To be completely honest, I think one of my favorite parts about the whole trip was seeing how people live in other countries, outside of the tourist attractions. I was fascinated by the grocery stores we went into, the cars that passed us on the highway with their long, rectangular license plates. I would look at the people in their cars from the bus window and try to decide their stories and where they were going/coming from. The second day in Prague was especially exciting to me because we spent the morning outside of the city, in a small town that was most definitely a tourist attraction but also a place where people lived. Also, it was just the epitome of a small European town, and I just loved it for that.
Karlstejn Castle is up on top of a hill about an hour or so out of Prague, in the countryside, and was built in the 1300s, which is enough to blow my mind. The bus dropped us off in a parking lot at the bottom, and then we walked up the street, past all the shops and vendors to the actual base of the hill, which goes up through the trees on a dirt path. The whole walk was just so pretty, with flower boxes on the buildings and little Czech kids running around. And, of course, the buildings are all white with red roofs, making it even more picturesque. I got this picture from below, when the castle came back into view. It's almost like a Disney castle, only real.
Quite a bit of the castle actually isn't open to the public, or is accessed on a different tour, but I was extremely impressed by what I did see. Everything about it just screamed medieval to me, whether it be the architecture, coloring, or outhouse that hung off the building so that everything fell onto the grounds below. It it doesn't belong in Tudor-era England, then it's straight out of Rohan.
Karlstejn is famous in Czech history because it was used by royalty to house their jewels and relics, meaning it was just packed with riches. The interior doesn't look like a palace or anything, but we went through several rooms with large portraits all over the walls, and in the last room there was a glass case holding bejeweled crowns.
Here's the view from above, down on the lovely little village.
After our tour, the tour guide left us with the words "have a good rest of your life," which was probably the most though-provoking thing I'd heard in a really long time, and we started back down the hill in the heat. My grandma and I bought some cashmere scarves, which were a lot cheaper than what they go for in Prague, and spent some time taking pictures.
Back in Prague, we went to an Irish pub, which is apparently the biggest Irish pub in Prague, across the street from our hotel. Going to a different culture's restaurant in a foreign country is the best.
That night was the first concert of the series, so the chorus had to go to rehearsal that afternoon, and my grandma and I walked there with them. They performed in Smetana Hall in the Municipal House, which put the Newport Mansions to shame. It was the first time I had heard them sing the piece, Dvorak's Stabat Mater, and the first time I had even recognized the male soloists as being soloists, so the part of the rehearsal we saw was just incredible. The room wasn't let up for a concert yet, and everyone was wearing their street clothes, but I just couldn't stop staring at everything around me; the ceiling, the ornate carvings on every square inch, and the enormous organ pipes.
After a while, we wandered back through the streets, and passed a brick-painting station that another tour member had told us about. You can pay for a brick to paint and then stack next to the booth, which goes towards building a mental health center. There were already hundreds of them there, and the pile just kept growing every time we passed. My grandma painted this one for my grandpa.
Across the street there was a group of kids jamming, which I found really cool. They were speaking to each other in Czech but singing in both Czech and English, and appearing to have the time of their lives. Music on the streets is so common in the places we went, especially in Prague, where people and tourists are everywhere. They played Czardas, which is a famous Hungarian piece that I just started learning on the violin, and it really made me happy. I made it my goal to find someone playing it in every country, and I got 2/3 of the way there (more on that later).
We meandered back to the hotel, stopping to look at more street performers, duck into shops and watch these minnows eat peoples' feet in the Thai spa.
No, really. They eat the dead skin off. And be sure to note the lovely skull (and the fact that they actually do use commas instead of decimal points! My Spanish teacher was right!).
As I said before, that night was the first concert, and it was just magical. Really, truly magical. The Municipal House has plush red carpets on the wide staircases and gold trim and gorgeous dining rooms/restaurants. Smetana Hall was all lit up and just filled with people (hundreds and hundreds). We sat in the balcony, and I suddenly realized that I was in the best place in the world to see places like this, and that it doesn't get much better. The chorus looked so professional, everyone sounded beautiful, and they got so much support and applause from the locals.
Since my pictures don't really do anything on this trip justice, here are some from the lovely Google.
So, so pretty.
After the concert, we had dinner in a restaurant downstairs, which was extremely nice and gorgeous. Everyone was on a concert high (the best kind of adrenaline rush ever), and the doors were open, so we could see out onto the streets. This is when I started taking pictures of my food, which is something I would do at least once a day for the rest of the trip.
And that was our last day in Prague! I loved that city so much. It was just a fairy-tale land, with rich history and so many things you'd never see here in the States, and I would go back in a heartbeat. I never would have thought to visit the Czech Republic, but I'm so, so glad that I did.
If you want to see pictures from the trip that are really, really good, then you can find the Chorus of Westerly on Facebook, where hundreds of pictures have been posted. They're all absolutely stunning and have a lot of people in them (including me, in some!).
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