Prague - a City of Breathtaking Architecture
Day one:
My bus to Prague left at 10am this morning and I got in a bit of a fright as the company had emailed me the night before saying the bus had changed. I thankfully managed to find it - only to discover it was still a bus just a different one. Anyway it took around two hours until I changed to a train in Novy Bohumin which is just over the border in the Czech Republic.
The train was another almost four hours but it was great to see the countryside plus a nuclear reactor. Unfortunately the train was going too quickly for
me to take a picture. We got to Prague and let’s just say even just walking out of the station you can see how amazing the buildings are. The picture below is a street away from my hostel.
Day two:
Last night I found a brochure for a Communism tour with a visit to a underground. It looked right up my alley so I booked it and started at 11am. I got to the square to find out that I was the only one who signed up. I was a bit nervous at first but I ended up having an amazing time as it was a one on one tour.
We started in front of an amazing building where the speech making Czechoslovakia it’s own country was said after WW1 ended.
We then saw how communism rose in Czechoslovakia after WW2. It was so interesting to hear about that country and how they elected the communism into power after WW2 - I had always assumed the Russians had liberated them then never left.
In their country there was even a resistance movement in the 1960s when the people moved to change and make society more liberated. Unfortunately the Russians didn’t approve of this and invaded the country to squash the revolution. The people, however, removed the street signs and the communists didn’t know where to go. I do wonder why the didn’t bring a map.
It was brilliant as the guide had a real connection to what happened in the country. His great uncle was sent to a forced labour camp to dig uranium as he assisted people to flee the country. He was originally sentenced to death and then commuted to life in prison but was released after 15 years. He managed to learn Latin and a few other languages as many academics were also sent to camps. They were sent there because the communists didn’t want anyone who could argue with them or who could fight back. He gave me an example of a locksmith who got in trouble for doing a bad job and when asked why he explained he had only started a few months before. He had just been forced to leave his job as an academic at the University. The guide also told me about his grandmother who used to copy banned literature to give to people. He showed me a copy of the famous essay Power to the Powerless written by the first non-communist president elected after the fall of communism, which his grandmother had copied and distributed.
We then stopped for a drink in a Soviet style restaurant and had some Czech ‘coke’. It’s still the same as it was decades ago and people like to visit not to be reminded of the past but because it is traditional food that is cheap.
We ended our tour at a bunker under an expensive hotel. It was discovered and recreated into what it might have looked like. It was still amazing to walk around and see the different maps and documents they have. One original artifact was the bugging system the hotel had to listen in and record conversations. They assigned you to a room from green to red with read meaning it was the most bugged.
After the tour I went to see the Charles Bridge but ended up having a Thai foot massage on the way.
It was packed when I got there so decided to take a river cruise. I didn’t look around enough and was swayed by their navy uniforms and a free ice cream on the boat. Although I got a free drink the tour was bad. We went around the bridge a few times then down a canal.
Day three:
Last night was the worst nights sleep I’ve had on this trip. My room in the hostel is next to the common room / kitchen so the doors were slamming all night. Then there is no aircon so we had to have the window open all night. The hostel is next to a main road so vehicles and loud people all night.
I woke up in a pretty bad mood so there was no way I was going to to make my free tour that morning. I ended up staying in bed until the early afternoon reading a book called Into Thin Air. It’s about the ill fated trip the author took with a company (run by kiwis) who escorted people to the top of Mt Everest.
I had booked another tour for 2pm but once I left my hostel it was around 30 degrees and I was feeling sick from a lack of sleep so decided again to cancel. I ended up going to the sex museum which was amusing and seemed to be filled gigilling people.
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