Prague, Parts 2 and 3

I knew I was going to fall behind on my posts again.

The day before yesterday we walked around in our neighborhood, which is the Jewish Quarter. You know how I've been going on and on about all the churches and cathedrals I've seen? Well, the day before yesterday I saw a synagogue! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, and the outside was at a weird angle and wasn't as significant. But it was pretty cool because that synagogue was built in1270 and is one of the oldest synagogues in Europe. It's called the Old New Synagogue. Weird, right? But I guess it was the newest synagogue when it was built and it's the oldest now so it kind of makes sense. After we toured that we walked around and saw two other synagogues from the outside, one of which is called the Spanish Synagogue because it's very Moorish influenced. So cool! We were also supposed to see the cemetery (the awesome ancient one that's outside my window) but that didn't work out in the end. I should also mention that the cemetery was first used in the early 15th century, not the 13th century which I said before. But it was the only cemetery allowed to Jews when the Jewish Quarter was a ghetto so even though it's pretty small, about 40,000 people were buried there and it's a whole floor above the street. People are buried 12 layers deep! I guess it makes sense because it was the only place for them to bury people. The only way it stays up so high above everything else is by a giant wall. Pretty crazy. Anyways, after the synagogues we went to another cathedral in this beautiful plaza and then went to the Mucha Museum.

The Spanish Synagogue 

Panoramas of the plaza with the cathedral

In case you didn't know (because I sure didn't before two days ago) Alfons Mucha is a famous Czech artist who developed a beautiful style of graphic art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also extremely patriotic and made a series of HUMONGOUS paintings--20 in all--called the Slav Epic, each commemorating a different moment in Slavic and Czech history. I think I heard that all of the paintings together cover almost half a square kilometer! Pretty awesome and/or crazy, huh? Anyway, the day before yesterday we went to his museum of graphic art. His stuff is beautiful and was very innovative at the time. I totally would've wanted him to make my posters and advertisements, and that's pretty much what he did except each one was a gorgeous piece of art.

Examples of Mucha

Yesterday we got out of the house pretty late, and eventually made our way to the National Gallery, the site of the Slav Epic. The museum was pretty huge so we only got through the top two floors before we decided to just skip all the way down to the first floor to see the Slav Epic. It's pretty amazing. You can't really tell from a photograph but the smallest are no smaller than 20 feet x 20 feet and the largest are AT LEAST 40 feet x 40 feet. When it comes to paintings Mucha is good--not the best but still very good--but the sheer size of the project is EXTREMELY impressive. It was also very interesting because I am part Slavic, a part of my family culture that I am not that familiar with. Generally I just say I'm Russian, but that's not at all accurate. My maternal grandfather's family comes from what is now present-day Slovakia. They were Carpatho-Rusyn, which means they belonged to a sub-ethnic group of Slavs that live in the Carpathian Mountains. This was an area that was constantly being taken over by the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and we think that my great-great grandfather left at age 18 so as not to be recruited by the Austro-Hungarian army. So it was pretty cool to be able to learn more about Slavic history and patriotism through the paintings. 

These were some of my favorites

So that was what happened in the last few days. Today will be a rest day because we've been traveling and going places every day for the past two and a half weeks! Seriously we haven't had a single day just chilling at home. Which doesn't sound that bad but is very tiring. So today will be an open day except for tonight, when we'll be going to the opera!!! I'm super excited because I have never been to the opera before, ever. I would've liked my first trip to the opera to be Carmen, but oh well, any opera is exciting! We are going to see Die Fledermaus, which means The Bat, and it's a comedy. I'll be sure to share more about that adventure tomorrow!!! 

Nicky!!!

Last night my brother Nicholas started his own blog! He hasn't posted yet but is working on a post as I speak/type. If you'd like to see it the site is nicksawesomeadventures.blogspot.com. Hope you enjoy it! (Seriously it's so good I think it's going to make the short entries and random pictures of my blog look bad.) ;)

Prague, Part 1

I say part 1 because we'll be here for a total of a week, so I'm leaving it open to call the rest of my posts for the next few days "Prague." Today we went to Prague Castle! It was very cool. There was a Gothic cathedral (yeah, another one), a palace, a Medieval bridge (this one made of stone), a Romanesque church, and a little alley of tiny Medieval houses.

Today was our first sunny day since we arrived in Europe!

View from the bridge.

Beautiful view of the city from the hill on which the palace and cathedral are perched!

I ❤️ Gothic Cathedrals!

This was the first time we were allowed take pictures inside a cathedral, so I took a lot! I'll only post a few, though.

I LOVE stained glass windows

This hall in the palace could fit our entire  house. It was the site of many royal coronations, including that of a three-year-old! I honestly will never understand European monarchs.

Such a cute little street!

Catching Up

Okay, so I am about two days behind on my posting. Actually the day I posted about Dachau wasn't the day we went, it was the day after. So the day after Dachau we were in Rothenburg ob dere Tauber, the most well-preserved Medieval town in Germany. We went to two museums: one a history museum and the other one about crime and punishment from Medieval times to the 18th century. 

Medieval wall

Medieval people must have been really short! :D

Armor and weapons for a little kid. 

Torture in the Middle ages. Your head would go in the top, your wrists below, and at th bottom your legs. The way it worked was if more than one person accused someone of a crime they would be taken in and tortured until you admitted to your crime, whether or not you actually commited it. Depending on the crime you could then be killed. 

The flute of shame for bad musicians. They would have their hands locked to it so that they looked as if they were playing the instrument. 

The day after that we went to Nuremberg, the site of the trials of important Nazi officials after WWII. That was interesting because I hadn't known that they actually executed some of the officials. I also hadn't known that there were four counts that they could be tried on: conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It's actually a little disappointing, because the four people that everyone most wanted to see brought to justice for their crimes--Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Güring--commit suicide before that could happen. In fact, Güring was the only one still alive for his trial, but commit suicide two hours before his planned execution. Although the world no longer had to deal with these people, it would have been pretty satisfying to see them tried by the Allies after all the terrible things they caused. Other than Nazi officials, they also tried some doctors, lawyers, and other people who commit crimes during the war. It was very interesting to go through all of the legal struggles and planning that went into the trials.

After the Nuremberg museum we got in the car and drove to...drumroll please...Prague! We were kind of tired so we just went out to dinner and came back and went to bed. But this morning my mom got up and said, "Oh my gosh we're right next to the cemetary!" I didn't think much of it at the time--I guess I just figured it was a normal cemetary--but when I got up to look out the window I saw this. 

It's totally your stereotypical ancient haunted graveyard! The reason why it's there is because we're in the Jewish Quarter of the city, which has been around since the 1200s. It's pretty awesome! 

Dachau

Today we went to Dachau, the infamous Nazi concentration camp. It was by far the most heavy trip experience we have had so far. Most of the time I just walked around and read the signs without uttering a single word and felt the weight in my heart grow and grow with each step. I didn't take any pictures; that just felt wrong. So I'll do my best to explain.

Imagine a large building straddling a small gravel path. A heavy gate, propped open, sits between the two halves of the building. This is where political prisoners--Jews, Slavs, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so many more--walked through, already sick and weak and hungry, suffering simply because people didn't like them. On the walls are two plaques, commemorating the American troops that liberated the camp and the many "undesirables" that lived and died there. You step into a huge, empty, grey expanse. First, imagine a giant field of gravel. Your attention is immediately caught by an open space bigger than a football field, a huge courtyard. This is where political prisoners would have roll call twice a day, when they had to stand at perfect attention for over an hour while they were counted by number and required to salute the commander of the camp. There are long, low buildings to the left and a large building to the right with a main part and two wings on either side parallel to each other. Far at the end of the field of grey you see one, two lines of barbed wire fences and watchtowers appearing at intervals. Everything is big and flat and grey and quiet, the overcast sky pressing down on the angular gravel and cement of the camp. 

You walk across the field of gravel, step by slow step, until you reach the low buildings that housed the prisoners. You walk through the drafty wooden rooms and look at the bunks; wooden structures three beds high. When the camp was first built in 1933 prisoners had their own bunks, built next to each other in pairs. In 1938 they had bunks that stretched across the room, ten people next to each other, with short boards seperating them. By the end of the war, when the camp which had been built for 6,000 prisoners held 32,000 instead, they just had long bunks that stretched across without boards to seperate them, for prisoners to sleep packed together tightly. You walk out of the building and behind it are rows and rows of perimeters for other buildings like it, buildings that are exactly the same, line after line of them. You thought that one building held a lot of people, and yet there is room for over 30 more buildings behind it.

You walk past the rows and at the end are three memorials: one to the Protestants that died at the camp, one to the Catholics, and one to the Jews. You continue past them to the left, past one fence, a ditch, another fence, and now you see a memorial to Russian Orthodox prisoners. You walk on and see a low brick building with two chimmneys and a smokestack. The crematorium. 

How can I even begin to describe the importance of this? The crematorium is a symbol of all the death and destruction of the Holocaust. There is no place where the horror is as obvious as there. Everything you see leads your imagination to run wild and causes your heart to grow heavier and heavier until the weight seems to draw tears from your eyes. You walk through the doors into an empty room. This is where corpses of the deceased were piled before they were cremated. You walk into the next room, and you're faced by the stoves, long and made of brick, the doors propped open. You look up at the ceiling and see chimmneys. You walk through the next door into another empty room and finally into a gas chamber. Fake shower heads hang from the ceiling. A few vents and doors are on the walls. Aside from the modern addition of a small light everything is dark. You walk into the next room and see above the door to the gas chamber: brausebad. Showers. This is the room where victims were stripped of their clothes. The next empty room is where they were told that they were being given a "shower." There is one last room, a room where victims' clothes were cleaned, and then you step out into the light, but the weight doesn't leave you.

Just being on the grounds is shocking, sobering, but there are also the stories. Stories of having to stand stilll for hours in all kinds of weather, of punishments like being tied to a stake, of the infamous death march forcing thousands to walk to their deaths just three days befor the camp's liberation. I don't quite know why I decided to share this on my blog. Really, I guess I felt like of all the things we've seen and done so far, and of all the things we will have seen and done by the end of this trip, this is the most important to know. On the grounds there was a memorial, and it said in many diferent languages, over and over: never again. Never again can this happen, because every year we are ever more capable of doing the same thing in even more terrible ways. And it is our duty to those who died, and  those who survived, to remember, so that their hardships are always honored and never repeated. So I guess I felt like it would be wrong to not tell you all about this and yet describe in detail the petty lives of 19th century monarchs. Even though the Holocaust happened 70 years ago it is still something that everyone should know, however difficult it may be. 

I know I don't have any photos on this post, and I'm sorry about that. Like I said at the beginning, it felt wrong to take pictures. But if you are still curious, look on the internet. Do more research, look at more pictures. There are some things that I didn't bother trying to describe because I couldn't make myself, it was too hard. But even though I couldn't describe that to you, please don't stop yourself. It's something everyone should know. 

Fussen: The Castles

Today had to be one of the most interesting days we've had so far. We went up to the two castles nearby Fussen: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Yeah, I know, try pronouncing that correctly. (Think of it as NOI-shvon-stein and HURN-shvon-gow. You can even add a little mini syllable between the R and the N of the HURN part, so tha it's almost HUR-en-shvon-gow.) Really, they're not castles but palaces, as they were not built for defense and were originally supposed to be temporary homes for the royal Bavarian family. Neuschwanstein is actually quite famous as the inspiration for the castle at Disneyworld. It's true, exchange the greys for pinks, purples, and blues, and you've got yourself the internationally known symbol for Disney. Unfortunately, it was really foggy so we didn't get the most spectacular view of Neuschwanstein, but the grounds around the palaces were magical, the way they were coated in snow. The trees looked like they had snow instead of leaves. 

So, a bit of the history of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Hohenschwangau, in my opinion the less spectacular of the two, was opened in 1837 as a summer hunting lodge for King Maximillian II of Bavaria and his family. Both it and Neuschwanstein were modeled after a 19th century idea of Medieval palaces and castles, although are not completely accurate. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside, but most of the rooms had wall-to-wall frescoes and the king, queen, and two princes each had entire floor to themselves (the princes had to share, although having to share one floor of a palace with your brother is not NEARLY as bad as having to share a room with him). The second palace, Neuschwanstein, was built by the elder prince, Ludwig II (LOOD-vig), when he became king of Bavaria. It was far more impressive, despite having never been finished. Construction on the palace was stopped when Ludwig died a premature death at the age of 41 under, quote, "mysterious circumstances." He was labeled as having a mental illness and was found drowned in a lake three days later. It is uncertain what happened. But the castle was left without its main tower, chapel, and terrace. The main tower was even supposed to have an indoor swimming pool/bath. Ludwig was a very interesting character, at least in my opinion. In his lifetime he built three palaces, and was even planning to build a fourth while the construction of Neuschwanstein was still underway. It was never built. Ludwig was never married, a rarity for monarchs, having called off an engagement two months before the wedding. And he chose to live completely alone, without any family and with the help of only 30 servants. (Well, I guess "only 30 servants" is relative.) He was known for bemoaning his lack political power and built large palaces with lavish rooms, leaving him bankrupt. And on top of it, he was declared crazy right before his mysterios death. It's actually a rather sad life story. 

The guy did have style, though. Neuschwanstein is huge, with soaring towers, perched on a large mountain with a glorious view of the rocky, snowcapped Alps and a beautiful lake. His throne room is gigantic and so echoey that you can hardly understand someone who is talking. The walls are painted with colorful images of saints. His bed is carved on top to look like a Gothic cathedral and his sitting room was filled with gilded swans and other precious objects. Overall seeing even his unfinished home was amazing. 

Hohenschwangau 

Neuschwanstein 

Here's the bridge. I was smack in the middle and looking down 300 feet wen my mom said, "this bridge was built in the 1800s!" and I got really freaked out.

Zürich

Yesterday we explored Zürich. We basically did what we were supposed to do the day before: walk around and look at stuff in the morning and go to  a museum in the afternoon. In the morning we saw two churches and walked around and took a lot of pictures. Seeing the churches was a very different experience from the Duomo in Milan and the Gothic style churches and cathedrals that we've seen so far, because while those were Catholic churches the two churches we saw today were Protestant churches. The distinction is great. Protestantism began because many Christians felt that the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt and/or didn't follow the message of God. This caused them to break from the Church. One thing that the two religions disagree on is churches; Catholics believe that they should be grand and beautiful as God's home on earth, while Protestants believe that building lavish churches is more about enjoying a wealthy life on earth as opposed to actually following the religion. Therefore Protestant churches are very simple. I'll include some photographs of the churches to give some examples. We also went to a Swiss history museum, which was very interesting. Despite its reputation of always being a neutral country Switzerland has been in quote a few wars, although mostly on the defensive. There was also a civil war between Protestants and Catholics.

Today was another travel day. We left Zürich this morning and drove for an hour to a cute little Swiss town called Appenzell and had lunch. We then drove another two hours to Füßen (Füssen), a town in Bavarian Germany, where we are now.

As you can see Protestant churches are much less decorated.

Luzern

Today we went into the city of Luzern or Lucerne, where we arrived last night. It's a cute city/town built on a river which has a combination of Medieval and 18th century builldings. We spent most of the day walking around and taking pictures. It's very interesting because many of the structures look very German, a huge contrast to the Parisian style of Geneva. Sometimes I even forgot we were in Switzerland and assumed we were in Germany. We also saw two wooden bridges, each from the 13th century. One was damaged by fire in 1993, but has since been rebuilt. It was a lot of fun. The only downside that it was snowing/raining slushily (is that even a word?) the entire time we were in Luzern, and there was a very thick fog, so we couldn't see the mountains around the city and our fingers and toes were frozen. Other than that it was a lot of fun. We were going to go to a transport museum but my brother was the only one who wanted to go and he changed his mind so we instead went on to our next task for the day, which was driving to Zurich, a larger city in German Switzerland. 

The 13th century bridge that was damaged by fire and rebuilt. 

This was originally part of the city's wall. Most Medieval cities had walls that surrounded and protected them. I love all the castle-like buildings in Europe!

Another interesting thing about the bridge is that there are paintings hanging from the roof of it. Here the patron saint of Luzern (almost every European city has a patron saint) is being martyred while his killer is being taken away by the devil. You can see the saint's head (which has been cut off and is on the ground) has a gold halo around it.

Remains of the city's Medieval wall.

The paintings on the second wooden bridge depicted the affect of the Black Plague on the city of Luzern. You can see from some of the other paintings that not even nobility was safe.

Many buildings have medieval paintings on them.

This wall was painted with a noble family tree from medieval Luzern.

The stone tower next to the bridge was once a prison and torture chamber. 

A palace on a hill outside Luzern. When we first arrived it was covered in fog.