Our field excursion to Prague from 16th September – 21st September
Within the scope of our last school year at the Friedrich-List school, luckily, there is a field excursion scheduled for all 13th classes – as a final trip before we all need to hurl ourselves into preparing our A level exams.
While other classes had destinations like Croatia and Italy, we decided to take a trip to Prague, Czechia – the „city of a hundred spires“.
On Monday, 16th September, it was time to start our trip. We, the Economics bilingual class, were joined by the EDP class as well as by Mr Sundermann, Mrs Kaiser-Herz and Mr Schlosser, who were the teachers that accompanied us on our trip.
On our day of departure, the bus journey took up a good 8 hours of the day, so it was already early evening when we arrived at our hotel in Prague. We all were pleasantly surprised by our accommodation, as our rooms were clean and the hotel was in a fairly central position within the city. The fact that the hotel provided free wi-fi was also something that many of us appreciated.
After a common dinner, we spent our first evening exploring the area around the hotel or just staying in our rooms, eventually heading to bed, considering that we were quite tired from the long drive.
Fortified by a hearty breakfast, we set out for the city on Tuesday morning, accompanied by our tour guide Mrs Fukova, who took us sightseeing and gave us a first impression of Prague’s most relevant places and people. In this context, we were also able to take a look at Prague’s many spires in person.
In the afternoon, we took a boat trip on the Moldau. While having lunch on the boat, Mrs Fukova gave us further information about all significant buildings on the river banks. The trip was very interesting and relaxing, even though we spent a fair amount of our time on the boat being stuck in lockings – which is because the Moldau’s water-level is quite uneven.
On Wednesday, we paid a visit to Prague’s famous castle, which is said to be the largest ancient castle in the world. It occupies an area of almost 70.000 m² and is built in a very complex architectural style, which is why it seemed very impressive to us. The history of Prague’s castle can be traced back into the 9th century and it has kept its original function until the present day – today, it is still the head office of Prague’s president, Mr Milos Zeman.
In the afternoon, we took a look at the brewery where Staropramen beer is brewed – a very famous beer brand in Czechia. As a surprise, each of us got to taste the beer as well. We all liked it, but many of us came to the conclusion that they preferred German beer over Staropramen beer.
The German embassy was our destination on Thursday. During our tour, we were confronted with the historical relevance of the German embassy in Prague, considering that it was a harbourage for thousands of GDR-refugees in 1989. We were shown a very interesting movie that contained original footage – partly unseen footage - that was filmed locally at the German embassy during that time.
The movie displayed some shocking images, making us students aware of a part of German history that we didn’t witness in person as we weren’t born yet.
In the afternoon, we had some free time, that most of us spent in the city, shopping or exploring the area. After dinner, some of us went bowling with Mr Sundermann and Mrs Kaiser-Herz, while others stayed at the hotel.
On our last day in Prague, we visited the Skoda business. First of all, we took a tour around the Skoda musuem, once again with a guide who shared a lot of Skoda’s history and many important facts in connection with that car brand with us.
Then, we were able to take a look at the actual factory where Skoda cars are produced. The manufacturing process was very interesting to watch. Especially the huge machines and the many workers carrying out their tasks were extremely impressive to see.
Also, the visit of a large company like Skoda made us again realize that the things we learn in Economics are actually very close to reality - a few of the production techniques that are used at Skoda were something that we have already discussed in class.
After our morning at Skoda, we had some free time again, that most of us spent at the city or relaxing at the hotel.
In the evening, our class as well as the EDP class including Mr Schlosser, went out to have dinner together, which was very tasty and a nice way to spend our last evening in Prague.
On Saturday, it was time to leave Prague again – after a long, but mainly smooth bus journey, we arrived back in Wiesbaden.
Looking back, we can say that our class trip passed very quickly. Even though the weather could’ve been nicer, it was a trip that we enjoyed since we visited many interesting institutions and learned quite a lot about Prague and its history in general.
In conclusion, we can therefore say that Prague is a destination that we can recommend for future class trips as well – it has numerous interesting sights to offer and we had a good time. Thus, our field excursion was a complete success and we will keep it in mind as a positive memory.
author: Anna Bohrer
editor: S. Kaiser-Herz
date: 22/10/2013
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