Praha

March 22-23

Prague is a city rich with history, here is a very brief snapshot: For most of its history Prague had been an ethnically mixed city of Czech, German and Jewish populations. WWI ended with the creation of Czechoslovakia with Prague as its capital. Then from 1939, Prague was occupied by Nazi Germany. While Prague was mostly undamaged by WWII, it still suffered from air raids (US air strikes meant for Dresden). After WWII, Germans were driven out of the city and Prague came under the Soviet influence, and ultimately freeded itself from Russian ties with the fall of the wall in 1989. Then in 1993 Czechoslovakia split and Prague became the capital city of the new Czech Republic. In 2004 Czech Republic joined the EU and removed its border controls with neighboring countries in 2007.

Prague was quite beautiful with old architecture and living history all around. When we went it was also quite cold, but I think it would be a very romantic city to visit in a warmer climate. I heard its very touristy and was indeed very crowded when we visited. It is also more expensive in Praha 1 (the main touristy district) than in other parts of Prague (they still have the Czech Koruna, but have the intention to adopt the Euro by 2010ish or so). With all of the walking, Prague was a bit tiring, but I thoroughly enjoyed our visit there - I cannot imagine how crowded it gets in its high season!!


Photos:
1 - 2 - Sights on the drive down from Berlin to Prague, we passed many small poor villages and Communist looking/prefab buildings once we crossed into the Czech Republic
3 - It looks like Venice, but it is Prague
4 - The long escalators in the Prague metro stations, I heard that the stations doubled or can be bomb shelters as well since they are so deep
5 - Cathedral
6 - Around Prague
7 - Florian and I up on the castle walk with the city behind us
8 - The Prague castle
9 - The water way on the bridge over to the Prague castle
10 - In the metro, just in case you weren't aware you are supposed to buy metro tickets while in the train area
11 - 12 - The old town square of Prague
13 - 14 - The Original Budweiser!
15 - Prague at night from across the Charles Bridge
16 - The old border control checkpoint, everyone gets very confused here if they need to stop or should keep going