Prague

The drive from Trnava to Prague took six hours, but the drive was quite scenic. Everything is green here, from the potato farms to the forests. Every few kilometers we saw a village of houses with red roofs nestled among green hills. Usually there's a church steeple in the village. Each one of these places looks like a painting. There was also the sight of drag concrete high rise apartments in Bratislava left over from the communist era. They look more like tall cinderblocks.

When we got to Prague, we got lost looking from the penzion, a kind of small hotel. The streets wind around like spaghetti, so it's easy to get lost. Once we found it, we stayed overnight and went downtown. While we were waiting for a tour of the city to start, we visited the Museum of Communism. It was interesting to see the samples of propaganda vilifying the west with cartoons of an evil Uncle Sam infecting crops in Czechoslovakia with parasites. A replica of a communist store offered a few shelves of the same boring canned goods. There was an interrogation room with information about how the communists turned each other in as traitors to gain favor with the Russian government. Another room showed a video of the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism in 1989. Plain clothes cops were beating up protestors. I found it amusing that, just outside the museum of communism, there is a McDonald's.

The tour of the city was great. Prague is fantastic. It's full of beautiful buildings from the eighteenth century, but the buildings aren't as official and imperial as the ones in Vienna. They're friendly and colorful. We saw the Charles bridge and the National Theatre building, which burned down just after it was built, then rebuilt. Prague Castle was an amazing sight. The oldest parts of the castle date back to the ninth century A.D., but successive rulers continued to add to it until the eighteenth century, so the place is a mix of building styles. The Cathedral of St. Vitus is a Gothic cathedral bigger than some aircraft hangers. The outside has buttresses, gargoyles, and statues of saints, like most cathedrals of the time. The inside seems to have enough space for a blimp to fly around in it. The church of St. Charles is next to door. It's a much older and simpler church, except for one entrance with a Baroque style that was added later.

Dad and I walked along the Charles bridge after the tour and had lunch in the square beyond. There's a church there with mechanical saints who look out through a door when the bell rings the hour. The square was crowded with tourists. I found out later that this area is a tourist trap with overpriced food, but it was still fun.

Click here to see pictures of Slovakia.