Check Prague!

Prague is a beautiful city! Because it was not bombed during WWII, many of the lovely Art Nouveau buildings from the 18th and 19th century remain and have been well preserved.  The ornate doorways could certainly rival Paris!

We are staying in the heart of the Jewish quarter, the preservation of which has a darker story.  Hitler intentionally preserved the buildings and the synagogues – even storing looted Jewish artifacts from other places here – with the intention of creating a Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race after he won the war. But his sinister intention leaves a trove of beautiful buildings

and synagogues.  We followed Rick Steves’ walking tour of the Jewish Quarter that took us through five synagogues, some very plain and some quite ornate.

The most moving was the Pinkas Synagogue where every inch of wall space is covered with the names of 77,297 Czech Jews sent to the gas chambers. The names are carefully organized and grouped by hometowns. As you are walking around inside, names are being read aloud interspersed with a cantor singing psalms. Very poignant…

One last stop in our dive into Jewish history was a day trip from Prague to Therezienstadt, a concentration camp where many Prague Jews and political prisoners were sent before being sent on to Auschwitz. This camp, located in a garrison town (Terezin) built in 1780 by the Habsburgs, was presented by the Germans to the Red Cross and other outside observers as a ‘model ghetto,’ deceiving the west into believing all Jews were treated well and were living happily.  We saw parts of a propaganda film made here that presents a very different picture than what was really happening (both here and elsewhere).
        

On our first Saturday in town, we took a tram up to the Prague Castle, the largest castle complex in the world (according to Guinness).  We unexpectedly arrived on the opening day of the Summer season.  The good news – admission was free. The not-so-good news – the place was mobbed!!  We did some walking around but decided that since we have the luxury of time, we’d return on a weekday and be happy to pay to get in.

We did go back and, even though there were quite a few large tour groups there, we felt almost like we had the place to ourselves.  St Vitus Cathedral is beautiful, especially the stained glass window designed by Alfons Mucha.

Speaking of Mucha, we had hoped to see his monumental Slav Epic (20 huge paintings that trace the 1500-year history of the Slavic people). Unfortunately, the whole collection is out on tour, so we settled for a smaller Mucha museum, where we saw his more famous, and lovely, lithographs and advertising posters.

We try, once every few months, to treat ourselves to a fancy meal at a Michelin starred restaurant.  Since the last time we did this was New Years Eve, we thought it was time.  Prague has three one-star restaurants and we chose La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise. We were seated at a table near the open kitchen and had fun watching the meticulous preparation of the many dishes.

We chose a 6-course meal, each course paired with a different Czech wine. We’ve enjoyed learning about Czech wines.  The best are white, but we’ve found a couple of very respectable Pinot Noirs, too.
     
Early on, we found a nice little wine bar, Vinoteka U Mourenina. The lovely and knowledgeable proprietress, Marina, tasted us through a range of wines and really gave us an education!

When John Lennon died in 1980, Czechoslovakia was still under communist control.  Several young people, who wanted to memorialize Lennon and his “Give Peace a Chance” message found an obscure wall and began to, surreptitiously, write messages on it.  Today, it is still a place that people visit and write new messages next to and even over the old ones.  We were there on Mothers Day, and I felt like my kids had channeled a graffiti artist to send me their greetings…

One of the most famous sites in Prague is Wenceslaus Square, with a great statue of ‘Good King Wenceslaus,’ a 10th century duke who united the Czech people when this land was known as Bohemia.

This square, which is actually a 10-acre boulevard, has been the site of many important events in the history of the Czech people – the jubilation in 1918 as WWI ended and modern Czechoslovakia was born, the Nazi occupation during WWII, the (unsuccessful) ‘Prague Spring’ uprising in 1968 to drive out the Soviets, and finally in 1989 when hundreds of thousands gathered to reclaim their freedom once again in the ‘Velvet Revolution.’  Just below the statue is a small memorial to two students who burned themselves to death in early 1969 to ‘stoke the flame of independence.’

Wenceslaus Square is in what is referred to as the ‘new town.’ So, of course ‘old town’ has its own square.  The statue in Old Town Square is of Jan Hus, the religious reformer who has become a symbol of Czech nationalism. Here also are the Old Town Hall with its astronomical clock that ‘performs’ at the top of every hour and, of course, several churches. Curiously, newer buildings block the front entrance to this fine old church.

In another of our fortunate timings, we are in Prague during their International Music Festival. While I think you can always find concerts here, most are performances in churches or synagogues of very familiar works like The Four Seasons and Pachabel’s Canon aimed at tourists. We were lucky enough to get two of the last tickets to see the Toronto Symphony play a real concert in the beautiful Municipal Hall.

On  our last full day in the city, we ventured upriver to a good Saturday market and then walked to the building the locals call ‘The Dancing House.’  It is a curious structure that was designed by a Frank Gehry and has been nicknamed ‘Fred & Ginger’ by American architecture buffs. The solid structure on the right could be Fred Astaire, while the airy glass structure attached on the left might be Ginger Rogers dancing on the banks of the River Vltava… (I don’t remember Fred’s hair being that wild, though!)

On to Vienna…