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Vive la imperialism
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With our body clocks all topsy turvy, we managed to wake quite early, with the whole day in front of us to wander. We made it out the front door, to trams on our doorstep to whirl us right into the city centre. The public transport is extremely efficient and FAST (beware those who are standing) and was clearly well planned...the trams are quite often not in amongst the traffic, but are able to fly along the verge unimpeded. (hello Melbourne commuters).
We landed right in tourist central (which is all well and good), walked up to a vantage point above the city (the welcome image is a picture of that view) and then wandered past Prague Castle in time for the changing of the guard (and the obligatory photo with the non communicative guards).
The city is made for walking, and walk we did. Down the steps below the castle, straight into a 'typical' pub for lunch (deep fried cheese, I think I've found my new favourite food) and then onto the tourist maelstrom of the Charles Bridge. The place was absolutely teeming, which is apparently standard. There are market stalls all the way along (some with creative exchange rates for the non-vigilant tourists), hawking authentic tat of various descriptions...original photos (which somehow repeated themselves in a few stalls), locally made jewellery (I have my doubts) and more bohemian crystal than you could ever use.
I took a lot of photos of statues.
We then kept walking...and walking (are you getting the idea yet?) and I am thinking I need to throw in my gym membership as I am absolutely not fit for this kind of endurance! I've wasted my money! But we started to see amusing signs for the Museum of Communism, which spurred us along. The signs all directed us to the museum by saying it is 'above McDonalds', 'next to the casino' or 'around the corner from Benettons'... clearly slightly tongue in cheek. We eventually found it (incidentally, there are a lot of Maccas restuarants in Prague, so it wasn't entirely easy) and wandered through. Pretty interesting exhibition, lots of history and context provided. It's amazing to see the footage of places that you have walked past that day and see what happened there, and so recently. Particularly, the images of the 1989 Velvet Revolution were quite powerful...initially it looks like a bunch of stonewashed Bon Jovi fans getting restless, but then the police roll in with their batons and it all starts getting a bit scary.
There was also some great stuff from the sixties, of this absolutely monstrous monument that Stalin created, thirty metres high and completely dominating the landscape. It was completed not long after he was discredited, so was something of a massive white elephant, and let's just say it made for a pretty spectacular demolition. And, band name of the century...revolutionary rock culture was talked about as being particularly anti-communist, and therefore quite subversive and the leaders (and most vilified) group was 'Plastic People of Universe'. (I know, I may have not taken away all of the historical lessons I could have learned).
We left the museum absolutely parched and were forced to patronise one of the tourist traps, and paid the equivalent of $30 for 2 milkshakes...we spent the same amount that we had spent on lunch! Lesson learned. (but long live capitalism)
The rest of the day was something of a write off. Back at the apartment, we decided to have just a small nap to recharge, at about 6.30, and promptly passed out so completely that we slept through til 6am the next morning. Let's just call it jetlag and be done with it (although our aerobic fitness might leave something to be desired...)
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