On our second day in Prague I got up early and jogged over to the Charles Bridge to get a few pictures of it when it wasn't filled with tourists. It was, of course, raining and foggy but the bridge looks best in those conditions in my opinion.
The first picture below is what is on the inside of the sculpture in the second picture.
After returning from my picture taking expedition we set out to tour the Jewish museum, which is right by Inka's apartment. The Jewish museum consists of 7 sites - 5 Synagogues, the cemetery, and a ceremonial hall. You start out in the Maisel synagogue which is filled with a lot of information! The history of the persecution of the Jews throughout the history of Prague and the Czech Republic. You could spend hours reading all the plaques about different aspects of Jewish life throughout history in the Czech Republic. The second stop is the Pinkas Synagogue in which are inscribed, over all of the walls, the name of every Jewish person from Prague and the Czech Republic deported to Terezin and eventually sent to different concentration camps. There are also statistics about how many of them survived out of how many were sent away ... the number of survivors is very small.
The third stop in the museum is the Jewish cemetery. While we weren't allowed to take any pictures anywhere else in the museum, we got to snap a few of the cemetery. Apparently this tiny plot of land was where a large number of people had to be buried. Kind of spooky, and sad.
After the cemetery there were a few more synagogues filled with more details on the history of Jewish life in Prague and, finally, we came to the Spanish Synagogue which was absolutely breathtaking. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the inside but get yourself to Prague and see the inside of the Spanish Synagogue! I could have sat there for hours just staring at all the intricate gold patterns on the walls and ceiling. You can google photos of it but they don't do it justice.
After the Jewish museum we were famished so we headed over to Kolkovna, one of the restaurants Inka had recommended (she artfully paired restaurants with each of Prague's main sites so we had someplace to eat lunch and dinner every day!). I had cabbage pancakes (cabbage, potatoes, sausage, and ham in a pancake form and deep-fried ... delicious).
Martin had chicken schnitzel with potato salad and I found all of the potato salad we ate in Prague awesome. They put pickles in it! Pickles make potato salad so much better, in my opinion. I've never really liked potato salad but in Prague I couldn't get enough of it, I had some almost every day.
We returned to the apartment for our daily siesta and then ventured out again for dinner. We wanted something quick and easy as we were going to the Czech Philharmonic this evening so we went to one of the many food booths on the Old Town Square and bought some "Old Prague Ham". More ham! Here it is roasting on a spit earlier in the day:
They give you an enormous hunk of ham, some bread, and a frosty refreshing beer for your dinner. They charge Zürich prices though! Thankfully they gave us so much ham we had enough to make sandwiches for dinner the following night as well so it lasted us for two nights.
Here's my happy place! The Rudolfinum. Here we saw and heard the Czech Philharmonic. It was magical. They had guest vocalists, violinists, and a pianist. All were amazing but I especially enjoyed the pianist that accompanied the Philharmonic. I don't even have words to describe it. We were treated to two Mozart pieces and two Wagner pieces. If I lived in Prague I would definitely have season tickets for this.
Martin at intermission with some champagne. They serve refreshments before the performance and at intermission. It's a nice touch.
A quick photo I snapped of the setup for the evening. The audience was probably 90% locals. We didn't hear any English and everybody was very dressed up. And there was NOT A SINGLE IPHONE IN THE HOUSE. Not a single picture was taken before or after the performance or during the intermission and everybody was very formal and respectful and just there to listen to the music. So, I wasn't comfortable snapping pictures aside from the one below but the interior was beautiful. Go there and see it!!
And here's the statue in the old town square at night! Eerie and neat.
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