Czeching In: Halloween in the Czech Republic

Had another great Prague as a Living History walking tour class on Wednesday! We visited the Church of our Lady Victory and saw the Infant Jesus. The baby Jesus has numerous outfits and is changed according to the “Seasons” of the Catholic calendar. I have never seen such a well-clothed statue. I’m pretty sure it has more robes than Fashion Week has outfits.

The Infant Jesus in a green ensemble. The church itself was highly baroque (over-the-top, theatrical, lots of gold)

Another gorgeous view of Prague and the Prague Castle from Petrin Hill

Thursday, October 31

My friend Nikki from Tulane arrived last night. She's studying in Florence and had an extended fall break, so she decided to travel around to many different cities, including Prague. When I go to Italy in December, I'm going to stay with her. This is my first time really hosting someone, so I was excited to have an excuse to play tourist for the weekend with her! It was so nice seeing a friendly face from home and I had such fun showing her around and introducing her to all of my friends.

A few friends and I planned to take a short day trip to the town of Kutná Hora. It’s only an hour away by train and is famous for its authentic Czech-ness and Sedlec Ossuary. Nikki and I decided to wake up early and climb the Astronomical Clock Tower in Old Town before getting on our train. I’d never climbed it before even though the clock is literally five minutes away from my apartment, and I’m so glad that Nikki and I did it! The view was astounding and even though I’ve been here for eight weeks already, I was still amazed to see the view that I’ve seen many times before. In so many ways, I feel settled in here, but at the same time, I’m still infatuated by every twist, turn, and spire of Prague.

This is definitely the most modernized tower that I’ve climbed. The inside of the tower had a fancy elevator to the top (we walked!) and was covered with panels that had cool facts about the clock tower.

Amazing views from the top

Church of our Lady Before Tyn. Disney modeled one of their castles off of this one!

So happy that Nikki came to visit!

Our train to Kutná Hora was perfectly pleasant, and upon arriving, we went to a tourist center that gave us maps and suggestions of what to do for the day. Dani’s favorite holiday is Halloween so she was especially excited to visit the spooky Ossuary and see all of the bones in the chapel. The bone church was so creepy! It was tiny but FILLED with human bones. Such a fun thing to do on Halloween…

Exterior of the Sedlec Ossuary (the bone church)

Making new “old” friends!

Bones on bones on bones

A chandelier made from every bone in the human body

After the ossuary, we explored the rest of the town and then headed back to Prague for our Halloween festivities!

I was intrigued by the frescos on the exterior of this building.

The crew with St. Barbara’s Cathedral in the background

St. Barbara’s Cathedral

I don’t think you can really tell from the picture, but the cathedral is SO incredibly gothic. It looked like a skeleton.

What I quickly realized is that Europe does not celebrate Halloween at all, so it was up to us Americans to bring the spookiness to Prague. Dani and I were determined to “bloodify” ourselves and look as creepy as possible.

I think we succeeded:

I was “death by ‘Pub Crawl’” and she was “your worst nightmare.”

We all got pretty into it. James (left) is a vampire and Luke (right) is a bloody (??) hippie. We all just wanted an excuse to use the fake blood.

Friday, November 1

We were all “tired” from the Halloween festivities so we took it easy today. Nikki took a walking tour through Prague while I worked on my midterm papers (See?! I DO have homework to do here! Many of you have thought otherwise…)

James and I took Nikki to a really authentic Czech restaurant for dinner and then we headed to the Sparta Ice Hockey game with our program! Ice Hockey is a huge deal here and it was a blast cheering in the crowd for “our” team. My Dad thinks it’s funny that I’m now a beer drinking, hockey fan. I’m just immersing myself in Czech culture, what can I say?