serve the micro beer in there. Good move, not only were we in a long narrow room with low arched ceiling but the beer was good. We ate traditional food, goulash and stroganoff, which was also very good. After dinner we went for a bit of a night walk along the river, the old town and castle looked nice at night all lit up with flood lights.Next morning we were up early as we had a 9am bus to Berlin. Yes we took the cheap option and took the 4hr bus, which actually isn’t much longer than taking the train. It was fine, as far as bus rides go, we slept, ate and then arrived in Berlin just after midday.
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