Prague is physically rich with history, even by European standards

June 23, 2024

Since we missed out on the Jewish Quarter yesterday, we decided to head here first today. This area’s history as a Jewish Ghetto dates back to the 13th century and is currently comprised of six synagogues, the Jewish Ceremonial hall, and the Old Jewish Cemetery. Prague remained untouched throughout both WWI and WWII so it was fascinating to see this original area. These sites also make up what is called the Jewish Museum so we were able to buy one ticket to access all these sites. We knew we wouldn’t get to all of them so we started with the oldest area.

Our first visit was to Pinkas Synagogue, the second oldest preserved synagogue. It was built in 1535 and currently serves as a memorial to the Czech Jewish victims of the Holocaust. As we entered we were struck by the walls covered with names of the victims, and each room we entered continued this list. In total there are nearly 80,000 names with alongside their date of birth, deportation, and murder. We then walked through the Jewish Cemetery. Apparently the oldest tombstone here dates to 1439. Walking through we were above street level and later learned that some graves are layered up to 10 burials deep. From the street, the towering walls reminded us of this. Tombstones were everywhere, tilted with age and although it is a cemetery, it was a beautiful site to walk through.

Next we made a quick stop to the Ceremonial hall, which mainly featured artifacts and details of the Jewish death and funeral rituals. The final stop we were able to make in this area was to the Old-New Synagogue. This is the oldest site in the town and everything inside (except the floor) is original.

After getting in as much of the area as we could with Liam, we decided to reward his patience by finally trying trdelnik, or chimney cake. We keep seeing these everywhere, often stuffed with ice cream and decided we needed one before we left. Despite it being everywhere, it apparently is not a traditional Czech food and many people say it was just started for tourists, but that was fine with us as it smelled delicious. It is dough wrapped shaped as a cone and baked over hot coals, dipped in cinnamon and sugar. We opted to get it stuffed with Nutella, strawberries and cream. It did not disappoint!

We walked along the river a bit and found a playground for Liam to let off some steam. It was another great park in that it’s shaded, and allows us to get some great views while Liam plays. Another trend here seems to be sand toys already there for kids to play with, so once he found a trailer he was good to go. He played for a while and then heard the sound of a miniature ride-on train nearby. He got to ride this mini-train around and of course asked for several rides.

We made our way back to the other side of the river, Lesser Town, to visit the castle again, hoping to see more of it open. This involved a long climb up steps to get to the castle, with some rest stops along the way to enjoy the views. Unfortunately by the time we got here, the church was closed to visit (despite us technically having more time according to their signs). We were a little disappointed but continued to walk through the grounds and enjoy the lack of people there, so maybe it was worth missing the church to avoid the crowd. We headed to the Golden Lane, which housed workers of the castle as well as other notable people throughout the years. We got to enter one of the residences and check out the armor on display.

We then went to garden around the Czech senate and it was a tranquil place to be, it even had peacocks walking the grounds, which Liam was very interested in. We walked around the gardens to a bit and saw a very organic wall, it looked like dripping stone, just very neat to see. The garden started closing so we headed back to the hotel.

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