Prague - 27th May

Prague was spared during the World War2 because Hitler was quite fond of it. It was only bombed once and that was accidental.
Sadly, Hitler's plan for Prague was to turn it into an open air museum of extinct human races, after he had finished wiping them out.

It is such an amazing city. Controlled by the Communists after the war it was not a happy place. The citizens had to wear the same clothes, earn the same wage, have the same short hair as everyone else. If anyone was reported on as being unhappy with  the regime they would be 'disappeared' and never heard of again.
The communist government gave up on Prague when the wall came down in 1989. Then they were known as Czechoslovakia. In 1993 they decided they wanted to be their own country and split from Slovakia. So now it is the Czech Republic. Or, if you come from an English speaking country they are called 'Czechia' although there is some resistance to this.
Still to this day the older Pragians have long hair as a protest.
Czechoslovakia was a Catholic faith country before being taken over bu Russia. As Russia made all religion illegal this faith was, at first hidden, then deserted. Today Czechia is 90 percent Atheist and of the 10 percent remaining, 80 percent is Catholic. 


We caught the tube into the city centre and followed a guide. It was interesting to hear the history of the place. It has had a hard upbringing. 
Prague was the Capital of 'The Kingdom of Bohemia' it was home to several Roman Emperors, King Charles the something being the most important one.




 
 
The Jewish section was interesting. The Jewish cemetery. The Cemetery was not allowed to acquire new land and so they put a new layer over the first ones, some graves are twelve deep. 




 


This market, next to the cemetery and against a wall that has twelve layers of dead bodies behind it. 












We went up the hill to the tower. This was constructed by Russia to convince the population that they didn't need to leave home to visit the Eiffel Tower in France because they had one of their own.....not quite.
It was a good view form the top, but it was swaying on a calm day.

We walked back into the city admiring the different architecture, Gothic, Renaissance, Art Nouvea, Cubism, and heaps of others all in one city.  


 

 We did a little window shopping and found a graffiti wall. The wall received its first such decoration following the 1980 assassination of John Lennon.  In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for the communist regime, as  Young Czechs wrote grievances on the wall it was described as "Lennonism"

Realising we hadn't reached our destination after a couple of hours, we asked directions however the locals couldn't read a map..., try reading a map in Czech, and understand the street names.  Thankfully a friendly bus driver that knew some English helped us, we were only around 4 km from our destination...After navigating rush hour on the train we returned to our hotel, to prepare for a traditional Czech meal accompanied by some traditional dancing, and singing. Oh and free beer!