Prague
Prague, the City of a Hundred Spires, The Bohemian gem of Eastern Europe, the centuries-old buildings, the quirky art, the tasty beer…The city that was barely damaged during the World Wars, and whose 17th century gothic and baroque architectures are still intact. Prage is a perfect city for a 2-3 days trip
Staré Mesto
Old town square
The Old Town Square dates from the 12th century and started life as the central marketplace for Prague. The most notable sights on the square are the Old Town Hall Tower & Astronomical Clock, Tyn Church. Because we went on easter time the Square was full of Stands, selling food and drinks, it was like a Christmas mark but in easter, it was a pitty because I would loved to see the square empty.
We went there a couples of times during our trip and it was always crowded, even at 23:30 in the evening.
Charles Bridge
Strolling across Charles Bridge is everybody’s favorite Prague activity.
There are so many tourists that you will spend at least 10 minutes to cross this 515 meters long bridge built in the 14th century. If you are not in hurry, you will definitely enjoy the view on the Prague Castle or the river Vltava. There are many street performers and the atmosphere (if it is not too crowded) is nice
Jewish Quarter
The Jewish Quarter in Prague, known as Josefov, is located between the Old Town Square and the Vltava River. Its torrid history dates from the 13th century, when Jewish people were ordered to vacate their disparate homes and settle in one area. Over the years the jews were banded to live anywhere else in Prague.
Most of the significant historical buildings were saved from destruction. They form the best preserved complex of historical Jewish monuments in the whole of Europe.
The Jewish Museum has six synagogues, including the Spanish Synagogue and Old-New Synagogue, the Jewish Ceremonial Hall, and the Old Jewish Cemetery, the most remarkable of its kind in Europe.
In one of the most grotesquely ironic acts of WWII, the Nazis took over the management of the Prague Jewish Museum – first established in 1906 to preserve artefacts from synagogues that were demolished during the slum clearances in Josefov around the turn of the 20th century – with the intention of creating a ‘museum of an extinct race’.
We visit this quarter one morning and for us the most interesting part was the the Spanish Synagoge Its name presumably refers to the style in which it was built, Moorish Revival style, which was inspired by the art of Arabic period of Spanish history.
The Pinkas Synagogue contains the entrance to the Old Jewish Cemetery, After WWII it was converted into a memorial, with wall after wall inscribed with the names, birth dates, and dates of disappearance of the 77,297 Czech victims of the Nazis
Interestingly, the Jewish Quarter is also the birthplace of the celebrated writer Franz Kafka, who is commemorated with a statue on Dusni Street. His grave is in the new Jewisch cementary locate in Žižkov (Prague 3)
Tip:
To avoid a queue don’t buy the ticket for the museum at the cemetery, we bought it at the ceremony hall and we didn’t have to wait at all.
Prague Castle & Hradcany
Prague Castle, founded around 880 AD, is the largest medieval castle in Europe and was once the seat of the Kings of Bohemia. The dominant building within the complex, and the most recognisable landmark in Prague, is St. Vitus Cathedral.
Located on the top of a hill (where the view from Prague was stoning) we decided not to get in because of the amount of people waiting just for the security control. Instead of that we decide to visit the Hradčany district wich is just about the corner to Prague Castle yet still hidden out of tourist routes with cute small houses. Despite of what mostof the people think this neighbourhood is where the president of the CR lives.
On the back to the old town we passed different churches, one them was Loreta which is a pilgrimage destination in Hradčany.
Modern Art
Prague is a city with a lot of statues. Many of them are created by the famous Czech sculptor called David Cerny, which art is controversial, who gained notoriety in 1991 by painting a Soviet tank pink that served as a war memorial in central Prague.
Piss sculpture at the the Franz Kafka museum.Visitor can interrupt them by sending SMS message from mobile phone to a number, displayed next to the sculptures. The living statue then “writes” the text of the message, before carrying on as before.” Chaymation
The Head of Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis) Located in a courtyard in front of the Quadrio shopping center near Národní třída, this monumental installation by David Černý consists of 42 moving layers that rotate 360 degrees and occasionally align to look like Franz Kafka’s head. The design is based on Černý’s Metamorphosis Fountain in a business park in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the mirrored sculpture also spits out water into a reflecting pool.
Saint Wenceslas on his horse in the main passage of Lucerna Palacet is supposed to be an ironic twist on the St. Wenceslas statute in the square outside and the creation could be interpreted as a symbol that the modern world can no longer depend on legends as part of its national identity or, just the opposite, that Czechs no longer revere their historical past.
Hanging Man Portrays a 220-centimeter Sigmund Freud hanging by one hand onto a roof. The sculpture now hung on Prague’s Husova Street but its been installed in different countries. While on exhibition at the Seoul National University Museum of Art in South Korea, it was mistaken for a suicide again, prompting emergency personnel to hurry to the rescue.
Crawling Babies
One of the most famous pieces of David Cerny is his giant space-age babies that crawl up the Zizkov TV tower a hundred meters or so above Prague. You can see it from all the city and is horrible in my opinion.To see the baby up close, there are three bronze babies crawling in a corner next to Museum Kampa.
Prague Dancing House is the nickname given to the Nationale-Nederlanden building, a highly original building resembling and also inspired by two dancers – the immortally famous duo of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was designed by the Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić in cooperation with Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot.
Alternative Tour
If you want to get away from the throngs of tourists in the usual places in Prague and find out what is happening in the current creative artistic community this is a really good option. We were introduced to the avant-garde artistic community of Prague. Our tour guide Sany is a graffiti artist and could speak from personal knowledge about some of the artists whose work she showed us.
The tour starts in the city center at the Podwer tour with a short brief of the recent history of Prag explaining how the people manages to get forbidden things during the comunist time. After that , we move quickly to other neiborthoods. Discovering, clubs, graffiti murals social center and even a hackers meeting point spot which a coffe shop where you can only pay with bitcoins.
Tips
To eat
On our first night we went to the city center crossing the jirasku bridge, it was quite late and we were starving. The deko of the restaurant was niche with a lot of service and the service was quickly.
- Sicily Café (http://cafe.sicily.cz/index.php/cz/)
Nice place close to the Podwer tower. Got there spontaneously by chance, the food was tasty. Value for money and great to support local smaller scale producers. Nice recycling details in furniture.
http://cafe.sicily.cz/index.php/cz/
To drink
- Duende Café Bar (Karoliny svetle 277/30)
Cozy bar with friendly atmosphere in alternative decor. I was really surprise to find such a bar so close to the main tourist drag in Prag 1.
https://www.facebook.com/BarDuendePrague/
- Prague Beer Museum (Smetanovo Nabrezi 22)
A huge selection of czech beers, staff will help you to choose beer you will like. The prices are also reasonable.
http://www.praguebeermuseum.cz/en/
- Bitcoin Coffee
Located in the Paralelni Polis bulding (a hackerspace hackerspace of the Institute of Crypto anarchy ), we stopped by this place on the alternative Prague tour. Our guide explain us some of the actions that they have done like the intervention of a live broadcast of Czech Television to the virtual interaction with politician’s mobile phones
The cafe looked like a fun place. Uses all recycled, environment friendly material.
The most interesting part about this place is that it ONLY accepts bitcoins. It's the first of its kind in the world. There is a small Bitcoin atm machine that lets u create an account and draw bitcoins.