Spring Break Part 2 - March 30

After how much we had done the day prior, we only went to the Czech Communism Museum and back to the Old Town Square (and posed mocking strange statues).

As the museum likes to pronounce on their posters, the museum of Communism is above a McDonalds and next to a casino.

Really it's more so inside the casino

Propoganda

Czechoslovakia was under communist rule for forty years from 1949 to 1989.  They were not directly under Soviet rule for most of that time, but they were occupied for a little while to quell riots.  Here I saw a bit of what makes Czech people unique - according to my tour guide the day prior, the Czech people are known for their dark, sarcastic senses of humor (as you learn about your heritage you learn about yourself I guess).  An example of this was a giant statue of Stalin and the proletariat built in the 1950s to brown-nose the USSR.  When Stalin's crimes were exposed the statue was torn down and was later replaced with a giant metronome, which was meant to remind all who saw it that all things have their time.

Pseudo Propaganda

We returned to the Old Town Square, and rejoined the festivities. 

This Mary statue has been there "temporarily" since it was torn down from the Square by angry Protestants over a hundred years ago.

From there we returned to the hostel - again, it was freezing - and we slept until 7 pm the next day, that's how much we had done and how tired we were.

Spring Break Part 1 - March 29

Prague was the first stop of our Spring Break, which would then take us to Berlin and Amsterdam.  For the record, we froze the entire time as it's northern Europe and we clearly missed the concept of "spring break".

On our first full day there we took a tour through our hostel, Sir Toby's.  We were taken to the castle district, which is famous for the (you guessed it) castle there, but the tour specialized in showing the finer points of that touristy area.  We started on this hill and got a nice view to start the day.

Since the edges of city for a while were woods, they have these carvings on some of the buildings so that even the severely drunk could remember where they were and not stumble into the woods never to be seen again.

Those little blackheads on the side of that church are cannonballs.  From what I understand Prague was besieged with some regularity.

Loreta, a major pilgrimage site

Me being extraordinarily cold.

Deceptive Hotel

St. Wenceslas' Gate

St. Wenceslas Abbey

View from St. Wenceslas' Vineyard

John and Angie, my traveling companions

Hradcany Square

This pillar totally has priests force feeding communal wafers to heretics

The tour ended right outside the Prague Castle, the largest medieval castle in the world.  We walked around the free parts of the area - despite the fact that 1 koruna is equal to $0.05 we were being conservative.

Graphic statues

St. Vitus

The Czech people seem to choose a much simpler cathedrals than the Romans.

View from the Castle

Prague's Lock Bridge and Canal

We walked across the famous St. Charles Bridge - for whatever reason there were just rows upon rows of caricaturists - and made our way into the Old Town Square, where they were having an Easter celebration.  Apparently in the frozen north they use Easter as a marker for spring to get them really excited about the end of winter.  For that reason they had a month long festival in the square for Easter.

Astrological Clock

From there we started walking home, because it was actually literally freezing at that point.  We walked through Wenceslas Square which was witness to the anti-Communist riots.  It was a long day, and it was nice to warm up in Sir Toby's basement pub.