Returning to Prague

Such a lovely walking city. Last time we were there we stayed in the old city, called Staré Město. This time we were in Nove Město--which, contrary to how it sounds, is not all that new. I returned as the first stop of a tour of Eastern Europe that was primarily focused on the Jewish experience there. Which means you are necessarily focused on the Holocaust. Not too uplifting. So in order to balance out the emotionally traumatic, there were days devoted to other aspects of the cities we visited. And we started in Prague. Such a lovely city. Our bus rolled into the hotel mid-day and we, in true organized tour fashion, had a walking tour of the Prague Castle and surrounding area.

We hadn't gone there when I was in Prague before, so it was nice to be someplace new, but best of all you get an incredible view of the city from high above. Prague is charming. The buildings are nicely preserved--people started living on both sides of the Vitava River in fortified settlements as early as the 9th century, and in the 14th century Charles IV inspired a medieval urban landscape that influenced all of Europe. It is a marvel. As early as the Middle Ages, Prague became one of the leading cultural centers of Christian Europe. The Prague University, founded in 1348, is one of the earliest in Europe. The milieu of the University in the last quarter of the 14th century and the first years of the 15th century contributed among other things to the formation of ideas of the Hussite Movement which represented in fact the first steps of the European Reformation--which is why parts of the city are UNESCO World Heritage Sites today.