I might be at risk repeating myself, but I have to say that Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. Well, not that I have seen that many .... ok .... a few. Most "old" cities in Europe have been at least partially destroyed in World War II, so a lot of the historic buildings and layout of the cities have been destroyed and in many cases replaced with some quite ugly architecture. This is not the case in Prague. There have been only a few buildings destroyed at the end of the war, when the German troops left the city. My Czech friend Ollie mentioned that there was probably more destruction in the 1968 uprising against communism the "Spring of Prague", when Russina troops squashed the opposition. Basically what I am trying to tell you with too many words is that you can pretty much see the historic outline of the city dating back to around 8oo AD. The "Old Town", that was later extended by the "New Town" and the Lesser Market.
On Wednesday we had a guided tour through the "Old Town". Our American guide Chris put a lot of effort into the tour and had to handle many of our questions and comments. The weather was pretty lousy, it was raining most of the time, but we had a great time and enjoed the stories and tour a lot. Of course there is a lot of history here, but there is also an amazing variety in different styles of architecture, co-existing just next to each other .... very interesting. I will post some more photoes later. We finished the tour with coffee at the cafe in one of the few cubist buildings in Prague. Cubism was much more a design style for furniture and such, however in Prague there are several buildings designed in this form.
A cubist house in Prague.
On Wednesday evening I meet with my Czech friend Ollie. We have been playing soccer in the Sports Club LA soccer league together and was in town for some time to visit his home. Although we went out in the touristy "old Town" area we found a great pub for locals. There was only one tourist in the whole place - me :-)
We had a great time and enjoyed a great local beer chatting about this and that .... a great evening. It is kind of funny that I have met so many people from San Francisco already and soon I will be going to Vienna to see another friend of mine from SF who moved away.
On Thirsday I spend the last hours of my stay in Prague to visit the "Lesser Market" below the castle. This area was build as the third stage of the Prague expansion, when all of the rich merchants and aristocrates from the country side wanted to move close to court. It is now home to many embassies, I passed the German, the US and the Italian embassies, very tight security with bomb checks on the streets. There is also a big castle build by Walenstein, the famous General of the Austrian troops during the 30 year war. The gardens (I only visited parts of them) are spectacular.
On my way back to the hotel I passed the famous "Carl's Bridge".
A photo while walking across the "Carl's Bridge"
After my return to the hotel was off to Vienna by train. The ride was pretty uneventful, except that someting caught fire and there was smoke coming out of the air condition. Think thick grey clouds of smoke. There was a short panic, but after a while the smoke disappeared and everything went back to normal.
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