Di and Cam

Before planning this trip everyone we talked to raved about this city in the ex-communist state of the Czech Republic (the former Czechoslovakia). And now after having being there we would have to agree that this is a fantastic place to visit.

We arrived in Prague late Friday night and discovered that we had booked the best hostel we'd ever seen - 'Sir Tobys'. Only 38 pounds per night for both of us, and with a private room (with ensuite incl. a huge concrete shower) and a downstairs bar we knew we'd hit the jackpot:

After a good sleep (and an even better breakfast - costing just over 2 pounds) we caught the tram into the centre of the city ('Old Town') and promptly found a city bike tour to keep us occupied for the morning. As we'd found in Amsterdam, the bike tour was a great way to see the city, take in some sights and get a bit of an idea of the travel times between the different areas of the city:

We came across an interesting piece of 'artwork' whilst on the bike tour. There is a telephone number on a plaque, you send a text message to the number, and the hips of each of the statues move to spell out your message... One of the girls on our bike tour texted "Hi Mum!":

We spent the afternoon wandering around the Old Town and Jewish Quarter*, and booked our tickets for Don Giovanni (both Cam and my first opera and it seemed like as good a place as any as the theatre staged the very first production of Mozart's famous opera):

After the opera we took a walk through the city to Charles Bridge for an awesome view of the castle and what proved to be some interesting photos of the bridge towers:

At about 2am, after several cocktails at a rowdy jazz bar, we decided to call it a night and make sure that we were able to make the most of the next day (a tip: weekend breaks are exhausting!)

We started off early (after another good breakfast) and made our way to Prague Castle. The views of the city from the castle are amazing, but the castle itself was more a collection of buildings (and yes, there were queues to get inside the cathedral!) so we wandered through before deciding to stop for lunch.

Before taking the funicular up Petrin Hill we came across this memorial to the victims of communism. An ingenious design beginning with a single foot on the top step to an almost completely formed man on the bottom step. There is a path that crosses the bottom of the memorial and the idea is that the man is gradually gaining his identity after the destruction experienced under the Communist regime and people walking across the path complete the last 'step':

Petrin Hill offered yet more views of the city:

For the last stop we decided to go to the Museum of Communism where we read (quite a lot) about the history of Prague under the Communist regime, the Nazi occupation and the overthrow of the Communists ('Velvet Revolution' - so named, as it was one of the least violent revolts in history):

A beer and then a short tram ride back to the hostel to pick up our bags and our whirlwind tour of Prague was complete:

*A wee history lesson for those who have the time:
Towards the end of the Nazi occupation of Prague (around 1945), and following the forced removal of the jewish population, Hitler decided to preserve the area as an "exotic museum of an extinct race". The architecture of the buildings, the Old-New synagogue and the 'vertical' cemetry combined to create an eerie atmosphere.