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Published: August 4th 2016
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7am we head down to the Charles Bridge to take some photos in the early morning light and without the tourist hordes (we are not tourists, we are travellers, it is different). It is already hot but the area is still quiet. A few more people appear on the bridge, including the bizarre sight of a Mainland Chinese couple with a photographer taking photos of them, both in their wedding clothes. It is common Mainland practice to have your wedding photo taken on a different day and in a different place to your wedding, but it’s impressive to find a couple travelling this far.
After breakfast, we get an Uber to Josefov, the old Jewish quarter in Prague. The ‘museum’ covers several synagogues, most now converted to museums, and the old Jewish cemetery. The most moving stop is the Pinkas Synagogue, which has written on the interior walls the names of the more than 77,000 Czech victims of the Nazis. Upstairs, and even more moving, is a selection of pictures drawn by children in the last days of the ghetto and after they were moved to the transit camp at Terezin, where Jews were moved to en route to the
concentration camps where almost all of them would eventually die.
After concluding the Jewish quarter circuit, we stop for a Vietnamese lunch at a restaurant found by James and Hannah using one of their many phone apps. It makes a change from “hearty Czech fare”. It is pretty hot, around 30C, and after lunch we go to the old town square, which features along with the Charles Bridge on all the iconic photo collections of Prague. We visit Our Lady of Tyn church (with the distinctive twin spires) and then the old town hall. The famous clock with the little men who come out on the hour seems not to be working. A newly married couple emerges from the adjacent registry office to loud applause from the tourist hordes. The bride throws her bouquet backwards to the crowd, where it is caught by a man in his sixties – surely not what custom demands? The crush of people is almost overwhelming, it reminds us of how many people descend on a European city in peak season. Hannah and James decide to strike off east to visit some Communist era relics, while we opt to make our way
back to the hotel. The hordes as we approach the Charles Bridge are extraordinary but David forms a one man battering ram and forces our way through. Photos on the bridge are now impossible. We regain the hotel on the other side of the bridge, shower and slump for a few hours. Down for the free wine and cheese, Hannah and James join us and after several unnecessary glasses of pinot gris we go off to a Thai restaurant for dinner. This is followed by ice creams eaten in a small park on the side of the hill, watching the world go by. A very relaxing and satisfying day all round.
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