Our first day in Prague was a bit of a relaxing morning and early afternoon, followed by a long walk, exploring the old town. We enjoyed seeing the astronomical clock tower, the Charles bridge and the Palace. Sophie enjoyed a chimney cake which was very rich, filled with strawberries, chocolate, and ice cream luckily, she was generous enough to share. On our second day, we went to the Ossuary about an hour outside of Prague. They are the old church was filled with pyramids of bones, a massive bone chandelier and a huge wall shield. Alastair enjoyed giving in anatomy lesson to the kids about the skeleton. The bones came from 40,000 to 70,000 victims of the Black Death (the Plague). TheOssuary was not as impressive as Alastair I remember from our separate previous visits. We now recognize we were probably combining ossuaries in our memory thinking of the one in Rome or Paris. On our way to the Ossuary, we had some trouble with the trams as the maps were all in Czech. We missed our first train. so the trip was longer than intended. That night we went to the Raduta Jazz club and saw an old-time jazz band. It had an amazing piano player, double drummer, and vocalist, they played Frank Sinatra and other famous jazz. We felt frustrated that they had sold more tickets than they had seats. The place was packed, very warm, and small, with extra chairs moved into the Isles once the show started.
We were grateful we chose to visit the Museum of Communism. It was very educational for all of us and quite different. It was sad to learn the terrible history of communism in this part of the world. Life was very difficult under a communist government. We learned a lot about the push to excel in sports and the intense drive to harvest all natural resources at the personal expense of the workers. The 16-hour workdays, six days a week, starting as young as age 6, are hard to imagine. A huge number of people died trying to escape the regime. Things “lightened a bit: in the Czech Republic in the 1960s as “the hippies” gained more political clout. Unfortunately the army overtook the city tighten things dramatically. We learned in detail about the resistance movement, the lives lost, the attempts at escape and the wonderful leader who came to power after Communism fell in 1989. Valcav Haval, a activist and play write, he continues to be a National Hero, “champion of democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law”.
That afternoon indulged Aiden’s lover of Lego by going to the brick museum, owned by the world Guinness record book holder for the highest number of Lego sets. Incredibly he has five museums in Czech republic to display different parts of his collection. Aiden enjoyed seeing the original Simpsons lego, as well as all the old Star Wars and Harry Potter. That evening Alastair and Aiden went to a local arcade, they enjoyed playing skate ball and some shooter games. Instead Sophie and I went to the Prague Opera House and see the opera Elixir d’Amore. Although was in Italian, it had great subtitles on screens below us. The story was funny, and the music was amazing!
