Mines and Beauty of Kutna Hora
Students as miners
Sunday, April 25, 2010
We finally got back to Prague on Friday. I took Saturday to sleep in and stay in my pajamas literally all day. Then, as a final period at the end of the trip, Sunday we went to the small town of Kutna Hora, about an hour outside Prague by train. It’s a legendary mining town which became extremely famous in the 15th century for producing the silver that Czech lands were often known for. We did get to go down into the mine, dressed as miners in white robes and ridiculous helmets. It was dark and wet and a pretty cool adventure. Of course, I was more interested in its other attraction: the bone church.
Sedlec Ossuary - chandelier
This church is really the Sedlec Ossuary,
Kutna Hora
or a place for bone
storage, but instead of just keeping bone
s in the church, they have made bone artwork. I don’t think you’re likely to see a
chandelier made entirely of bones anywhere else. It was cool and beautiful and bizarre, but makes for some great pictures.
Written by Hannah Schneider, Central European Studies in Prague, Spring 2010
Krakow – Oswiecim / Auschwitz
Thursday-Monday, April 15-20, 2010
Krakow St. Mary Church
So we just got back from our epic two week CET program trip.
It was one of those “If this is Brno, it must be Tuesday” kind of travelling. So, let’s just run through it and I’ll give you a few moments that were my favorite highlights. We started out in Krakow, a city with a deep and complex history. Honestly, it was much more beautiful than I had been expecting. I thought Krakow would be the Western stereotype of Eastern Europe: somewhat drab and depressing, but it was pretty much the opposite. It may be a bit more modern as much of the city was destroyed under both the Nazi and Communist occupations, but most of the old Churches and gorgeous cathedrals are still standing and well preserved. The most interesting thing is that we were in Krakow at a historical moment. The president of Poland and dozens of elites and leaders in the country had been killed in a plane crash just a week or so before we arrived. The entire country was in mourning and many bars, restaurants and shops were closed.
Also, the decision had been made to bury the president in the castle in Krakow, a choice that many people were upset about. We were in the city from Thursday until Saturday and the funeral was on Sunday so while we were there, we witnessed the protests against his resting place as well as the arrangements in the city center to accommodate the anticipated pilgrims arriving to attend the services. It was fascinating, but personally I had wanted a more “normal” experience of Krakow. I wanted to see what it was like when the country was functioning and not mourning a great tragedy.
- Remembering President Lech Kaczyński’s
This might be selfish, but it’s also honest. Anyway, we did get some really interesting tours of the city showing us the history and importance of religion that is so closely tied to Poland. I also went on the Jewish tour, which I would recommend because the Krakow Jewish quarter is becoming the cool spot in Krakow, but it’s also where Schindler’s List was filmed. The Krakow ghetto doesn’t look much like it did when the liquidation actually occurred, but Schindler’s factory is almost unchanged from the outside. They are currently in the process of turning it into a museum showing what happened to the Jews in Krakow.
After Krakow, we spent a day in Auschwitz. We toured the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which was extremely hard and emotional, for me anyway.
Oswiecim - Auschwitz
We were lucky to have a wonderful tour guide who was incredibly knowledgeable and approachable if you had a question or topic to discuss. After seeing the camps, we had a brief tour of the city itself and saw the museum dedicated to the Jews of Oswiecim, the polish city where the camp was established. After this difficult day, we stayed overnight and then had a much needed transition to Olomouc, a college town in Moravia where some of our Czech buddies study.
Written by Hannah Schneider (American University), Central European Studies in Prague, Spring 2010
Olomouc – Mikulov – Vienna
wine shop sign - Mikulov
Monday – Wednesday, April 19-21, 2010
Olomouc, a college town in Moravia where some of our Czech buddies study. It was awesome! We got to stay in the dorms and go out to a bar in the city. I definitely could have spent some more time there, but we only had one day, and in the morning we got on our handy-dandy bus and went to Brno. We saw the Museum of Roma Culture and spent the afternoon in Brno, which is a cool little city (actually I think it’s the second biggest city in the Czech Republic next to Prague). Then we hopped back on the bus and went to Mikulov, another small town in Moravia known for its wine. Mikulov was really beautiful and we got to do some exploring, climbing up to the tower or hiking to the small church on a hill. It was really pretty picturesque, and our American tour guide, Todd, explained to us that the city was a historic place because there had been found some of the oldest evidence of human activity.
Mikulov square
Of course Pavla, our Czech buddy from Olomouc, organi
zed a wine tasting for all of us, and we had a great time drinking, eating cheese and bread and olives, and just talking in the wine house. Epic.
Next we went to Vienna, which I have to say was probably my favorite place. There was an open air market, giant gorgeous buildings, magnificent architecture, huge parks and gardens, and lots of sights and shopping. Plus CAKE. We had some of the best cake in Vienna as it’s known for Sachartorte and Anatorte. Vienna was just amazing, and I really can’t describe it well, so just go there and experience it, really.
Hofburg Imperial Palace
The Cakes
Written by Hannah Schneider (American University), Central European Studies in Prague, Spring 2010
Poland, April 2010
Written by Emily Boksenbaum (School of Art Institute of Chicago)
Jewish Studies in Prague, Spring 2010
(Pictures scanned from Polish Newspapers Rzeczpospolita and Dziennik Polski, published during CET visit in Krakow, April 15 – 18, 2010)
President Lech Kaczynski and First Lady
Experiencing coincidence creates a unique feeling. When CET embarked on its journey to Krakow we all felt the significance of being in Poland in the midst of such an important event in history. The death of the Polish president, Kaczynski, and a number of other Polish political figures, will be a date read over by the students of the next generation in textbooks (or more likely on the wikipedia page) in the future to come. The fact that we, a group of American students happened to visit Krakow during the weekend of his funeral was an interesting and unlikely thing for us to experience.
Poland in April 2010
The whole country was in mourning in a way I have never felt it before.
The three nights we spent in the city, the streets and the pubs were deserted and the people who were out were talking about the current situation. Other than the controversy regarding where to bury the president, there was an oddly pleasant presence of respectfulness that was generated by tragedy in the air.
On Sunday, as our bus left the clusters of remembrance candles and the parades of solemn flag wavers CET tried to take mental pictures of what happens when a national event unites a community in country that was foreign to us.
96 victims of the plane crash near Smolensk, Russia
Our next stop in Oświęcim was an interesting parallel as we viewed the film “Katyn” at the hostel we stayed in overnight. We realized that the Katyn forest, which served as the backdrop to the horrible massacre covered up by the Soviet secret police, had once again claimed the lives of prominent Polish figures.
96 victims of the plane crash near Smolensk, Russia
It was a coincidence that this space was involved in national tragedy again, as the plane crash that claimed Kaczynski and other’s lives happened during the anniversary of the first horrible event. Some news sources are even calling the death of the 96 passengers on Kaczynski’s place Katyn 2. It was convenient to learn about all these events at once and put the pieces together, but the mood during that leg of the trip was certainly more reflective and melancholy as we were also examining the camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau first hand during the same week.
CET Academic Programs