A LAZY SUNDAY IN PRAGUE

After our adventurous day yesterday we were a bit lazy today.  We had a leisurely breakfast at our apartment, and planned our day's sightseeing.

First on our list was a visit to the Jewish Museum in the old Jewish ghetto of Prague.  We had our route all mapped out, and thankfully didn't have the same problem as yesterday.  We easily found the Museum, and stood in a long line to get tickets.  We met a nice mother and daughter from Toronto and enjoyed visiting with them while the line inched along.

The Jewish Museum of Prague is divided into several buildings scattered throughout the area of the old Jewish ghetto.  The ghetto was originally walled off, but the walls were taken down in the late 1800's.

The first building we toured was the Maisel Synagogue, built in 1590 by the mayor of the Jewish town.  This building, like all the others we toured today,  is no longer used as a functioning synagogue.  We viewed pictures drawn by young children from the Terezin Concentration Camp.  The pictures were profoundly moving, some showing a sweet sense of innocence and hope, while others were very dark.

No photos were allowed inside any of the museums we visited today, so I don't have many photos to share.

The entrance door to the Maisel Synagogue:

After the Maisel Synagogue, we walked the short block to the Pinkas synagogue, built in 1525.  In the 1950's it was turned into a memorial for Moravian and Bohemian Jews murdered by the Nazis.  There are more than 80,000 names inscribed on the walls of the synagogue memorial--it is very sobering to see.  Again, no photos were allowed.

 Next was the old Jewish Cemetery, dating from 1434. The cemetery contains the graves and tombstones of over 12,000 Jews.  The number of persons buried here is over 1000,000, as Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, so the dead were buried on top of one another.  The graves are up to 10 persons deep.

 We were allowed to take pictures outside.

  The Old Jewish Cemetery:

Our next stop in the series of Jewish Museums was The Klausen Synagogue, built in 1573.  Here we saw an exhibit titled "Jewish Customs and Traditions".  It was quite interesting and very informative.

Our last stop was The Spanish Synagogue, built in 1868.  It now contains an exhibit titled "History of Jews in Bohemia".  This synagogue is beautifully decorated, but again, no photos were allowed.  I did find a photo on Wikipedia, just to give you an idea of it's design.

The Spanish Synagogue:

We spent at least two hours in the various museums, and definitely found them interesting.  

Near the Spanish Synagogue there is a memorial to Franz Kafka,  one of the many famous Jews of Prague who was raised in this neighborhood.  It's a fairly new one, having been completed in 2004.

Franz Kafka

Beautiful entrance and door in the neighborhood.  The panels on the door are shiny copper, which is hard to tell from the photo.

We've seen several vintage cars around Prague, they are "for hire" for city tours.

We walked back to the Wenceslas Square area, and watched these musicians for quite a while--they were really good.  I think they were supposed to be medieval minstrels--they really rocked out:

After roaming around way to long,  looking for just the right lunch stop, we finally chose a small cafe near the square, and settle in for a much needed sit-down and a beer.  We each had a bowl of soup and a good beer.

Here's David--very glad to finally sit down and enjoy a beer:

The rest of our afternoon we strolled around some side streets, doing a little window shopping.  As we are both coming down with colds (ugh!), and we really weren't feeling our best. We decided to take it easy, so we took the subway back to our apartment and rested for a couple of hours.

For dinner tonight we'd chosen a brewery and restaurant about 4 blocks from our apartment.  We'd spotted it while we were on the tram a couple of days ago. We checked their website, and their menu and beer offerings were really interesting.  

We started with a beer sampler of all their house beers. They were all good, but the two standouts for me were the coffee beer and the sour cherry beer, which really wasn't sour at all.  They also had a beer brewed with nettles, it was a soft green color and had a faint herbal flavor.  The big surprise for me was their banana beer--I've seen banana flavored beers many times, but never tried one, as I thought it just sounded awful.  I was pleasantly surprised--I liked it!  But that coffee beer----mmmmmm good!  I'd bring home cases if I could!

Here's our beer sampler:

David had read about a regional specialty--garlic soup.  Tonight was the night to give it a try--and WOW!  It was quite "aromatic"--but it was quite good.  I had a few bites--in self defense!

Garlic soup:

Pork roast in a beer/thyme sauce, served with bacon dumplings.  The dumplings were the best we've had.  The meat was tender and very good, but the sauce tasted like a regular brown gravy.  Good--but not great:

Side dish of red cabbage--this is another dish that David wants me to make at home:

David's venison ragout with potato croquettes.  The sauce was made with a porter beer, and it was really tasty. Those potato croquettes?  Just OK, we each tried one, and left the rest.  That red cabbage is much better!

All in all, it was a great meal.  So good, in fact, that we are planning on dinner there tomorrow night, our last day in Prague. They have some yummy sounding desserts made with beer!

On the walk home we passed a liquor store with quite a display window.  We stopped to take a look, and spotted these two beers!  Really?? Pot IN beer?  Or pot FLAVORED beer?? Either way, it doesn't seem appealing, and we didn't buy any. Really, we didn't!

It was early to bed tonight for these two "sickos".  Tomorrow is our last day in beautiful Prague; we are taking the 10:30 pm night train to Krakow, Poland.  We have a two person sleeper compartment reserved--should be interesting.  I dibs the lower bunk!!