Praha aka Prague

First some pictures.... (of Day 2)

The Royalty Palace

St Vitus Cathedral

Just one of a dozen or so....

I love that stairway

There are dozens of royalty buried here... I love how this one decided to planted right dead centre of the congregation... gauranteeing the best seat in the house!

Some of them went for simple....

Others... not so much!

I couldn't catch more than 1/4 at any time.  You have to see it to understand how ostentatious this looks

You can't stand back far enough to get a good shot of all of it.  it is just SO big.

The palace gallery

The back of St. Vitus

Funky armor 

Those of you following Facebook will already know it is my "new" favorite city.  As one wag put it.. "how many favorite cities can a man have?".  Not enough it seems.

It isn't hard for me to pin down why I like Prague so much... It isnthe architecture and the sense as to how well everything just "fits".  Each building is different, whether it is in style, colour or height but it just seems to work and look pre-planned.  You can't turn a corner or cross the street without going "wow".  I love some of Paris's buildings and architecture for the same reason but Prague has ten times more.  Notre Dame is stunning and breathtaking but Prague's St. Virus is even more so.

It is no wonder the Germans rolled their tanks in to take over what they called the Sudatenland in 1938 when the French and British betrayed them thinking they could buy "peace in our time" with Hitler.  Of course, that just allowed Hitler to grow stronger and war began anyway on a much bigger scale in September 1939.  Unfortunately for the Czech's, the Allies again decided to give their beautiful country over to the Stalin controlled Soviets after the war in 1945 so they had to endure another 44 years of communism and foreign control until  the students staged a "Velvet Revolution" in December 1989 and communism finally gave way to democracy.

The former state of Czechloslavia peacefully separated into the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1993 and by 1999, the Czech Republic (to the chagrin of Moscow) became part of NATO as the Czech's wanted to ensure that NATO's member nations would come to its aid in the event of another Soviet style invasion - as happened just a couple of years ago with Georgia.

The Czech Republic joined the EU and has dropped border controls with member states but hasn't yet adopted the EU although they were on track to do so before the current problems with the PIGS (Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece). They have robust growth in their economy and have 80% of the EU standard of living already which is astonishing considering where they started from just under 20 years ago.

WWII history buffs like me will know the Czech's put up a strong fight to the Germans and paid dearly for it. They lost about 350,000 civilians in 1938 including almost 280,000 Jews who were put to death in the first concentration camps.  The majority of the Czech population was marked for extermination by the Germans as they wanted to use the land for "lebensraum" (living space) for their Aryan Race. Western powers tried to appease Hitler and with the Munich Agreement allowed his troops to takeover.  Czech resistance fighters with the help of the British assassinated Rudolph Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the brutal SS in 1942.  Hitler ordered the massacre of 10,000 Czech's in retaliation.  A couple of Czech villages were completely destroyed.

With the end of WW2, the Czech's expelled 3M ethnic Germans as many of them supported Hitler's Nazis (17% vs about 8% in Germany in 1939). The Soviets had no intention of letting Czechs rejoin western Europe and made Czechloslavia part of the Warsaw Pact.  On August 21st, 1968 (my 8th birthday), Russian tanks rolled into Prague to put an end to the "Prague Spring" that had tried to gradually bring back democracy.  They stayed until the fall of the wall in 1989.

The Czech and Slovak Republics had a "Velvet Divorce" and separated peaceably in 1993 both joining the EU. The Slovak Republic has even adopted the Euro being a bit ahead on currency and financial reforms.

I think the Czech Republic has a bright future and it is certainly a beautiful country with a stunning capital as you will see below.  One last note.. Ever since Freddie Mercury and Queen made it famous with their great song Bohemian Rhapsody, I've wondered where Bohemia came from... It was the former name of the Western part of the Czech Republic. Enjoy.

The Eastern end of the St. George Bridge 

The Eastern bank

St. Virus and the Palace up on the hill

The very cool Astrological Clock.  It is watched hourly by thousands who come out for the show. Simple but neat.

The "new" Spanish Jewish Church

The Opera House

They've all given up posing for me.  I have a posing mutiny on my hands so they are getting their asses handed to them... :-)

A nice Masserati

Even the new building are interesting. This one they call the Dancing House or simply Fred and Ginger.  It was designed by the Canadian-American archict Frank Gehry in 93 to replace the site of President Havel's ancestral home which was destroyed bh bom s in WWII.  It marks the boundary between the old and new parts of the city and it grows on you...

The National Museum 

And I have hundreds more... That's all for today.  I'll add Cesky Krumlov tomorrow and will be up to date!