Prague

Prague may very well be the most beautiful city in Europe. Everywhere you turn there's a gorgeous building or interesting detail or breathtaking view. It's late and we're on the road again early tomorrow so I'll just include a few photos for now, will upload more later.

Had dinner last night at a traditional Czech place. Sausages, pork, red cabbage that reminded us of collards, sauerkraut, two types of dumpling (potato and bread) that are perfect with gravy. Pilsner is the beer of choice. A bonus is that Prague is cheap - this meal was something like $75 for five of us.

We're staying in the edge of the old town, where every single building is marvelous. This is the main square.

The astronomical clock was fun to watch. On the top of each hour is does some stuff (did I mention I'm really tired right now?).

We did a two-hour walking tour with a guide in the morning, with a WWII history focus. He had some great stories to tell as we walked around the old Jewish quarter. One in particular about Reinhard Heydrich was funny. Heydrich was essentially the governor here after the Germans invaded. He was a ruthless guy (the chief architect of the Holocost - he ran the Wannsee conference I wrote about the other day) but also very cultured - his father had been a classical music composer and opera singer. There was a concert hall in Prague he was having restored, and it had a bunch of statues of composers on top. He saw a statue of Mendelssohn, a Jew, and ordered it taken down. The statues didn't have names on them and the workers had no clue which one was Mendelssohn, so in their ignorance they picked the one with the biggest nose, thinking surely that was the Jew. Turns out it was Wagner, the favorite of the Nazis. No word on what happened to the workers.

 

Lunch was fried cabbage pancakes for David and me, more sausages for others. I think everyone's tiring of me taking photos of their food, but they'll appreciate it later.

We visited the church where the Czech special ops guys who assassinated Heydrich died after a big shoot-out with the Nazis. It's a fascinating story that was made into a movie a while back. Well worth reading more about. A good little exhibit explaining the story and then you get to go into the crypt where they were hiding out. This week it's the 70th anniversary of the assassination.

David, Brian and I took a tram over to the castle and cathedral and climbed all the way to the top. Incredible. John did more of the Jewish quarter history and dad hung out at the hotel for a bit.

More great food for dinner. I had risotto and a salad, and the original Budweiser (not at all like the American stuff). Got some gellato on the way back to the hotel.

Here's dad eating a big wafer thing the hotel gave us

On to Nuremburg in the morning.