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The other trip I’ve taken outside of Prague since my arrival was to Kutna Hora, a UNESCO-protected Heritage site.

Kutna Hora mainly came to fame in the 13th century because it was close to the site of some very prolific silver mines; it remained one of the richest cities in Bohemia until the mines finally petered out in the 18th century.

Sites in Kutna Hora include the Cathedral of St. Barbara (the patron saint of miners):

Another view of St. Barbara’s, including a charming view of the scaffolding:

Instead of the usual crucifix, the altarpiece is a painted bas-relief of the Last Supper, which is something I’ve never seen before, but which makes perfect sense.

Horse-drawn carriages are a popular tourist fixture in Kutna Hora (in Prague as well):

The proximity of Kutna Hora to the silver mines led to the establishment of a Royal Mint. We toured the site of the mint, where coinmaking was demonstrated by a resident coinmaker:

I had always thought that coins were molded, but instead (at Kutna Hora, at least) they were stamped.

We passed by a plague memorial:

All in all, while Kutna Hora is a very pretty town, it didn’t really seem to be worth the trouble of the trip, and I’m not quite clear on why UNESCO has chosen to add it to its list of Heritage sites. Of course, I visited on a Sunday, when everything was shut down. I might have derived a more positive impression had it been livelier.

The tour included a trip to the Sedlec Ossuary, which was indeed worth the visit. The ossuary is home to something like 40,000 (!) human skeletons, which form some of the "decorations" for the chapel. This chandelier, for example:

Or this coat of arms, for the Schwarzenberg family:

There’s also an unremarkable graveyard outside the chapel:

I’ve taken a couple of tours outside of Prague, one of which was to Terezín (the so-called "Garden Ghetto" of the Nazi era).

The tour started with the fortress at Terezín. I had actually never heard about the fortress before. Terezín had originally been built in the 18th century as a fortress by the Austrians. During WWI, it was used as a prisoner of war camp; Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off the war, was imprisoned and died (of tuberculosis) there.

During the Nazi occupation, the Small Fortress was used as the Gestapo prison for the Prague region. Roughly 90,000 prisoners passed through the Fortress; some 2600 died there. For the most part, the prisoners were not Jewish, unless they were also political prisoners. Terezín wasn’t used as an extermination camp: for the most part, those who died, died of disease brought on by overcrowding, malnutrition, and poor hygiene.

The cemetary at the entrance to the Fortress:


"Work shall make you free", over the doorway leading to the original cell blocks:

We also visited the town of Terezín, which is now a perfectly ordinary looking town. The phrase "the banality of evil" comes to mind. Although, according to the tour guide, you can buy an apartment in Terezín for just about 15,000€: it seems that few people are interested in making their homes in a town with such a history. Some of the buildings have been repurposed as museums and memorials. The permanent displays especially feature art, both official and secret, created by the prisoners.

Although Terezín was not an extermination camp, only a few thousand of those who passed through it survived the war: if disease didn’t get them in Terezín, they tended to end up in extermination camps elsewhere.

Ya know, sometimes one of the reasons that I hold off on posting is because I have all these photos piled up, and so I wait ’til I get them formatted, then I have to think about how to weave them into a coherent narrative, and it’s just all so daunting that I put it off and put it off and put it off…

So, I’m just going to put up this little slideshow, mostly from a walking tour I took of Prague, and then I can just get on with posting about life here without having these photos hanging over my head!

Well, Prague has achieved a "just right" on my Goldilocks comfort scale (cf my post Next Stop: Prague). I’ve found that not speaking the language goes a long ways towards determining the Goldilocks rating. At any rate, I’ve decided to settle here, at least for a year or so.

In honor of my decision, I’ve rebaptized my blog, giving it a Czech name. According to my preceptress (thanks, Alena!), Život v Cizine means "Life Abroad".

I had that one last week after the end of classes and before coming to Prague. So I took advantage of the opportunity to play tourist and to take a few more pictures to remind myself of my sojourn in Paris.

Sunday in Montmartre

I spent one day wandering up and down staircases in Montmartre:

I also liked this view of Sacré Cœur from the little park around in back of the Basilica:

And I had dinner one last time in Montmartre:

Tuesday on the Seine

I finally took one of the Bateaux Mouches trips. I can’t really say that I was all that impressed, and I probably wouldn’t do it again. But it does provide a different view of Paris:



There are a couple of reduced scale versions of the Statue of Liberty in Paris: one is in the Luxembourg Gardens, and another is on an island in the Seine:

After my little boat trip, I just wandered around a bit, and came across this memorial:

The caption reads, "In homage to Komitas, composer and musicologist, and to the 1,500,000 victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire".

Marais and the Bastille

Another day, I wandered around the Marais and visited the Place de la Bastille:

I encountered this statue of Louis XIII in a plaza near the Marais:

I also visited the Memorial of the Shoah, which I had been unable to find the first time I had looked. It’s not very big, and it’s easy to get disoriented in the windy little streets of the Marais. The memorial is very moving:

The inscription on the outside reads, "Before the Unknown Jewish Martyr, incline your head in piety and respect for all the martyrs; incline your thoughts to accompany them along their path of sorrow. They will lead you to the highest pinnacle of justice and truth."

The exterior also contains the Wall of Names: the names and dates of birth of the 76,000 Jews, including 11,000 children, deported from France as part of the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe with the collaboration of the Vichy government.

Inside, there’s the crypt:

A Star of David fashioned out of black marble, marks the tomb of the six million Jews, dead without a grave. It contains the ashes of martyrs taken from the death camps and from the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. The ashes were buried on February 24,1957 in earth from Israel, in keeping with tradition, by Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan. An eternal light burns at the center of the marble star. There’s quotation from the Bible in Hebrew on the far wall: "Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Young and old, our sons and daughters were cut down by the sword".

The permanent exhibition details the history of the "Final Solution" in France, and includes biographies of a handful of Jews resident in France at the time the Occupation began. It was not a cheery experience, but it was an important site to see.

Carousels of Paris

And there are carousels all over the place in Paris. There’s this one in the Tuileries:

This one is on one side of the Pont d’Iéna, near the Trocadéro Gardens:

And this one is on the other side of the Pont d’Iéna, near the Eiffel Tower:

And this one I found in the Marais:

I don’t really get the carousel thing, but I enjoy looking at them!