Prague - Day 6

We got in Wednesday night and were lured into eating a big, late, dinner by the enticing thought of pork... This knuckle was the size of a child’s head!

Did I say Vienna was gorgeous? Prague is amazing! All the rebuilding and new facades we saw in Budapest and Vienna hasn’t happened here -  Prague wasn’t bombed much in WW2 - so it’s old and gorgeous.

We are staying at an inn in an area called Little Town. It’s across the river from the main area of Prague. The inn owner recently finished the room we are staying in and he’s very proud of it. Here’s our room...

And the view from our balcony
That green tower at the back is the castle we’re going to see tomorrow.

Today we walked all over the “downtown” of Prague called Old Town. Here are some more beautiful buildings.

We learned a lot about the political history of the Czech Republic. The first ruler of the region was Wenceslas (yes, good king Wenceslas!)

And 100 years ago this weekend Czechoslovakia in its current “state” was formed. They’re having a big celebration and exciting things are being constructed all over the city.

We saw this exhibit that commemorates several historical events in the last 100 years.

They call it Independence Day which confused our Americans brains at first. We kept thinking they weren’t independent since they were occupied by the Soviets for a good chunk of time and only recently got them out (Like Hungary - they were a communist country less than 30 years ago). But I think the Czechs still saw themselves as independent from all that - Just waiting it out.

We spent the afternoon in the Jewish Quarter. Czech Jews were also persecuted for their religious beliefs and forced to live in a small ghetto within the city. We visited a cemetery which was the only area where they could bury their dead. 

There are 12,000 stones - but that’s just the top layer! Because it’s the only one it is several layers deep. There are 85,000 Jews are buried here!

We visited a synagogue that is dedicated to the Czech Jews killed by the Nazis. All the names are written on the walls of the inside.

We visited the oldest synagogue in Europe...

And one of the most beautiful 

Oh! I forgot to mention that earlier we went into The church of St James

And there is this whole story about a thief who tried to steal the Madonna statue from the altar but was “frozen” in place when he put his hand on it. They had to cut off his arm to get him out of there! Now his shriveled old arm hangs as a warning in the church!

After we were done seeing synagogues we strolled around the Jewish Quarter - It’s really lovely.

Then headed back across the bridge to our area. Here’s the palace from the bridge.

We stopped in a little wine shop near our inn and tasted some Czech wines - Delish!