2003/05 Prague and Sussex trip - Jewish cemetery and Brighton |
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Next morning I had a couple of hours to kill before my driver showed up, so I walked across the Staré Mësto to Josevof, the old Jewish quarter, and visited the old cemetery and one of the synagogues. The Czechs cleared the ghetto out over a hundred years ago, as they wanted to build on the land, but they left the religious buildings alone.
The cemetery is way above street level with a dozen layers of graves on top of each other. The gravestones are all higgledy-piggledy so it’s a pretty weird sight. We male tourists had to wear a paper yarmulke as it’s still an active Jewish religious site. As it was very windy we walked around holding our yarmulkes onto our heads.
The trip to England was pretty painless, with the limo taking me to the airport, and some casual security at the airport. You aren’t supposed to take more than 100 kroner ($4) out of the country, so everybody heads for the bar first to use up their currency. I had just enough for a Campari and a Mars bar.
I landed at Heathrow and took the bus over to Gatwick to pick up a car from Hertz. They gave me one of those squashed Mercs, an A160, quite nice for a rental car. Mum and I had done just about all the bus trips we could on previous visits, so this time I planned to take her exploring by car.
I got into Brighton on schedule on Thursday evening, but Mum had thought I was arriving for lunch so I got to eat lunch a bit later than she’d planned. Mum was in great physical shape, still walking a lot, but suffering from a deteriorating memory. She was also suffering from an excess of sport on TV: golf, cricket, and soccer had preempted her favourite programs.
I was still coughing and spluttering but I felt a lot better and hopefully I wasn’t contagious. I had enough time to get out and do some quick shopping. For the Old Brightonians, I can report that Champions, the pram shop, has gone, and so has Elliots, the tool shop.