Monday was our free day & we jumped on the metro in the morning & went to Hradcany Castle (not sure of the spelling on that one). We decided not to pay & go in, as after awhile you get a bit over looking at castles as they are everywhere, so we walked around, looked at the great view of Prague (it was up on a hill) & listened to buskers (who were great by the way). We then walked over the Charles Bridge which took us back to the main part of town. We did a bit of shopping (I bought a great red bag - that is until the colour started coming out on my clothes - hopefully if I wash it a few times it will be okay) & then met some of the others for a water bike ride. We have them at home so it was nothing new but great to do it in a new place. There were 8 of us in 2 boats - there wasn’t a large area we could go in as we had to keep out of the path of big boats so we got a bit bored & had races or played dodgem cars (again slightly juvenile).
After that we split up a bit - Monica & I wanted to go to the Jewish Museum (photo 2) & no-one else did. The Jewish community was forced to live in what they called a “ghetto” & parts of this is what you can see today. The Pinkas Synagogue has names of the 80,000 victims along with the name of their community written on the walls. It is hand written & goes on for room after room after room.
The most incredible thing we saw was the cemetery which was established in the first half of the 15th century. Even though it was enlarged a few times there still wasn’t enough space & they added layers of soil & buried people on top of each other. There are 12,000 tombstones although the number of people buried there is much greater. The headstones were practically on top of each other - it was an amazing sight but we could not take photos. I have never seen a cemetery like it.
The whole group then met for dinner in a traditional restaurant - I just had soup (not very traditional) as I had filled up on fruit, scorched almonds, gingerbread & latte earlier in the day.
The last photo is of the whole group which includes about 5 new people that joined the tour in Prague. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but I was the oldest on the tour by about 5 years. So all you people that I tease for being old farts can take joy in the fact that this time it was me!
Interesting fact - before the war the Czech Republic was called just that. They peacefully decided to join with Slovakia to ensure a stronger nation to see them through the war. They then became Czechoslovakia. After the war they had what is called a “velvet divorce” where they amicably became two separate countries again & reverted back to being the Czech Republic.
After that we split up a bit - Monica & I wanted to go to the Jewish Museum (photo 2) & no-one else did. The Jewish community was forced to live in what they called a “ghetto” & parts of this is what you can see today. The Pinkas Synagogue has names of the 80,000 victims along with the name of their community written on the walls. It is hand written & goes on for room after room after room.
The most incredible thing we saw was the cemetery which was established in the first half of the 15th century. Even though it was enlarged a few times there still wasn’t enough space & they added layers of soil & buried people on top of each other. There are 12,000 tombstones although the number of people buried there is much greater. The headstones were practically on top of each other - it was an amazing sight but we could not take photos. I have never seen a cemetery like it.
The whole group then met for dinner in a traditional restaurant - I just had soup (not very traditional) as I had filled up on fruit, scorched almonds, gingerbread & latte earlier in the day.
The last photo is of the whole group which includes about 5 new people that joined the tour in Prague. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but I was the oldest on the tour by about 5 years. So all you people that I tease for being old farts can take joy in the fact that this time it was me!
Interesting fact - before the war the Czech Republic was called just that. They peacefully decided to join with Slovakia to ensure a stronger nation to see them through the war. They then became Czechoslovakia. After the war they had what is called a “velvet divorce” where they amicably became two separate countries again & reverted back to being the Czech Republic.
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