Praha

We had a week in between our last farm in Ireland and when we were scheduled to be in Italy, so we decided to take the opportunity to see some of Europe.  We took the bus back to Dublin, where we got a plane to Prague, which is where I have always wanted to go.   We gave ourselves a whirlwind tour of the city; seeing all that we could in two days.  We started with the National Museum, which had many interesting things to look at (colorful rocks, artifacts, ancient skeletons, taxidermied animals forever wearing terrified and terrifying expressions), but many of the details and history of the artifacts were lost on me because all the descriptions were in Czech.  The most interesting room was devoted to ‘The Women’s War,’ in which warrior women battled against the men for many years.  Because I couldn’t understand the descriptions, I don’t know how much was actual history and how much was legend, but now that I’m remembering it, I’ve made a mental note to research it.  On the hour we went to see the astronomical clock chime in the Old Town Square.  A large crowd gathered to watch, and then cheered uproariously when a man emerged from the clock tower and blew his trumpet after the clock chimed.  We walked along an open market where they were selling everything from fresh fruit to marionettes.  Our second day in Prague we crossed over the Charles Bridge to ‘Lesser Town,’ where we got lost on many backstreets until we found the John Lennon wall.  When John Lennon died, a tribute to him was painted on the wall of this street.  Every day the authorities would paint over the graffiti, but by the next day it would always reappear.  This got to be a big battle, until the authorities finally relinquished the wall and allowed it to be used as an official tribute to John Lennon.   Every inch of the wall is covered with his lyrics, images of his face, peace symbols, and notes to him.  I thought it was really pretty incredible, but then again I’m a sucker for all that hippy stuff.  We then went to Prague Castle, which is on massive grounds and includes a cathedral and art exhibition.  We climbed up Petrin Hill, but because we came to it from the wrong side, we couldn’t find the official path so we climbed the very steep, pathless side of the hill.  It was well worth it for the view of Prague this gave us.  You could see everything, and we just sat in awe for a while.  I highly recommend this city to anyone.