Prague

Unlike the rain I experienced in Vienna, the weather I had in Prague was beautiful.  I highly recommend visiting Prague if you get the chance, it is a wonderful city with a medieval feel due the lack of bombing during World War II (other than a single American raid during 1945).  The biggest highlight of the city is Prague Castle which dominates the landscape as it sits on a hill overlooking the Danube River.

 Inside the castle complex is St. Vitus Cathedral where I was lucky enough to witness the inside as the sun set revealing a beautiful display of light through the stained glass.

Nearby is the Strahov Monastery which, like many other of its kind, brews great beer.  The landscape photo of Prague shown below was taken from the Monastery.

Although the city did not receive the extensive bombing during World War II like many of the other German-occupied capitals it was not spared the fighting during 1945 as the German Wehrmacht collapsed under the force of the Red Army.  In the culmination of the "Prague Offensive", the city was the location of fighting from May 6th to May 11th 1945.  This occurred 9 days after the fall of Berlin and almost 3 days after VE day, marking it as the last major German resistance during the Second World War.  In the course of the fighting, the Pinkas Synagogue was almost entirely destroyed.  After the war, the synagogue was rebuilt as a Holocaust memorial and the inside is covered in the names of the almost 80,000 Czech and Slovak Jews who died during the genocide.  Nearly every available wall space is covered in the names of those that died.  It is very moving to see it and then realize how small of a fraction that is of the total number of people that were killed during the Nazi reign.

After that sobering experience, I found a poster on the street which I found very amusing so I had to include it in my post.