Object de Prague

29 May - Day 75

When the communism collapsed in Czechoslovakia, it took just 2 weeks to dispose the government in a fatality free "Velvet Revolution". There used to be huge statue of Stalin on top of Letenska Park but they blew it up with 800kg of explosives in 1962. In 1991, a huge metronome was erected on the largely vacant pedestal. Apparently, Michael Jackson kicked off his 1996 HIStory tour in this park.

We climbed to 100 or so steps up here for a look. Sadly the metronome was broken. The park looks like a favourite hangout for skateboarders, and has a great view of Prague city across the Vltava river.

 

We then decided to visit the Technical Museum about 500m away. Marcus got hungry on the way there so we stopped for lunch. There was a food kiosk selling beer making the park a natural beer garden. We decided on dining alfresco at the restaurant, Czech goulash with steamed bread for me and veal schitznel for Marcus.

The museum carried an eclectic collection of transportation, printing, astronomical and design technologies.

So we had car, trains, bikes and planes.

The very beautiful Supermarine Spitfire was there.

After this we decided to visit the gratis Czech military museum. They had the iconic Russian T34 tank outside.

This museum gave a run down of Czech involvement during WW1 and WW2, supported by some very nicely preserved artifacts.

We then went to the movies to see Dark Shadows. While movies are subtitled, the posters of the movies are in Czech. We can usually tell the movies from the posters, so choosing the right one at the ticket counter is not a problem. However, this cinema was under renovation with nary a poster in sight. We had to resort to a bit of verbal charades to get the right tickets.

 

30 May - Day 76

Wenceslas Square is the Champ Elysees of Prague. It is full of touristy shops and fully represented by the luxury and American brands. It fact I didn't see any brand missing. At one end is the national museum. This square has held 800,000 people, about 2/3 of Prague's population, you know for revolutions, uprisings, state funerals, when McDonalds first opened and the like.

On the way to lunch at Lokal restaurant, where they serve traditional Czech food and unpastuerised Pilsner Urquell, we went past the very ornately decorated Municipal House which is a concert hall inside.

We then took the metro to the riverside for a view of the Frank Gehry designed "Dancing House". Because it looks like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. Gehry is the guy who designed the Gugenheim in Bilbao. This building is an office, so it is not possible to go inside unless you wish to eat in the restaurant.

We walked across the Jiraskuv bridge, and took the furnicular to the top of Petrin Park.

They have a smaller Eiffel tower here.

The kids in school outings in Europe have to wear vests, very cute.

We then walked down the park through the many features - observatory, castle walls, water falls - down the the main road and took a tram and bus home.

Praha Prague

27 May - Day 73

 

Today we left Krakow, drove for 6 hours and then arrived in Prague.

At the hotel, we were greeted and processed by Peter, our 14 year old receptionist. All the locks in the hotel are controlled by fingerprint scanner. It's awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28 May - Day 74

We took a free walking tour of Prague today, during which we explored the Old Town, the Jewish Quarter and the New Town.

Starting in the Old Town Square, we witnessed the hourly show of the astronomical clock, where all the figures standing around the clock come to life and start dancing while a trumpeter trumpets on his trumpet from up in the tower. Apparently, this is possibly Prague's biggest attraction even though neither of us had ever heard of it.

Also in the square is the Church of our Lady before Tyn.

Our guide, Tom, condensed the city's 2000 year history for us. Basically, Prague has had a pretty terrible time except for when Charles IV was ruling and now, the last 20 years.

We walked down to the Vltava River, where we were shown the palace grounds (the largest ones in Europe) from a distance and the concert hall where Dvorak's New World Symphony no. 9 (the only piece of music they took to the moon in 1969) was debuted.

Then we were taken to the Jewish Quarter where we saw many synagogues including one that keeps a Golem in the attic and another which is considered the most beautiful in Europe (there are a lot of things in Prague that are considered the most beautiful in Europe).

We next went to King Wenceslas Square, the site of Prague's Velvet Revolution against the Communist regime in 1989.

Nearing the end of the tour, we also saw Mozart's Theater (the most beautiful concert hall in Europe) where he premiered his Don Giovani opera.

 

After the tour, we ate lunch in the Old Town Square. We went to one of the many stalls they have there and bought some Old Prague ham, which is a lot like regular ham except that it's from Prague. And old. But no, it was pretty good.

Afterwards, we crossed the busy Charles Bridge which is lined with buskers, trinket vendors and artists.

We climbed the hill to the palace grounds for a view of the city even though Prague, as with most cities, is much nicer looking from the inside than it is from the outside.

We then walked around the grounds a bit and Czech'd (hohohohohohohohohoho, hilarious) out the cathedral, which conversely has a really cool exterior but on the inside looks like every single other church ever built ever.

Then we got on the tram and went home.

Planes and Pots

26 May - Day 72

We duplicated 18 May, hence the missing 25 May.

We visited Krawkow Aviation Museum. This museum had exhibits in-doors in hangers and outdoors. It was mainly military planes from WW1 to the late 1980s.

For me the coolest was the Supermarine Spitfire from the Battle of Britain.

The British Sopwith Camel was here too, the most prolific British fighter plane during WW1.

There were a lot of Russian fighter planes from the 50s thru to the 80s, mainly MIGS and Sukovs.

Marcus liked the crop spraying jet plane because it looked funny. Designed by a Russian committee.

After a short break, we walked back to Podgorze, where the Krakow Historical Museum was housed in Schindler's Enamel Factory.

This museum gives a multi-media narrative of the Nazi occupation of Krakow from 1939 to 1945. So Schindlers story formed part of the narrative.

They preserved his work desk and map.

And some of the tin-ware his factory produced.

We also learnt that a lot of scenes in the movie was dramatised (putting it kindly). The list took a year to put together, not over-night as depicted in the movie. To get on the list, you needed connections to or bribes for the people putting the list together. Schindler was not directly involved.

Anyway the narrative stopped abruptly in 1945, when the Russian Red army liberated Krakow from the Germans. I don't think life improved for the Poles after liberation. For example, the Polish army fighting along-side the Russians were promptly arrested and sent the Russian concentration camps after the Germans retreated from Poland.

We walked past Plac Nowy in Kazimierz on the way back to the apartment, where Marcus bought a zapiekinka, a toasted baugette with cheese, pickles and meat. A favourite amongst the young and penniless, or hungry late drinkers.

Back in Krakow old town, the square was filled with stalls selling Polish fast food, so we had our dinner there.

 

Dictator and Terminator

23 May - Day 69

We had another late start today due to going to the double feature yesterday and finishing dinner after 10pm. The Dictator was very funny, and the Poles in the theatre LOLed as well despite getting their punchlines via subtitles. Unlike Spain, Italy and France, all foreign movies in Poland are subtitled, not dubbed. So they get both the visual and vocal (I was going to say oral, but you are going to get a lot of that if you go see that movie) acting. We did watch some TV that was dubbed in Polish, and the same guy did the vocals for all the actors (even the women). It was hilarious and weird, no wonder the Poles don't want their Hollywood blockbusters dubbed. So while we get maybe two foreign film festivals a year, the Poles get one everyday.

First stop of the day was the Polish Home Army Museum, a 30 min walk away from our apartment. Complete disappointment, the exhibitions were mainly fragments of aeroplanes, and toy models.

We lunched at this Polish self-service restaurant where you have to collect your food after paying and also return the dishes after eating. The food was delicious though, and very cheap. I had battered fish and potatoes, and Marcus cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and rice, and a salad. And a litre of beer, all for 42 ztoly ie $16.

 

We then joined the Jewish walking tour, again hosted by Dorotha from yesterday. This time we were taken through the Jewish quarters of Krakow. Before WW2, Krakow had 68,000 Jews. Because of the Nazis and Communist, there are now 200 known Jews today. A lot of people may not even know they are Jewish because their parents and grand parents did not tell them for protection from the anti-sematic governments over the years.

 

Dorotha spent a lot of time talking about Schindler (the Liam Neeson one, not the elevator company) and also the very cool student bars and cafes in this area. I took notice of the latter.

 

The thing with Schindler was that Spielberg made the movie and shot a lot of scenes in Krakow. Schindler saved 1,100 Jews. There is some debate over his motives for doing so, but lives were saved so who cares about the motive. The other good Nazi (yes Schindler was a Nazi party member) was a guy called John Rabe who saved about 200,000 Chinese from the massacre that the Japanese carried out in the late 1930s, the so called "Rape of Nanking"

 

We were shown a few areas where some familiar movie scenes were shot. I was very fascinated because I am a WW2 history buff. So, we will be returning to this area to visit Schindler's factory which in now a Jewish museum.

While everyone is bagging the Nazi Germans (and deservedly so), Russia's role in trying to eliminate the Poles in WW2 does not get as much attention.

I spotted this small memorial to the 5,000 Polish army officers executed by Russians in the Katyn forest. This atrocity was hushed up during WW2 because the Russians were part of the Allies.

The Vistula river was the scene of many ferocious battles between the Russians and Germans.

After this walking tour, we thanked and tipped Dorotha, and went back to the Polish self-service restaurant for a Jewish stew (me) and meat cutlet (Marcus). We covered about 10km today.

 

24 May - Day 70

We drove to Auschwitz today, about 60km away from Krakow. Between 10 am and 3 pm, you have to take a guided tour when you get there. Outside these hours you can guide yourself for free.

We got there at 11.30am and took the guided tour. Guided is better if you don't know about Nazi concentration and death camps. The former is where they work you to death, and the latter is where they just gas you (to death also). Our GPS guided us to the back entrance of the Auschwitz camp, so we saved 8 ztoly in parking. I retracted my colourful comments about the GPS after I found out.

Auschwitz is the German name for the Polish town of Oswiecim. There are two major camps in this area, the second one being Birkenau (Brzezinka in Polish).

All up between 1.1M and 1.5M people were murdered here. Men, women and children.

We saw spectacles, hair, shoes, luggage, combs, brushes collected from these poor souls.

We saw the gas chambers.

The chimneys where they dropped the cyanide, or cyclon B.

The crematoriums both intact and...

destroyed by fleeing Nazis.

The living conditions were horrific although eveything has been sanitised since.

These are the sleeping quarters, about eight per level, so 24 each bunk. You don't want to be in the bottom one because everyone above has dysentary, typhus and diarrhea.

Toilets are a mass production affair as well, and you are given a couple of minutes only, twice a day.

Although Marcus has been to Dachau, this guided tour has given him a bit more insight to this sad (so far) period of human (or should I say inhuman) history.