Prague
June 9 – Thursday in Prague....
Well, not exactly Prague. We took the bus for 2 hours to the spa town, Karlovy Vary (translated “Carlsbad”) in western Bohemia near Czech border with Germany. This is a beautiful town nestled along a winding river & the whole area is notable for mineral springs. Mozart and a host of other celebs & not-celebs have been coming here since the 14th century, believing that the mineral waters are healthy taken both inside & out. There are a series of fountains within a colonnade from which people use a particular style cup to catch the waters & drink it. We tried it in Cee's new “I Heart Prague” mini-cup. The water tastes salty & metallic. There is no sulfur smell. The pipes it spews from at the fountains are pretty corroded with calcium deposits. Hmmm. We assume that the water will not similarly corrode our pipes.
The river & surrounding hillside are lined with spas offering mineral baths and other spa services. There are trendy shops and boutiques, restaurants and hotels. The buildings are painted in pastels and adorned with colorful flower boxes. After lunch on the promenade, we head to the “Spider Spa”. A little short on time before our bus ride back to Prague, we are still able to enjoy the hot & cold foot bath, rock bottom do-it-yourself foot massage, mineral pool, and shower massages. A light & sound production over the mineral bath make it seem as though it is raining and the pool bubbles from numerous jets on the floors and walls. I almost felt like I was in the pool at the Bellagio. Very fun. Very relaxing & the mineral water really softened our skin. Then it was another run to the bus for our ride back to Prague. The buses here are great – very comfy seats, movie in English, free coffee, & offer of newspapers or magazines. Great service & great method of transport.
June 10 – Kutna Hora
Bee took the day off to sleep in & spend some time on her own exploring Prague, while Cee & I hopped the train for Kutna Hora, a medieval silver mining town once the 2nd largest city in the Czech Republic. KH is noted for Kostnice Ossuary (bone church) which dates back to the 16th century.
The Church of St Barbara is a beautiful, 14th century Bohemian Gothic church which looks like it is taken from the set of a Harry Potter movie. We had lunch right outside in an outdoor cafe while we waited for our tour of the silver mines. Cee & I shared the best garlic-ham-cheese soup we had ever had. Actually I'm not sure either of us has ever had garlic soup, but this was great. We also shared a kilbasa & fries.
Great, now that the digestion has started we are off on our tour of the silver mine. Our tour leader is a very nice hobbit who tells us all about the history of this once very productive silver mine. He explains the centuries old winches and ladders used by the miners and describes their life. Although they were paid 3x the average wage for their work in the mines, these were 12 hour days underground and miners essentially never saw daylight. They were so deep that it often took them 3 hours to climb back out of the mine after their shift and they were not paid for their commute times. We donned white lab coats, hard hats, and grabbed lanterns and followed our hobbit down into the mine. A 160 steps down a spiral staircase took us to the first of a series of very narrow, low ceiling tunnels. Back in the day people were short and they made no more room than was absolutely needed. This silver mine was considerably smaller than the salt mines we visited in Poland. At one point during the tour we all turned off our lanterns so that we could experience total darkness. Dark. Then out of the cave, shed our mining garments, and we were once more running for the bus to go back to the train station & back to Prague.
We had hoped to take in an opera or concert in Prague, but our half day tour of Kutna Hora took a full day. So we opted for doing our laundry, having dinner, & getting ready for our departure from Prague to Cesky Krumluv the next day.
Now, to find a laundromat. Despite all the hostels in town, laundromats are few and far between. We only heard of two in the whole city. (“We don't need laundromats because everyone has a washer & dryer in their homes.”) So we chose the closest one, packed up our dirty clothes and took the tram about 2 miles. A confused walk through a pretty seedy area (advice from Cee: “ Let's stay together & walk with a purposeful, confident attitude. “ From me: “Now, exactly where are we again? Is that a man peeing in the bushes over there?”) finally brought us to the “wash cafe”. To do 2 washer loads, it was about $20 & the dryers were so poor that we still brought home half of the clothes damp & had to hang them out overnight to dry. The cafe was a pub, smokey, but good food & lots of local color. Some of the local color tried to pick up on Bee....a perfect segway to, “Bee, help me fold the clothes.” to finally Cee's challenge to Mr Seedy-side-of-Prague....”Are you paying our bill? That would be great; just go ahead and pay our bill.” at which point he slithered back into the smokey, beer filled hole he had emerged from.
We gathered up our clothes, wet or no, and headed back to the hotel to string up our new Rick Steve's genuine clothes line that needs no clothespins. Yipee. Done for the night.
Note that Karlovy Vary is where Becherovka is produced. Using a secret recipe developped by a 19th century pharmacist -- no joke -- it uses a combination of the city's highly-mineraled 'Healing Waters' and more than 32 other herbs. Becherovka, however it would have been adored by master 16th-century playwrites, was not commercially developped until the early 1800's.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you know.
As for Kutna Hora: I think the Ossuary is a bit played-up. And, actually, it's a bit play-ful. The bone-arrangements leave you with the feeling that everybody died during a party, and their only wish was to be in attendence at all future gatherings. I normally leave ossuaries with an uneasiness about those who chose to decorate in human remains, but Kutna Hora has a much more upbeat vibe. That said, to go to Kutna Hora just for the bone-church would be a mistake -- the town itself is petit and charming, St. Barbara's is beautifully gothic, the memorable sculpture-lined promenade to Barbara's overlooks a cascading vineyard, and the silver mine tour is enlightening and Bucket-list shortening: absolute darkness is fairly hard to come by. My recc is go to Kutna Hora and party with the dead guys, but make sure to catch the sights in town.