More Prague

Above - The tower leading onto the St Charles Bridge by night.

Above - The view from the St Charles Bridge complete with the moon.

Above - Looking towards the Castle by night from the St Charles Bridge.

Above - Me on the St Charles Bridge.

Above - Sue on the St Charles Bridge.

After breakfast with a hot chocolate I made my way on the tram to the centre of Prague. I wanted to go to the Museum of Communism which was located on Prague’s equivalent of Oxford Street. The museum focused on Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia as of 1993) and Prague in particular. It was very interesting. I watched a compilation video of video footage from the 1980’s in the lead up to the destruction of the wall in Germany and the end of Communism in the Czech Republic with the Velvet Revolution and the election of Václav Havel as President. After the Museum of Communism I walked along Na Příkopě – Prague’s main shopping street, to St Wenceslas Square. It was awful to think of the scenes of violence I’d seen on the video at the museum from as recently as 1989 had happened on this street. After St Wenceslas Square I went shopping for some speciality Czech biscuits – Tradični Lázeňské. I had a mid afternoon icecream and coffee in the Old Town Square and watched the Astronomical clock strike 16h – on each hour there are little figures of people that appear out of doors on the clock – a little bit like a cuckoo clock. I filmed it. There were lots of people there to watch, take photos and film the striking of the clock and the appearance of the figures and as the clock began to chime everyone went very quiet and then at the end everyone clapped – it was really strange. I headed after to the Jewish Quarter for a walk around. I would have liked to have paid and gone and looked at everything properly but I decided it wasn’t worth it as there wasn’t a lot of the day left. After the Jewish Quarter I went back to the centre. I’d been umming and arring about buying a ‘Prague’ bag but decided it’d look silly. But then I saw a girl with an ‘Amsterdam’ one and she didn’t look silly so I decided to buy one. I also bought a pin badge of the Czech flag. I then went back to the hostel and later on me and Sue went back to the centre to see the Charles Bridge by night. It was a lovely end to a lovely holiday.