Live with Love and Laughter: Soccer, Sightseeing, Symphony, Smoke, Snow, and the Subway to a Soviet Era Bunker Bar

Soccer:

We went to a Europa League match on Thursday evening between Sparta Prague and H. Kiryat Shmona. The stadium was high on the hill north of the Old Town, just past the park that formerly held a giant statue of Stalin. The statue is no longer there and has been replaced with a giant abstract statue. I need to look up more about the giant red statue, but haven’t had a chance yet. Here’s a picture:

Sculpture in the place of the former Stalin Statue

Shoes and the sculpture replacing Stalin

We arrived at the game and went through the gate to find our seats, we were disappointed that they were only selling non-alcoholic beer and instead I settled for some water. We were really lucky with the weather, it was cold, but not rainy. The game was very exciting, there were two goals scored by Sparta Prague in the first 15 minutes. The crowd was incredible – singing, chanting, stomping, clapping, and doing the wave – I loved just being among the fans. The game wasn’t the most even match up and Sparta Prague pretty much ruled the field the entire game. The other team did finally score a goal in the second half, but Sparta Prague came back and scored one more goal making the final score 3-1.

Stadium in Prague

Fans

Sightseeing:

Friday we spent the day doing more sightseeing. We went to the Municipal House, which is one of Prague’s many symphony halls, to purchase tickets to see a performance of pieces by Mozart and Chopin that evening. Next we walked through Old Town Square stopping in the Church of St. Nicholas Hussite Church, which had a huge beautiful chandelier hanging in the center of the church. We made our way to the Jewish Quarter to visit the Jewish Museum. The Jewish Museum is a collection of exhibitions housed in several synagogues in Prague, which took many decades to become what it is today:

While the whole experience left us feeling rather somber, we enjoyed learning more about the history of the Jewish people in Prague, and we were awed by the beauty of the synagogues, especially the Spanish Synagogue, which is beautiful.

After a quick lunch break we continued across the Charles Bridge and stopped to see the John Lennon Wall, which you can read about here. It was really cool to see the wall after visiting the Communist Museum a few days before.

John Lennon Wall in Prague

Lennon Wall

Our last tourist stop of the day was the St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle grounds – Basilica of St. George and the Golden Lane. St. Vitus is a beautiful gothic cathedral with towering stained glass windows. It took centuries to build and it was interesting to distinguish the newer from the old within the building. The Basilica of St. George was interesting because it is a Romanesque church but the façade was updated in the Baroque style - interesting combination. (Sorry – art history nerd comment). The Golden Lane is a series of houses and shops built into the old city wall, which means they are all miniature. The part above the houses is a walkway that used to allow knights to patrol the exterior castle wall and it is now filled with medieval weaponry, armor, and a place where tourists can shoot a cross-bow. Of course, Charles had to give it a shot.

Charles shooting the cross-bow

Golden Lane

Symphony:

Friday evening we went to the Municipal House to hear the Prague Orchestra perform pieces by Mozart and Chopin. It was wonderful.

Musicians preparing to play in the Municipal House

Our balcony seats

Smoke:

After the symphony performance we went to have a beer at a pub on the Old Town Square. Unfortunately, Prague is smoky – people smoke everywhere. We didn’t last very long in the smoky pub and went home feeling like everything we had on reeked of smoke. Yuck.

Snow:

Saturday morning we woke up to snow. It snowed the entire day and we enjoyed hanging out in Prague on a snowy day. We ducked into a couple of museums to warm up and take a break from the snow showers. Our first stop was the Museum of Decorative Arts and the second was the Prague Museum of Medieval Art.

Cold, snowy Saturday in Prague

Enjoying the snow!

Subway to Soviet Era Bunker Bar:

Our last night in Prague we decided to head to the outer districts of the city to a bar that is housed in an old Soviet Era Bunker, and so we took the escalator down into the subway station to find our way. We figured out the ticket machine and found the right subway line and we were on our way. We emerged in one of the outer districts of Prague and at first were a little nervous, but we eventually found a little restaurant in the Zizkov neighborhood to have dinner and were feeling better about our decision. The food was great and we seemed to be the only tourists in the place – awesome. It was snowing again when we left the restaurant and made our way down the street and over a pedestrian bridge into the park that houses the bunker. We meandered along referencing the map we had saved onto Charles’ iPhone and we found it. It was bizarre. The door was open, but there was no one standing there, we could hear voices coming from down below, so we went in and descended the long spiral staircase. We were about three-stories down when we came upon the place where you pay cover to get in. We paid and set out to get a beer and explore. The beer was by far the cheapest we had paid the whole time we were in Prague, about $1.50 per beer, granted it was served in a plastic cup, but that kind of added to the novelty of the place. They were playing heavy metal in the front room and we meandered through the series of long tunnel like rooms until we came to the end where a band was setting up to play. Unfortunately, the smoke and the smells within the bunker combined with the late hour and the fact that we had a flight the next day (and maybe because we are too old to be hanging out past 11:00 p.m.) meant we only stayed for about 40 minutes, but we were happy we took the chance to seek it out and can say we hung out with locals in a Soviet Era Bunker Bar.