We spent the 4th of July weekend in Prague, Czech Republic. Prague offers us many things: close via car at only 3.5 hours, very English friendly, wonderful local beer, and many,, many great tourist sites dating back 1200 years. Some of the small downsides: no Euro accepted, Germany was playing in the world cup during the weekend.
Daphne was really looking forward to this trip and arranged most of the weekend. The kids were not impressed until they learned the hotel had a pool. Youth.
Daph hired a personal tour guide for the first day who walked us around the city and showed us most of the sites and provided historical context. She helped us with architecture, history, religious topics, recent history... everything.
When visiting the largest castle in the world (by some measures) we learned about the Catholic bishops being thrown out the window to begin the bloody 30 year wars in Europe. We also learned about Prague being the capital of the Holy Roman Empire when some pretty bad things were done by the Catholics. We went to the Jewish Ghetto to see where the 110,000 Jews did not survive 1945 and the Nazis.
The kids were having some trouble with all this. The guide then mentioned that only 5% of the population goes to church regularly and the population is the largest atheist population in Europe. Julia said she understood.
As usual - our gang had their own interpretation. Julia was happy that they had "American Malls" with 200 stores in one huge building. Dave liked learning that the king would come to church in his pajamas. Brian liked the pool. 4 swims in a 2 night stay.
We even did the changing of the guard at the castle and took our picture with the guard. Somehow, powder blue is not threatening.Great trip.
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