goose or mutated chicken

There are more reasons to go to the Czech Republic than just the cheap and tasty beer and atrociously bad customer service.  There are plenty of places to see outside of Prague and any visit to the Czech Republic would be bare without those visits.  Of course, there is Plzen, which is the home of the Pilsner Urquell brewery.  If you’ve never taken a beer tour in your life, you owe it to yourself to at least go there, since Pilsner Urquell is a very solid beers, and based in the birthplace of pilsner beers, which is the most standard of all beer types.  The American domestic beers are, truthfully, vague and horrible adaptations of the pilsner brew variety.  A real pilsner has some flavor other than that of bitter water.  Having been to my fair share of brew tours, I had decided against going to the tour when I was in Plzen. 

The two Bohemian towns Pavlos and I decided to visit were Karlstejn and Kutna Hora.  Both being an hour train ride from the central station in Prague, tickets costing around 8 euros and trains being fairly common and comfortable.  Grab a beer and sit back to enjoy the rocking motion and clickety clack of the trains, many of them being of the older Soviet styles, with closed cabins for every eight passengers, though six passengers are more appropriate.

The first day, we went to Karlstejn.  Karlstejn is a very small village southwest of Prague.  It’s mainly one or two streets that follow the road up a mountainside to a castle.  The castle was built to store the crown jewels of the King of Bohemia, whose main residence was in Prague.  It’s not visible from the roadside or the river, but you have to cross the river and enter the valley in order to see it.  It creates a perfect military advantage since it’s impossible for an army to get close enough to study the advance of the castle without first being seen and harassed itself.  

The castle is one of the best preserved in all of Prague and they hold inside tours every hour in different languages.  The tours are a bit pricey and they don’t allow you to wander around the castle on your own.  We decided against a tour, though we were too late as it was, since when we arrived at 4:00, they were already shutting down the public parts of the wing to get ready to abandon the site at 4:30, even though it was supposed to all be open until 4:30.  When Pavlos went down to see the well and take some pictures, at 4:15, there was already a large women waving tourists away like she was a horses tail waving off flesh eating flies.  

View form Karlstejn Castle

“I just want to take one picture though,” Pavlos protested, showing his camera.  

“Pavlos, it’s worthless arguing.  I’ve seen this behavior in Georgia.  If these people weren’t getting paid, they’d go out of their way to help you.  But they’re getting paid.  Money turns everyone into ass holes.”  We went back up the stairs and looked for another open wing, but were blocked by another worker there wanting to go home early.  We left the castle, still happy to see such a beautiful place, the valley being shrouded by an evening fog, lit purple and red by the setting sun.  

The street is lined with authentic Czech restaurants, serving authentic Czech food (and Russian and Hungarian food) with Czech menus (also available in English and Russian) and Czech beers (and some German beers).  Talking to attendants is always a play in languages, since you have to settle on the language of approach, should we try my smattering of Czech, or our more capable English or Russian, one of which the waiter might know?  And the language issue is usually not solved until the third or fourth exchange.  Most of the restaurants in Karlstejn are very cheap but very quality.  We sat down and ordered three course meals, paying less than ten euros each for a meal that would easily cost thirty euros in France.  But then, it’s not hard to be charged thirty euros in France.  

I had found out after some time that when trying to speak Czech and resorting to English, it was the best way to be treated rudely.  People didn’t have patience for it.  But when speaking Russian immediately, it seemed as though people had a natural subservience to Russian speakers.  It worked better.  Not to mention that, if I spoke Russian slowly, then the Czechs would understand me, and the same went for the opposite.  Sitting in a restaurant with Pavlos called “Darling I’ll call you later”, we were able to work out the precise order Pavlos wanted.  First goulash, but there was no goulash.  Then borscht with a side of dumplings.  We got the side of dumplings, but they were filled with raspberry jelly and topped with whipped cream and cheese – more delicious than I thought my Russian skill was capable of.

the ossuary grounds

Kutna Hora was our next stop which we used for our next day of entertainment.  We got off the train and walked directly to the ossuary.  Ossuaries have a long history.  When people began to run out of room to bury the dead, or when the dead piled up too fast, like in wars or plagues, than people built ossuaries, or mass graves that still followd the religious rituals of burial.  In the small village of Sedluc, outside Kutna Hora (which is still labeled Kutna Hora for the train system), there is the Sedluc Ossuary.  It was founded as a traditional graveyard near a monastery.  A monk was sent out as an emissary to the Holy Land and he had brought back some dirt from Golgotha, the hill where Christ was buried.  He then spread it across the grounds of the grave yard and soon the area became famous for this.  People died in masses to get buried there.  As the piles of dead mounted up, the monks developed an ossuary.  In the 1800s, they hired an artist to figure out what to do with all the bones.  He thought of making some small pyramids, a chandelier and a few other items of interest.  Since then, it’s become famous tourism destination across the world. 

bone chandelier and Gothic skull spires

a closer look at the spires and chandeliers

Across the street from the ossuary, there’s the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist Church.  The Cistercians built the first one in the 1200s and the replacement (after its destruction by the Hussites) in the 1500s, creating the largest cathedral in Europe and one of the first to use vaulted ceilings, which became a standard throughout Gothic architecture.  There are two saints interred there and on display as well, St. Francis and St. Vincent, of whose fame I’m unaware and thus, can’t share.  

Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist

Further into the old town of Kutna Hora, which is about a thirty minute walk from Sedlec, there stands the gigantic Gothic Church of St. Barbara.  Whereas the Cistercian Cathedral was built in 30 years, St. Barbara started construction in the 1300s and didn’t finish until the early twentieth century.  The exterior of the church is truly impressive, having a kind of uniqueness that many Gothic churches don’t maintain, since often they follow under a standard pattern of design.  There isn’t much difference between the cathedrals in Regensberg as there is in Prague.  This church though, with its semicircle back and pavilion front and central spires, looks like no other church that I’ve seen before.  It sits on the sheer face of a steep hill top and is surrounded by the old city.  Easily a day can be spent here at any of the numerous cafes that spot along the streets of Kutna Hora.  

When Pavlos and I went, we both had to go to the restroom.  I had been holding it in for so long I was sweating out the piss.  Finally, after walking around the interior and examining all the chapels, lighting candles for loved ones and all the other things Catholics tend to do by instinct, I finally went up to the porters.  The church had a bizarre setup as a kind of church and museum.  During services, the church was a church, but outside of service hours, it was a museum, probably using the money gained from entrance to maintain the building.  Which I was fine with, as most people who come aren’t Catholics, aren’t interested in Catholicism and are only interested in marveling at the deeds Catholics (and I’m mostly including the people who were coerced into labor by the Church here) bled over.  The snap some shots, say “oh that’s nice” and make on their way.  Similarly, I hate when people take pictures of street performers and don’t pay.  How do these people think these “oh that’s nice” things can last without funding to maintain them?  So, why not, charge entrance fees like a museum.  

the approach to the church, from the front of the GASK museum

St. Barabara's from the side

Anyways, I asked the porter in Czech.  “Prosim, kde toilet?”  They pointed me outside and told me the tourism office.  I went to the tourism office across the street and both of their toilets were out of order.  Not only that, but they cost fifty euro cents.  I went down the street to a café, bought a coffee for 40 euro cents and enjoyed the restroom facilities there.  When I made it back to Pavlos, who was waiting at the church, I said, “Look, you can go to the café, use their restrooms and get a free coffee.”

“Where do they go to the restroom anyway?” Pavlos asked, referring to the workers at the church and the tourism office. 

“I had half a mind to pee on the tourism office, myself.”  How does a church not have restrooms?  And if a church is charging a fee to enjoy the interior, then can’t that fee pay to clean up the restrooms, if that’s what they’re worried about?  Seemed a trifle impractical to me.

We went back to the café where I used the restroom so Pavlos could do the same.  The café was situated on just the opposite side of the GASK museum than the church was.  I sat down and looked at their menu.  When Pavlos came back, he asked, “Something to eat?”

“They only have goose here and it’s a bit expensive,” I said.  “A bit expensive” meant five euros.  After thinking about that and thinking about eating a goose, I overcame my natural miserliness and agreed with Pavlos to split a plate of goose.  It was sweet, tasty and tender, the skin a bit stringy, but overall, beat the poultry at the KFC we ate the other day, and it was for nearly the same price.  Goose or mutated chicken?  That’s your choice, in the end, but I’d advise you to try the goose.