Czech it out!

We took our first trip together "to the Continent" to Prague. I have always wanted to go, and Kent made it happen for my birthday this year. It really is an amazingly beautiful city. We hired a neighbor to watch our kids and flew out on Wednesday afternoon from London Stansted. We took a shuttle to our hotel, which was right in the center of town, getting there at about 6 pm and headed out for dinner. We had some recommendations from a tour guide company, and one of the restaurants "Celnice" was right around the corner from the Marriott where we were staying. Kent had a shishkabob with various meats, and I had something called "Moravian sparrow," which was thankfully really pork meat. It was delicious, if accompanied by far too much cabbage. Then we explored the town a bit on our own, getting the first views of the sights we would see in detail over the next couple days.

Day Two:

We hired a private guide for two mornings. Her name was Veronika, and she was fabulous.

It was really great to have her show us the sights of the city, giving us the history, and the native's perspective on the Czech Republic and its people. We got to see the Strahovsky Monastary and the Loreto (which has a replica of the hut where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary). Prague is set of hills, so at each of these sights were amazing views of the town.

We then headed over to Prague Castle, which is really more like a palace. St. Vitus is the giant cathedral within the castle walls. She filled us in on the important figures of Prague history, like Charles IV, John of Nepomuk--who is everywhere, with his five stars circling his head--Jan Hus, Tomas Masaryk, and of course, Wenceslas. After leaving the castle, we walked down Narudova street, where there are preserved the identifying house signs on plaques leftover from the time before the houses were numbered. Favorites were: the golden key, the three violins, and the green lobster.

On our way to Kampa Island, we stopped at the John Lennon wall,

on which fans began spray painting after his murder. The communist rulers tries to keep it cleaned off, but the people just kept tagging it, so they finally gave up and let them have the wall as free expression.

After lunch, we wandered some more through Little Town and

Old Town, before settling in for a concert in Smetana Hall in the Municipal House. It was the Prague Philharmonic, and it was fabulous. We definitely brought down the median age, but it was really fun to see all these cute older Czech couples dressed up for a night on the town.

Day Three

The next day, we met Veronika again, and we stayed in the New and Old Town, seeing all the beautiful architecture that Prague has to offer. They have examples of virtually every style, Gothic and Baroque, but especially notable are their Art Nouveau and Cubist buildings.

We saw the hall where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni and the house nearby where he lived. In Old Town square, we saw the chiming of the incredible astronimical

clock and admired the statue of Jan Hus and the Tyn Church. We also walked down Wenceslas

Square (which is really more of a boulevard), and saw the sights of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, when the people overthrew the Communist rule without so much as breaking a window.

We spent the afternoon in the Jewish Quarter, Josehov. Before WWII, there were approximately 120,000 Jews in Prague. The population is now about 1,500. Over 80,000 were exterminated during by the Nazis and the rest managed to flee. The synogogues had wonderful museums and explanations of Jewish culture and history in the region, and we got to see the Old-New Synogogue which is still in operation after over 700 years and is the oldest in Eastern Europe. We went to the cemetary, which was a small plot of land where they had to bury all their dead according to Jewish law. There are approximately 200,000 graves there dating from 1439 to 1787. It was incredible and moving to see the approximately 12,000 stones stacked and leaning against one another, as they ran out of room and were not allowed to expand the

cemetery and bodies could not be moved after burial.

Day Four

On our final day, we went up to Petrin Hill, which is bordered by the Hunger Wall, ordered by Charles IV as a works project to give his people income and food. There is a monument "To the Victims of Communism Who Survived" which was pretty cool. We took the funicular up the hill to the Observation Tower, which is a 1/5 size replica of the Eiffel Tower. But, since Prague is on a hill, the elevation of the top tower is the same. We climbed the stairs and were rewarded with the amazing views of Prague on all sides. In the basement of the tower was a museum dedicated to the fictional radio characte of Jara Cimrman.

It was one of my favorite things we saw all week! Apparently, I have a very "Czech" sense of humor, because I found it hilarous!

We then went back to our favorite restaurant that we found on day on "SukrKavaLimonda," where I had probably the best pasta I've ever eaten. We then crossed the Charles Bridge for the last time and walked back to the hotel to get our taxi back to the airport.

It was a fabulous vacation. I even got to speak a little Russian with some shopkeepers, and I could understand quite a bit of Czech, although it was weird to see it all written in the Latin alphabet. Everything went very smoothly and we look forward to lots more little trips off the island!