Day Six of Prague Visit

It's Friday and our sixth day in Prague, with two more to go.  We leave here on Sunday to return to Straubing, Germany to retrieve our car, then it's off to Berlin and the last major stop on our tour.  We remain in Prague for Cam to spend time with Ondrej, which he (and we) has (have) been doing although Ondrej is in school during the day.

Yesterday we met up with him and his friend Martin in the afternoon, after Cam and I spent a couple of hours wandering by Metro and on foot searching for the church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the site where seven Czech soldiers were trapped by 350 German troops after they -- the Czechs - assassinated the German SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich who was, at the time, Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia, which was then the identity of the territory which included what is now known as the Czech Republic.

We found the place after Ondrej and Martin arrived and visited the church with them, including the crypt where the assassination team held off the the troops for a time before killing themselves to avoid being taken prisoner.  What followed has come to be known as the Heydrich Terror.  The Nazis leveled two nearby towns and killed all of their inhabitants as punishment and to show the residents of the territory that opposition would not be tolerated.

The visit there continued our pursuit, prompted by Cam's curiosity, of sites connected to the history of World War 2, which now include Normandy and Omaha Beach, Bastogne, Dachau and Prague.  We will complete that aspect of our  journey with our visit to Berlin in a few days.

More about Prague.  It is a city of contrasts.  Big, but small enough to walk in.  Old but with a lot that is new and modern.  Clean but in places grimy with the dirt of ages upon many of the monuments and buildings.  For tourists but really a city with a vitality of Czech people going about their daily lives.

Having now figured out the transportation system under the advice of Ondrej, and having acquired the three-day passes that allow us to use the Metro (subway) and the efficient tram system that weave a web throughout the town, we can see what Ondrej points out, that it isn't really necessary to have a car here to get around here, just as is the case in New York City.

I've done more walking here than I have in a very long time, s much so that I've twice peeled a substantial amount of skin from the soles of my feet.  Fortunately that hasn't resulted in blisters that would curtail my ability to continue to walk.  Keeping up with the three, and occasionally four, young men with whom I've been traveling has at times slowed them down.  It's fortunate that they are considerate of an old(er) Papa.

As we walked yesterday through one of the many small parks that dot the city we came upon a group of people gathered in a circle around a drummer who might have been a North American or South American native, and who was leading the group through a dance that alternately moved in a dance around him and toward and away from him.  I'm not sure if it was an organized event or merely an impromptu one, but it was interesting to watch for a while.

We arrived back to Ondrej's and Olgal's apartment, with me tired and ready for a nap.  Later Cameron and Ondrej went out again, to meet friends at a nearby hookah bar and perhaps later at a pub.  Interesting though it may have been for me to have gone along, I instead remained at home, catching up on the news of the day from the U.S. and from Key West, speaking with Janet for nearly three-quarters of an hour via Skype, and listening to jazz on Mezzo, about which I wrote earlier.

All in all it was another enjoyable day in Prague, even including the really awful bacon cheeseburger I had at a McDonalds near a school in the district where the church of Sts. Cyrill and Methodius was.

One serious miscue was that we left the apartment without either of us remembering to bring our cameras.  We missed a lot of good photo ops.  The camera of the mind will have to suffice.