Spring Break in Prague (Pt. 1)

Our spring break has been so awesome!!  The blog posts will have to be in installments because we did so much.    :-)   Of course, the kick-off to spring break was the huge volleyball tournament for teams of teachers from various area schools, which was held in our school gym starting mid-afternoon Friday. 

The tourney was hosted by our P.E. Department, and it's an annual event sharing volleyball, food, and fun with teachers from other schools.  (The government assigns a specific week of spring break for each region of the country, so all the schools in the central third of Slovakia had break together last week.)  

Our small gym, adjacent to the volleyball court, was all set up for refreshments.  Nadia is one of our P.E. teachers hosting the event --- with LOTS of food & drink for everyone!!

The play was intense for all the games --- lots of fierce rivalry!

Tim and I helped keep score for some of the games when our team wasn't playing.

This was our team!   We didn't win many games, but we sure had fun!!   :-)

Some of the action in the gym - with Erik officiating.  When teams weren't playing, they'd either watch other games, or go into the other smaller gym for refreshments.  Round-robin games were going on from about 2:00 to 8:00, so there was a lot of time for fun and conversation.  

At one point in the evening, the team from our school was called into the P.E. office, and slivovica was poured.  They said the wine was for everyone else, but this was especially for our teammates!  

Na zdravie!!  ("Cheers!")  Let's just say it was another 'first' to be drinking wine and slivovica between volleyball games in a tournament.  

After the tournament, awards were presented.  The three players on the left are in our Friday night group, and their team did really well in the tourney.  Vierka, in the black, is a French teacher, so she and I can communicate on Friday nights in French - which is much better than my Slovak - HA!  

There were a couple of guitars, and songbooks were handed out, so everyone was singing together - another wonderful and new concept as a way to end a volleyball tournament!!  :-)  Love it!! 

With two of our Basic School colleagues.  We were all singing the songs together in Slovak - some were familiar American tunes, and others were definitely Slovak melodies.  

The guitars were passed around, as there were many good guitar players who had been outstanding on the volleyball court too.  

Janka's sister (left) brought Richko and Miška over afterwards for a while.  (Janka and Erik are the ones who also play Friday night volleyball, and we spent a Sunday afternoon with them earlier, sledding and having dinner at their flat.)

The kids are little gym-rats, playing floor-ball (like indoor hockey).

Volleyball, then music and wine, so dancing was next!  

That's why I like to be on the other side of the camera!  HA!   It was a fun evening!!

Nadia and Tim - colleagues, volleyball teammates, and dance partners!  Only in Slovakia!   :-)

Miška dancing with the Američanka!  

We left early, about 9:00, while people were still having a good time at the post-tournament party, so we could pack for our trip to Prague.  The overnight train left about 11:20 p.m., so I even had time to do a load of laundry with our volleyball clothes!  The timing worked great, and we were really excited to be heading to Prague after all we'd heard about what a beautiful city it is!!  It's called the Paris of Eastern Europe.  

This was our tiny sleeping berth for two!  We changed into PJ's and climbed in for a quick night's sleep.  The berths were fairly comfortable, the sheets were fresh and crisp, the pillow was fine, and the gentle motion and rumble of the train made it easy to sleep from midnight to 6:00 a.m.

Not a lot of room, but not bad either.  We definitely felt it was worth it to travel at night in order to already be in Prague for a full day of sight-seeing on Saturday.  The porter brought us each a nice cup of hot tea in the morning before we arrived in Prague.   :-)  

We arrived in Prague at 6:30 a.m. and walked to our hotel close to the old town centre.  We expected to just leave our luggage at the desk until check-in time, but our room was ready, so we got to move right in, which was really nice.  

They also said we could have breakfast - that was an added bonus, since we weren't even supposed to be checking in until the afternoon.  :-)   

This is the view from the elevator (which was evidently added to the exterior of this very old, beautifully refurbished building) with a playground for a pre-school out the window.  

We were SO excited to rendez-vous with Kendra, Catherine, and Kevin Secoy on Saturday morning!  It was great to see them again and spend the weekend together!!  :-)   They are friends from church in Ankeny, and they are now living in Frankfurt, Germany, so they suggested that we meet in in the middle at Prague sometime --- what a terrific idea!!

Right after breakfast, we headed to the Old Town Square, with its beautiful architecture.  This massive cathedral is Tyn Church, but it is closed for reconstruction now.  

I had signed us up online for a free 2-1/2 hour tour of the main highlights of Prague.  Simon (yellow umbrella) was a super guide, and his tips at the end of the tour are the reason it's a "free" tour!!  :-)  

This is one of the many old Jewish synagogues, which sadly, are now only museums since most of Prague's Jews were killed in the Holocaust.  

If I remember correctly, this is the interior of the first protestant church - founded by Jan Hus (aka. John Huss), who was a religious and political reformer who advocated education for all.  He was executed as a heretic, and was a forerunner of Martin Luther.  

This ceiling detail is a mosaic in St. Mikulas Church, on the Old Town Square.  

This is the Franz Kafka statue - he is portrayed as a character from one of his books, riding on the shoulders of a headless, handless man. 

St. Mikulas Church with beautiful fresco paintings on the ceiling.

Back on old town square - statue of Hus and the Astronomical Clock Tower behind us.

One of the Baroque buldings on the old town square.   You can probably tell by now, but it snowed, and snowed, and snowed all day long during our tour and afterwards.  Prague ended up with about 9" of new snow, which is very unusual for them!  

Lots of snow!!!  It was really cold too!  (Not our typical 'spring break' weather!!)   LOL!!  

Fun in the snow in Prague with the Secoys!  

This is the Charles Bridge - (very famous) - historic coronation processions led across this bridge and up to the castle high on the hill on the other side.  Of course the snowfall was so thick, we could barely even SEE the castle!!   HA!!

One of the many statues along the Charles Bridge --- covered in snow of course!

Just hanging around Prague, using the umbrella to keep the snow off my coat and stay dry!  This picture was taken at the end of the Charles Bridge.  

This Astronomical Clock is another famous Prague attraction.  It dates back to the 1500's, and it was incredibly advanced technology in its day.  It was so famous that the town rulers wanted to make sure  the inventor didn't share his ideas anywhere else, so they gouged out his eyes and cut out his tongue.  UGH!!!  It's pretty cool to see it when a lot of characters move and appear on the hour.  

We climbed the Clock Tower at night, and the views across the square and across the city were incredibly beautiful!!  

The snow finally stopped falling, so we could see the Prague Castle across the river and up the hill.  It's absolutely enormous - one of the biggest castle complexes in Europe.  

This is the protestant church, where reformer Jan Hus preached. 

View across Prague to the castle in the distance.  Normally, one sees red tile rooftops, but for us, they were all snow-covered!!  Also very pretty!!  

Romantic Prague at night!!  

Our hotel was down this street and around the corner.  The statue of Hus is in the center of the square.

I had checked out an English-speaking Lutheran service online, so Sunday morning we hopped on a trolley and headed out to find the church!

We headed down some very narrow, winding streets, and they weren't sure I was really headed the right way until we finally arrived at the church!  

We lined up in front of the church door for Kevin to take a photo, and we heard a rumbling sound from four stories above us.  We looked up to see an enormous avalanche of snow tumbling down as we yelled for Kevin to run!!  Had he not moved, he would have been flattened - as it was, a big cloud of snow enveloped us all, but no harm was done.  Now we really pay attention to all the signs on the streets saying beware of falling snow from the rooftops!!  

Kevin, dusted in snow, after avoiding catastrophe!!  

The interior of St. Michael's church, where we attended the Sunday Service.
Crazy coincidence -- we recognized the pastor at the front of the church when we arrived early.  We went to say hello, and it was the Bishop of western Slovakia, who had officiated at our commissioning service in Bratislava back in August.  Well, the other pastor was the brother-in-law of our pastor in Liptovsky Mikuláš, (who also teaches religion at our school)!  Small world!  

After church, we stayed for fellowship hour with the few others who braved the snow for church.  They helped direct us on how to get to the castle from there.  We took the metro, which is really great in Prague -- easy to use and very convenient.

Heading up to Prague Castle.

St. Vitus Cathedral - on the castle grounds.  This is where royal coronations were held.  It's one of the great gothic cathedrals in Europe, on a par with Notre Dame.  

Tim said he would NOT put on his 'grumpy-face' any more after I posted the picture of all of us in our Christmas hats.  LOL!!   But he made an exception to pose in the guard-house.   :-)  

The front of the cathedral - very impressive!!

St. Vitus Cathedral front doors. 

Stepping inside the doors and looking up from underneath the massive arches was one of those "WOW" moments, when our jaws dropped and we just stood there in awe of such a magnificent structure!  

The stained glass windows in the cathedral were gorgeous.

The colors were so vivid!

This is the organ, in one of the side galleries off the main sanctuary.  

The giant rose window in the back of the cathedral.

The pulpit - very huge, ornate, and high up!

One of the gargoyles, with icicles spewing out!   HA!  

View from the tower of the cathedral, looking down at the Convent of St. George, (reddish front), which is the oldest church structure on the castle grounds.  

Convent of St. George, behind the cathedral.

The back side of the cathedral, showing the flying buttresses.

Interior of the convent - it originated around the 9th century.  (Still inside the castle walls.)

This is the Golden Lane - a narrow street of houses and shops built into the castle walls, which for centuries were a part of the thriving community within the castle grounds.  Some residences were still inhabited up until the 1950's!  Now, part has been restored into museum displays of historic homes and shops, while part consists of modern-day souvenir shops within the old structures.  

One of the museum-area displays was of weaponry and coats of arms.  So here is my knight in shining armor again!!  :-)

This was a potter's shop in the museum part.  (basement area)

One of the modern shops - traditional ceramics.

Prague Castle sewer cover.

Our castle ticket also admitted us into several other museums housed in palaces within the castle walls.  There were many really neat exhibits.  

Crossing the Vltava River on the Charles Bridge, on the walk back from the castle.  We loved all the beautiful buildings and intricate architecture in Prague!!  No wonder it's called the Paris of Eastern Europe!  :-)

This jazz combo of street musicians really braved the cold to entertain the tourists!  

The Secoy family had to leave for Frankfurt after our castle visit, so after we bid them farewell, we decided to attend a concert that evening, in this beautiful Baroque palace.  

Heading up the staircase to the concert hall.

It was a beautiful building, inside and out!  The concert flyer we received earlier said it was in a HEATED facility, which was a big selling-point after spending much of the last two days walking outside in the cold, or inside unheated churches and museums!!   :-)

This was the performance hall, a very intimate setting for about 80-100 concert-goers.   It was so cool to hear chamber music played in this fashion, as it would have been in the days of its composers.  There were actually only about 20 people in attendance, so we felt like royalty getting such a private performance!  

The performance was excellent, and we thoroughly enjoyed it!!  We heard Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Telemann, Dvorák, and Mozart.  The solo violinist on the Dvorák Romance and Vivaldi's Four Seasons was spectacular!! 

On the walk back to our hotel after the concert, we came across these street musicians playing classical music to an accompaniment track.  They were awesome too, and it made me think of something Dave Swenson might do to pick up a little extra cash and having fun making music.  You could tell these two were really enjoying themselves!  :-)   What a marvelous end to our first two days in Prague!!