Prague, Czechia
This was a very different part of our trip. As part of our River Cruise, we spent three days in Prague, at the Marriott Hotel. It was very different from all our other accommodations, and had fun events each day.
Neither of us had been in this region before, so our first afternoon was just getting familiar with our surroundings. We were a few blocks from the Vitava river and enjoyed a leisurely walk in the shade. It was very hot.
Look who found a fun gadget and had to try it out… polishing his tennis shoes. It was a new concept for me.
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is made up of five different communities: New Town, Old Town, the Castle Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, and the Lesser Quarter. In years gone past, each of these communities had their own government, but today, they are now all one city, and with different stories and history.
We took a guided walking tour through three of the five. Of course we saw many castles, and some very large buildings that used to be personal homes of the residents, but are now government buildings.
In the picture above, the first castle we visited is now a government building and was armed. Unlike London, they rotate every hour.
This is the St Vitus Catherdral inside the Prague castle grounds. It is of gothic architecture and very prominent in the community. It took 600 years to complete this structure.
This city had some very beautiful structures and communities, but the one that grabbed our heart was the Jewish Quarter. Prague was one of the first locations where the Nazi occupation occurred and the stories are still horrendous. We took our own tour through this community and found a small synagoge. At the entrance was this monument identifying all the concentration camps.
Just inside the door was this inscription (left picture). When you enter the various rooms, the walls are covered, floor to ceiling, with names… 80,000 names of those who were taken from this village. It identifies them by name, their date of birth, their date of detention, and their date of death, or the date they escaped or released. It was overwhelming and I had a hard time not crying. This so hurts my spirit. In one small room, there were remnants of items they recovered, pictures drawn by children, depicting their situation, suitcases, etc. It was heart-breaking and a somber reminder.
Behind the Synagogue was the cemetary. The gravestones are all haphazard because the bodies are actually buried on top of each other, ten bodies deep. There was no room, so they just kept putting them on top of each other. The headstones were then placed somewhere near the burial spot.
One of the group tours was to Terezin, a concentration camp on the German border. We opted not to take that tour, it was just to hard emotionally.
On a lighter note, one evening, we enjoyed a traditional Bohemian dinner. Notice the wine pouring. The waiter has a bottle of wine over his shoulder and is pouring it directly into the glass via a plastic tube. He never spilled a drop. There was fun music, laughter, dancing, great food, and everyone had a good time.
Here is advertising at it's best….
Franz Kafka was a famous writer and novelist from Prague. He was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech. Keith has enjoyed some of his writings and this was an interesting tribute to him.
One of the benefits of this time before getting on the boat was getting to meet some of our traveling partners early. There were about 20 of us and we quickly built connections and friendships that carried with us through the coming days.
