mishasb

History revisited


We don’t typically have huge itineraries going to Prague, its the city, friends and cabin. However, this time around, Mia decided to take charge of our Prague itinerary. She googled the top things to do in Prague and pulled out the things we haven’t done in the past. So, on top of the list were 2 museums – Museum of Communism and National Museum., to my slight surprise. National museum had historically been a dud – building is stunning and key landmark in Prague, but inside? The two times I visited as part of some school trip it was a bunch of dusty rocks and bad taxidermy animals – literally the most boring 2 hours of my teenage life. And communism, do I really need to relive this in a museum? But she insisted so why not?

  1. Museum of Communism – so this was really well done and I loved reliving it again – for 90 minutes – and learned quite a bit as well. It was apparently so good that Mia volunteered me to her 5th grade social class teacher as a speaker – which the teacher jumped on. When I objected that maybe she should be the one presenting, she was quick to point out that hers was second hand experience while mine was real. Not sure how I am going to keep 20 5th graders interested in people fleeing through barbwire and spying on each other but will have to think of something to impress.
  • Pioneer outfit
    Pioneer outfit which I wore A LOT
  • Typical Czech kitchen
  • Posters! The only room decoration for a kid – huge lines to buy one
  • Computer, postcards, fax machine
  • Toys, games…. I still have a few of these
  • No comment
  • Application to visit the evil west – typically denied
  • Monchichi – omg, I adored these. No clue what they actually are.

2. National Museum – so this was also pretty good. Apparently the museum industry has evolved in 30 years 🙂 Or I should be going to museums more often. The building itself is monumental and is standing over Wenceslas square, the 2nd most famous one in Prague – the one where November 1989 gatherings were, all the big speeches and as a Czech you’d always make your meeting point “by the horse”. They expanded the museum to the new building where Radio Free Europe and Parliament used to be so it is much more modern and also huge – whole day wouldn’t be enough. We opted for the Czech history of 20th century which honestly was a bit overlapping with our prior museum so I don’t even know which pictures are from where… but the digital/video components were great – so all and all – well done. And I didn’t even take pictures of the rocks which was our 2nd exhibit before we had enough of museums. Or our little guide had enough as she read nothing on the explanations and had hundreds of questions that would have been answered in those explanations – so B and I were exhausted saying “did you read it, read it, I don’t know let ME read it”. No more museums.

3. Zlute lazne or Yellow spa – no idea why it is called that as it certainly brings an image of hepatitis to my mind and that is not a good image for a beach/spa. My entire life in Prague I haven’t stepped in there but last year we ventured out as it was hot – and this year it was #3 on Mia’s “have to see again” list. This is basically a river bank of Vltava that is turned into an entertainment/relax area – so volleyball, water sports, beach, food. We paired with the ever so popular activity of Covid testing prior to our flight back as they also had that – imagine! The water is 42F so absolute freeze, you dip in and dip out – and that was it for our last day in Prague. Plus lovely dinner to close our month long adventure.

Besides our museum and hospital tours – we also did the quintessential Zoo which you can’t miss (top 5 in the world) and truly world class + it has baby elephants so no brainer for our little scientist. Of course, that doesn’t mention the daily poppy seed deserts for me, non alcoholic beer which is everywhere, the dumplings/cabbage combination which requires way over 10K steps daily – those we got under our belts quickly as we did the quintessential Prague castle/old town/bridge and other walks through the town….

But we also ventured out of Prague so that – next time.

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