Our first day touring in Prague

We had our first day in Prague with our guide Vladimir.  He gave us a great overview of the history of Prague and the Czech Republic, which is quite confusing with all the countries getting together and coming apart.  The good news for Prague is that it was not destroyed through the multiple wars, but the bad news is that they were assaulted by multiple invaders -- even in modern times, from being occupied by the Nazis to being occupied by the Soviets. 

We strolled through the old town and admired the architecture. It's quite classic and beautiful, with a lot of rococo style.  We crossed the Charles Bridge into the older part of the city, and saw the beautiful astronomical clock.

 We took a van to a monastery where Vladimir had organized a private tour of their amazing libraries. Two huge rooms were filled from floor to ceiling with old books in all languages.  It was stunning.  My favorite was a set of 10 books given to the monastery by Napoleon's wife, which was a guide to the Louvre. Only 4 copies still exist.

We forced Vladimir to stop for lunch. Apparently he was determined to power through 6 hours of sightseeing without a break, but we mounted a rebellion and managed a very nice lunch break.

 Afterwards we visited the museum of Czech artist Alfons Mucha, who was famous for his large "Art Deco" posters of women.

Guy, Pascale, Lenny and I added on a quick trip to the Jewish quarter.  There aren't really any buildings of the original ghetto left, but there are several synagogues and an amazing cemetery.  It's hard to believe any of this survived at all.  I found the most moving part was the synagogue which had been converted into a memorial for the 80,000 Czech Jews who were murdered in the holocaust.  All their names were inscribed on the walls, with birth and death dates, organized by village.  It was very powerful to see evidence of whole families destroyed.

On a lighter note (okay, I can't think of any better transition after talking about such a dark subject), the most unusual thing we saw was a live photo shoot in central Prague.  I have no idea what it was for, but a totally naked woman was strolling breezily through the streets with several photographers in front and behind.  Maybe it was an advertisement for her sandals, since that was all she had on.  The  photographers in our group rather enjoyed using her as a subject as well, but I don't think we will post those photos because we might get booted off blogger! 

Donna

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