Wenceslas Square, The Dancing House and Petrin

Day 6 in Prague

Today we continued our discovery of Prague by walking to areas of the city we had not been to.  This took us a little further from the tourist areas and put us more among residents of the city.  Our first stop was Wenceslas Square which is in Nove Mesto or New Town.  The square is named after St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia.  Most of us have heard of Wenceslas through the Christmas carol, “Good King Wenceslas”, which tells a story of a Czech king going on a journey and braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen – the day after Christmas.

The square is a commercial and administrative center of the city and the site of many historical events.  In recent history, it was the site of large peaceful demonstrations during the Velvet Revolution which resulted in the end of Communist control of the Czech Republic.  It is said that at the end of a short speech ending the Velvet Revolution in 1989, future President Vaclav Haval stood at the Square, took his keys from his pocket and jangled them to represent "taking the keys to our country back".  Everyone in the square joined him and jangled their keys - it could be heard up and down the river.   Vaclav Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992.  He then served as the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2002 after the split with Slovakia. 

Our next stop, also in Nove Mesto, was an odd building called “The Dancing House”.  The Dancing House was designed by Vlado Milumic along with Frank Gehry.  The building resembles two people dancing and used to be called the "Fred and Ginger".  It was designed in 1992, completed in 1996 and is considered by many as non-traditional amongst the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings. But we walked 5 miles just to see it!

 

We then crossed back over the Vltava River (by the way, this is the river the Charles Bridge crosses) to Mala Strana to visit Petrin, the favorite recreational park for Prague residents. We rode a funicular to the top to see wonderful views of the city. 

We walked back to our hotel and had a glass of wine and got ready for dinner.  Dinner was back across the Charles Bridge at a wonderful Czech restaurant located on the river called Mlynec.

         

Tomorrow we will be spending our day in Cesky Krumlov in southern Bohemia.