Hey, Czech This Out (And Other, German, Things)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaalrighty I'm back! Not that I went anywhere, I've just neglected the blog for a few days(ok so a lot of days). But, in my defense, it was because we were trying to fit a tonne of things in. Which I think will be the case for the rest of the trip, because we now have less than 2 weeks left! That. Is. Insane. Anyways, where did I leave off? Ah, yes. Prague.

I freaking love Prague. Just gonna get that off my chest right away. It is SO beautiful, has a tonne of cool stuff, the language (albeit extremely confusing and totally foreign to us) is kinda sweet, and the hostel we stayed in was A++. On the way to Prague, via bus, TJ started feeling not so good, and this persisted till the next day (and the next, and the next, and so on). So the first day in Prague, we took it easy in the morning and then headed out to walk through the park overlooking the city and up towards the castle. Unfortunately, the castle was closing about half an hour after we got there, but the tickets worked for two days, so we bought them and did a couple things, planning to go back the next day. The first day we went inside the Old Royal Palace and the Basilica of St. George and saw some sweet views of the city. And then TJ was feeling really ill, so we went back to the hostel, where we stayed for the rest of the evening. 

Inside the great hall of the Old Palace.

Those are all coats of arms on the ceiling! Crazy!

This hallway/staircase was built extra tall and with short and wide stairs so that horses could go up it! Kind of a funny picture!

Inside the Basilica.

AND the most exciting evening happened this night. We went to see Michael Buble in concert!!!! In Prague! Ummmm best Christmas gift ever? I think so. He was SO good live, so hilarious, and it was fun to dress up a bit to go to the concert. Yeahhhhhh, you could say it was an alright night. :D

The next day we woke up, hoping that TJ would be feeling better, but sadly he was not. Still had a splitting headache and the rest. So, extra-strength Tylenol in hand, we headed out once more towards the castle to get some more stuff done! That day we breezed through the cathedral in the castle (yep, INSIDE the castle walls) and the Rosenberg  Palace. Unfortunately due to a bit of a late start, we didn't get to see any of the other larger buildings, but we did walk around some more, and then down the steps into the city and across the Charles bridge, while on the way stopping for a crepe for TJ and a Czech pastry thing for me, called trdelník. It’s basically a hollow pastry that's cooked on a spit and rolled in sugar, and you can get various things on the inside- naturally I got Nutella.

Castle in the fog from the tram on the way there in the morning.

Inside of the cathedral.

That book is made of silver. INDIVIDUAL PAGE HOW DO YOU DO THAT.

Dat light. I shall never tire of it.

Outside view of the Cathedral.

Aaand we hit it right at sunset so that was pretty swell.

And the next day was our last day in Prague (sad times)! We thoroughly enjoyed the breakfast buffet at the hostel, which included bacon, eggs, and pancakes if you so wished, as well as the standard- yogurt, cereal, and bread. De-licious. After breakfast we headed down to Old Town to see the astronomical clock and walk around a bit! I got a bit lost on the way, as since TJ was feeling under the weather still I was put in charge of navigation, and got slightly turned around. But we found it and got to climb up in the tower to get a birds’ eye view of Prague, which was incredible! (see photos below for proof) Oh! Almost forgot! Before going to the clock, we headed back across Charles Bridge (this time in the daylight) to a Film Special Effects museum which we had spotted the night before. The museum was of the life and works of the filmmaker Karel Zeman, a Czech director who made revolutionary leaps in animation and special effects in the early 20th century. For Hugo fans, Zeman is said to have been  "a true successor to Georges Melies",  the filmmaker featured in that film! Also, his daughter, Ludmila Zemanova, moved to Vancouver and apparently taught at Emily Carr for a number of years! Super cool! It was amazing, and even somewhat interactive (models of sets that you could turn/move around and see what they did and looked like).

Charles Bridge.

One of the tower gates at the end of the bridge.  

From the film effects museum. I like this quote a lot.

And astronomical clock!

View from the top of the tower! PRAGUE IS SO PRETTY I CANT. AND SNOW TOO WHAT EVEN.

Loving the red roofs, and the buildings are so cute! 

And that brings me to the end of Prague! It was snowing when we left to head to Berlin, which was kind of magical. Also, it was -14 on average while we were there. And Berlin wasn't much warmer. It's funny, when people find out we're from Canada, the first thing they say is "Oh! You are used to the cold, then!" Which is a fair assumption, I'll give them that, but it is quite untrue in this case- we were very cold!

Magic.

And, Berlin! On the list for Berlin was a big load of World War 2 historical stuff. And oh snap did we ever find it. The first day we headed off to see the Reichstag building, the Brandenburg gate, the road that all of the parades and processionals during the war took place, and the Holocaust memorial and museum, which was very cool, also. A good and humbling reminder, for sure. The Holocaust museum even had personal accounts of people and records of families and what happened to them, which was really real and interesting to read about. It’s amazing how many records like those they actually do still have.

The Brandenburg Gate.

The Reichstag building.

Walking inside the Jewish memorial.

View of the memorial. We're not really sure what it's supposed to represent, but we have a couple of theories...

 And then we headed to Checkpoint Charlie, which was the passage between East and West Berlin. And we also did the museum there, which was HUGE and had a lot of reading and things to look at, and which we regrettably were unable to see the whole of because of how tired we were. But what we did see was still amazing and definitely worth seeing if you're interested in the history of the Wall and other parts of the war and post-WW2 Germany. It also had a lot of stories of escapes over the wall, which were super cool. People really got creative in some cases(i.e. hiding in car trunks, large speakers, and welding machines)!

Checkpoint Charlie. All set up like it would have been back then!

In order to stop cars from riding low with the extra weight from hidden passengers, they put rubber balls in the rear axle suspension. Clever, clever.

This woman was smuggled out in 2 suitcases! Not so comfortable, haha.

Our last day in Berlin, we headed to a museum called the "Topography of Terror." But before I tell you about that, I'll tell you about this sweet old ruin of the front of a train station we saw when we ascended out of the subway at our stop! The Anhalter Banhof was what it was called, and it used to be the station from which the elderly Jewish citizens of Berlin were transported to the "ghetto camp" of Theresienstadt, which was really just a transit camp, so the people who survived that camp were sent further eastward to Auschwitz. The ruin was super cool, and it really was only a small piece of the large railway station that it used to be! We later found a photo of the station from before it was demolished.

Front of the train station ruin.

Decay.

And the photo of what it looked like in 1935! The small part on the front is the only thing that remains today.

And the rest of the day was spent at the "Topography of Terror" museum. It sounded intriguing so we decided to check it out! So named because it was built on the site of the Gestapo headquarters where much, if not all, of the planning for the concentration camps and mass genocide took place- hence “Terror.” And oh man was it big. It doesn't look all that big, but it snakes around and there is SO much to read that we didn't get much else done that day. But there were tonnes of interesting facts and information on pretty much all of WW2, which was really interesting. AND, upon exiting the museum, we got to see a stretch of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall!

It’s amazing to see all of this history up close and personal, and in context. It’s SO much easier to understand and remember when you’re actually seeing the buildings, the monuments, and reading about how it affected Germany as a whole. I so wish that there was more near us at home, because it would be such a good field trip to do, as I seriously think it would make it much more interesting to learn about. I mean, personally I’ve always found it interesting, but I also found that dates and important events/people always kind of slip my mind. I know the general idea and chain of events, but I’d never be able to remember it all. But after seeing it I feel like there’s a much, much higher chance that I will actually remember some things!

And then it was off to Munich! We pretty much used Munich as a base and did a couple of day trips. The first day, we took a train down to Neuschwanstein Castle! It was a GORGEOUS sunny day, and we decided to spring for the tour of both that castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. We did the Hohenschwangau  first and learned that the king who had built Neuschwanstein castle had actually grown up in this one, which his father had inhabited for much of his life. Although, the tour guide did also mention that it was kind of only used as a summer home for them when they wanted to come out and hike and hunt and such. Some summer "cottage"! And, both of these castles technically still belong to the royal family, which still exists, even though the monarchy in Germany was abolished in 1919 after the First World War. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside the castle, but here are some of the outside!

They're in SUCH a gorgeous valley with a super nice little town.

Hohenschwangau, the first castle, which means "High Land of the Swans."    

And next was Neuschwanstein! I was super excited for this, and, yes, it does look like in all the photos! It’s beautiful! So we did the tour of the inside of that which –fun fact- was never actually finished. In fact, the inhabitant, King Ludwig II, only got to live there for 172 days before he was accused of being insane and unfit to rule, arrested and brought to a castle further away, and was found dead in the lake the next morning. His death is still a mystery, too, which is quite intriguing. After the tour of the inside of the castle, we headed towards the pathway that went up to a bridge that overlooks the valley and the castle, only to find that it was closed! And pretty much a sheet of ice. However, there were other people going around the fence as well, and we were felling adventurous, so we went around as well and scaled the icy slope (at some times ACTUAL ice- I have the bruises to prove it, and there were people holding onto the railing and actually just sliding back down it was so slippery) and made it to the bridge! And oh, man was it ever worth it. Even though getting up there was slightly hair-raising and included climbing up a slope that was more leaves/dirt than ice rather off the pathway to get there, I’m SO glad we did it, because this view was 200% worth it.

A view of Mary's Bridge from the entrance to the castle.

First view of Neuschwanstein, which means "New Swan Stone."

Braving the icy slopes. (Literally a sheet of ice- we almost died.)

DAT CASTLE. (Also, did I mention it was at sunset when we were up there? Mmmmmmmm LIGHT. We're getting really good at hitting things right at sunset.)

And that lake. Mmm.

So that was day 1 Munich. Day 2 we went to the Dauchau concentration camp memorial site. That was a super cool experience, as they have reconstructed a couple of the bunkers, and various things are still there, such as the crematorium, and a gas chamber. Very interesting to see it all and really understand the extent to which these camps were truly death camps. Dauchau was not technically an extermination camp in WW2, but more a work camp. However, there were still many, many deaths due to exhaustion, illness, etc. Dauchau was the first concentration camp in Germany and opened in 1933 to imprison political opponents and people against the National Socialist Party. It ran for 12 years, until it’s liberation by the US Army in 1945. At this time, there were 32,000 prisoners. (It was way overfilled at the end, as it was only meant to hold 6,000.)

"Roll call ground" and a couple of barracks.

Cool memorial.

Another memorial. These represent the different identification patches that the prisoners had on their uniforms, depicting why they were there. (I.e. political opponent, Jew, etc)

Cramped living quarters.

Photo of the main road between the barracks in 1938. (then)

And what the road looks like now. Obviously they would have had to burn the actual barracks, so the ones that are there now are reproductions. (now)

Harsh fences.

Inside the crematorium.

And a gas chamber. This and the last were so realistic to be in. Terrible, but also interesting.

"Showers."

Flap where they put the Zyklon B into the chamber with and shut so that it did not get out. Terrible.

And the last thing we did in Munich was go to a BMW museum! Had the entire history of BMW and SO many cool cars that were so shiny I couldn't even believe it. Very cool. 

SO SHINY.

Whatta beauty.

I am a particular fan of this one. The door is on the front!

Aaaaand a Roll's Royce. SO PRETTY. This might have been the first ever made. I can't remember exactly. In any case, it's a beauty. *swoon*

Geez, even the building was cool!

And that’s about it for now! Sorry, this was a bit of a long one, but I guess it’s been like more than a week since I’ve posted anything, so this is making up for that! And I'm even posting this late, so we've actually done more stuff that's not on here. I might make another post later tonight or tomorrow. We shall see! Anyhow, we now have only one week left in this trip, which is crazy! It’s been super fun and part of me doesn't want to leave. However, most of me is quite ready to go home. I kinda miss it. :)

I think I’ll post probably only a couple more times before I get home, so you can still read all about it till the bitter end (not bitter- kidding about that)!

Talk soon!