We left Katherine in the apartment waiting for her friend Jess while we went to the restaurant for breakfast. We used 2 trams and it made it a short slightly downhill walk at the end. The menu we were offered was all English style (it is close to the castle so tourist orientated) and we also got the extra keys. The manager who had let us in yesterday was there and came over to say hi.

We looked at the castle security queues and decided to go there tomorrow. The queues won’t be shorter we suspect, but we will be better prepared. We did stop for photos of the town which are always amazing from there.

Then we walked in a different way down to the Charles Bridge. It took us past a church that was the venue for concerts and had amazing metal faced doors, and a sidestep had us at the Lennon wall.  John had just heard me refer to it and was thinking Lenin not John Lennon until I said a bit more about it

The Renaissance wall, a border of the Grand priority garden, is located opposite the French embassy. In 1988 the wall was a source of irritation for the then communist regime of Gustav Husak. Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and in a report of the time this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The movement these students followed was described ironically as Lennonism and Czech authorities described these people variously as alcoholics, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western capitalism. The wall continuously undergoes change and the original portrait of John Lennon is long lost under layers of new paints. Even when the wall was re-painted by some authorities, on the second day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of youth ideals such as love and peace.

It seemed ironic that the area also seemed to be the base for a tour company using vintage/expensive cars. We saw them at various places and also saw a group of people in vintage clothes using them in another area.

All walks in Prague seem to get you to the Charles Bridge, and this was no exception. The weather was a bit better than last evening so the bridge was busier, although not actually crowded. The hardest part to get past was an area with a band playing and selling CDs. There were lots of artists on the bridge and we would have had a choice of the usual caricatures silhouettes or quick portraits if we had wanted them, which we didn’t.  We went under it to add to our cache total.

After we crossed we walked slowly towards the area with the Astronomical Clock. Sadly, it is out of action at present, but the area was still busy. There were dancing polar bears, people with various birds you could hold and living statues. The hardest part is to take photos and not include them, as otherwise you do need to pay. We had seen one living statue get really cross after someone posed with him then just walked off. We took a picture at the Meridian line for a cache and were amused to see that after we did, a lot of other people also started taking photos. Prague, use to use its own local time. To determine high noon, the city used a shadow cast by a Marian column that fell directly upon the meridian of 14°25’17″ East each day. This occurred from 1652 to 1918, from when the meridian was set into the stones to when the Marian column was torn down by a mob in 1918 during a demonstration against the Habsburg Monarchy.

We took a few photos of the imposing powder tower as we approached. This monumental entrance by which the coronation processions of Czech kings entered the Old Town is one of the most significant monuments of Late Gothic Prague. Completed in 1475, the Powder Tower, which formerly served as a gunpowder store, is still the starting point for the Coronation or Royal Route to Prague Castle. We might have gone up the Tower for the views on a nicer day.

We got to the nearby Museum of Communism close to midday, although it was our destination from the start, because we were happy to get side-tracked. I had read the reviews which were mixed mainly because some people had not liked the amount of reading involved. It was mainly a series of panels about the progression of life under the communists until the fall of the Berlin Wall lead to democracy being reinstated. However, there were also some visuals and recordings from people who had lived through the times. We happily spent about couple of hours there.

The first thing you see is a statue of Karl Marx Other notable images were the stamps based on Hitler’s photo at Prague castle taken in 1938 and photos of the repatriation of Germans who had lived in the republic in 1945 with a swastika on their backs. These were setting the scène for the communist popularity in the early years.

There were photos of an enormous statue that used to be here showing Stalin with a group of citizens behind him. It was 22m long, 16m tall and took 3 years to build in pinkish granite, and cost a fortune to build. Even at the time, the locals were not fond of it, and jokingly referred to it as the line for meat. It was demolished 7 years later when Khrushchev took over in the Soviet Union. When it was demolished no one was allowed to take photos but there were massive explosions in Prague for a week.

The photos of the apartment blocks also hit home. Our guide in Cesky Krumlov talked of the ugly blocks. The ones in Prague were huge. Also huge were the Spartakiade (mass gymnastic) events. They took place at the Strahov Stadium, the largest stadium ever built and were held every 5 years from 1955 except in 1970 in the wake of the Prague Spring. Preparations for the Spartakiad scheduled for 1990 were interrupted by the Velvet Revolution but the event still took place, although on a much smaller scale than the previous ones. They were attended by large numbers of people; for example, at the 1960 Spartakiad about 750,000 gymnasts from the whole country took part and over 2,000,000 spectators witnessed the event. Men and women of all ages practiced their exercising routines for the event. Appearance was originally mandatory for students and servicemen of the armed forces and police. Huge amounts of money were poured into them, including money to put food into stores so they looked full to outsiders.

With all private businesses, including one person operations, nationalised, a thriving grey economy developed. Construction workers, butchers, grocers etc became the new elite. There was a popular saying – ‘He who doesn’t steal robs from his family.’

There was huge fear of nuclear conflict. Civil defence material also talked of the threat of fatal diseases being introduce, and water contamination. 5500 fallout shelters were built and children trained using gas masks. The fall out shelter built under Wenceslas Square had three floors – a water tank on one, a hospital on the second and a luxurious 250 bed capacity third floor for the top Warsaw Pact people.

Finally, the Prague Spring and then the Velvet Revolution were detailed The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia, It began on 5 January 1968, when Alexander Dubček was elected leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August 1968 when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms. Half a million Warsaw Pact troops and tanks were sent to occupy the country. A spirited non-violent resistance was mounted throughout the country, involving painting over and turning street signs (on one occasion an entire invasion force from Poland was routed back out of the country after a day's wandering),defiance of various curfews, etc. While the Soviet military had predicted that it would take four days to subdue the country, the resistance held out for eight months and was only circumvented by diplomatic stratagems (see below). There were sporadic acts of violence and several suicides by self-immolation (such as that of Jan Palach which was detailed), but there was no military resistance.

Czechoslovakia remained Soviet-controlled until 1989, when the Velvet Revolution ended Soviet control. This was a peaceful change of leadership that happened over 10 days. The role of students was emphasized as it was students from the University of Prague that lead the protests.

We emerged from the museum to a grey day and found a spot for lunch. We feel we paid for all the heating in the restaurant with the cost of the meal, but did appreciate our heater, if not the price. It goes with being in the Main Square.

I then joined Katherine and Jess on a free walking tour, while John made his way back to the apartment. He had one issue as he misplaced his tram ticket so had a bit of a walk first.

Our guide was English but had lived in Prague for a few years and taught English as his day job. He gave us an overview of Czech history as well as pointing out key places in Prague and handing on tips for visitors. He said there had been people living in the area since 500BC

He told us the story of Libuse, who was Queen of the Czech people in the 8th century, with a gift of foresight. Legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied: "I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars." On the site she ordered that a castle be built and a town created called Prague. Although she proved herself as a wise chieftain, the men of the tribe demanded that she marry, but she had fallen in love with a ploughman. She therefore related a vision in which she saw a farmer with one broken sandal, ploughing a field, or in other versions of the legend, eating from an iron table. She instructed her councilmen to seek out this man by letting a horse loose at a junction; they followed it to the village of Stadice and found Přemysl exactly as she had said (either ploughing a field, or using an iron plough as a makeshift table). They married and he became ruler.

In the main square, the old town hall with some war damage was pointed out with mention made of the astronomical clock, the oldest still in operation (usually) and dating from 1410. We were shown the main square features and the range of architectural styles including the Gothic Church of Our Lady before Týn which has been the main church of this part of the city since the 14th century, and the Baroque St. Nicholas Church.

The square's centre has a statue of religious reformer Jan Hus, who was burned for his beliefs at the stake in Constance. Our guide called him the first of the ‘Protestants’ (pre Martin Luther) as his objection was to the wealth of the Catholic Church. The statue was erected on July 6, 1915 to mark the 500th anniversary of his death.

In front of the Old Town Hall at a place we could not access is also a memorial to martyrs. 24 were aristocratic enough to be beheaded and the other 3 were merely hung. They were also reformists killed by the Habsburgs. Twenty-seven crosses mark the pavement in their honour, installed during the repairs of Old Town Hall after WW2, while a nearby plaque lists the names of all 27 victims.

We moved to a spot where there was a good view of the Castle and we were told about the Royal Route. The Czech kings on their way to being crowned would start at the Royal Court, which no longer exists, but was the area where the Museum of Communism is. The procession would go to the old main square then over the Charles Bridge and up to the Castle and finish at St Vitus Cathedral.

Charles IV was mentioned a lot. He was born Wenceslaus but had his name changed by the French King when he was studying there, we were told, although I did later hear it was his choice in honour of his uncle who has the French King. He rebuilt Prague on the model of Paris, establishing the New Town, the first University in Central Europe (still named after him) and Prague became the centre of the Holy Roman Empire. It was known as the Golden Age of Bohemia.

We were introduced to a new word, defenestration, the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The first occurrence in Prague was in 1419 when the Hussite reformers threw members of the council out the Town Hall window and triggered a war between the Hussite, who were most of the Czech population, and the Holy Roman empire. The next time was when three were thrown and either were saved by angels or because they fell in horse poo that softened their fall. It triggered another war and some of the reformists who lost were the ones in the 27 cross memorial.

The Jewish area was on the tour route, but just to hear about it and see sights from outside with the recommendation of visiting ourselves. The cemetery was pointed out as holding over 200 000 bodies in a small plot of land that has been built up over time with bodies on about 12 layers as well as close together. It is next to the Pink Synagogue. We were told that the area was not destroyed by the Nazis under Hitler’s orders. He had intended it as a museum to an extinct race.  This was something we all heard with disbelief and discussed later when we were all back at the apartment with John.

I left Katherine and Jess in the city and went back by tram after finding a cache. We were full after lunch so bought deli food from Kaufmanns and had that for tea. We chatted with Katherine and Jess about our days, made vague plans for the next and went to bed. Blogging was now getting behind.