Prague

Thursday morning Maggie and I said goodbye to the old folks and boarded the train from Vienna to Prague. The trip lasted about five hours, and we had to change in Breclav, Czech. Despite the language difficulty, we made it on time. Maggie and I both did our best to understand and assimilate our knowledge of various languages, but Czech and Hungarian take a bit more effort than most.

Prague is also a very old capital city, with many fine buildings, many dating back to the fourteenth century. Spires are everywhere. We rode another funicular up the hill on the west side of the Vltava (Moldau in German), and the next day the bus to Prague Castle, the biggest castle complex in the world.

Altogether I must say that I find the architecture in Prague more exotic, more Gothic, more in"spire"ing than in Vienna.

The Czech people take their liberation from socialism very seriously. This monument is accompanied by the text, "The memorial to the victims of communism is dedicated to all victims. Not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism." As you probably know, the Czechs tried to free themselves from Soviet domination in 1968, the so-called "Prague Spring", an undertaking that did not turn out well for them at that time. Another attempt in 1989 was successful and the Czechs along with most of the rest of the countries behind the "Iron Curtain" are now wallowing in capitalism.