Tag: Humor

We had originally planned to journey away from Prague to some Hus sites, but given the problems I wrote about yesterday, we had to retrace our steps.

We started by trying to find Bethlehem Chapel. Our tour guide had given us the impression it was too far away to find in a five-hour tour; in reality, it was only a 10 minute walk from Old Town Square if you know the way.

It is not, however, easy to find. The map was not helpful, the GPS wanted me to walk through walls, and a local’s directions were not helpful. But after walking through a number of narrow, peopleless alleys, we arrived at our destination.

Bethlehem Chapel is the church where Jan Hus preached and pastored. It was built in 1391, a portion of it torn down by the Jesuits in 1786, and it was ultimately restored in 1992. A small part of the pulpit Hus preached from is still there (see pic) and the inside of the church looks much like it did when Hus preached here between 1402 and 1413. Continue reading “Reformation Tour—Day 3”

We had previously arranged for a private five-hour tour and emphasized to our tour guide we were interested Jan Hus, pre-Reformation Prague, and its Christian heritage.

I should also mention that through some erroneous assumptions we believed we were hiring a Christian guide.

We got off to a decent start, at Vysehrad Fortress, the oldest settlement in Prague. The highlight there was the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, which was built in the 11th century. Prague’s unique history made this church subject to both Byzantine Orthodox and Roman Catholic influences. Usually churches are clearly one or the other, and it is not difficult to see the difference. This church was was a mixture of both.

We rode the local rail to Charles Square and then walked a few blocks to St. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, a church dedicated to the memory of the two highly educated Byzantine missionaries invited by the Slavs in the 9th century to create for them a written language (they only had a spoken language). According to Cyril’s biographer, who wrote within ten years of his death, through prayer God revealed to Cyril letters that formed the alphabet that would eventually become what we know as Cyrillic. Philoligists who have studied Cyril’s alphabet are at a loss to explain from what other language he borrowed the letters because they seem wholly original, which is what you would expect if he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Continue reading “Reformation Tour—Day 2”

If you’ve ever travelled to Europe from the United States you know that flights generally leave in the afternoon and arrive in the morning.

If you can sleep on an airplane then no problem.

But if you are like the GSB travel team who either insist on talking the entire flight or reading medieval and Byzantine history, when you arrive at your European destination, you are tired and you just want to find a bed that is not moving at 530 mph.

Our flight was uneventful, which is the way one likes them these days.

The most memorable part of the flight was watching The Wife and Ann, with headphones on (they were watching movies), talking with raised voices to each other across the isle because, well, they had headphones on. If this had been a Lufthansa flight in 1940, the Nazis would have probably pushed them out the door over the Atlantic. To her credit, I think our stewardess found them “colorful” and was sad to see them leave when we deplaned.  Continue reading “Reformation Tour—Day 1”