During the months leading up to our trip I did a lot of research. My husband probably thinks it borders on obsessive, but I manage to find some pretty amazing experiences that aren't offered in the guidebooks. Exhibit A:
The Naked Tour Guide. This fairly young organization offers small-group tours led by guides that have received university-level history education. They know Prague, as well as the associated historical events, and weave the two into a captivating stroll through the streets of Prague, often taking advantage of public transportation in order to cover more ground.
On our last day in Prague, we took the Nazism and Communism tour. What's advertised as a 4-hour actually took us 5 hours, likely due to some slow walkers, lots of questions, and our tour guide feeling a bit under the weather (but sticking it out like a champ!). It's been two months since this tour, and Aaron still refers to it as the best day we spent in Prague. Our tour guide, Marcus, is actually the founder of Naked Tour Guide. We couldn't say enough good things about him—he not only showed us many sights we hadn't seen earlier in the week, but provided new context to the sites we had seen, and helped us find reasonably priced beer within Old Town—a real accomplishment.
The description on the website gives an excellent overview of the day, but the highlights for me definitely were:
- The walk through the Jewish ghetto (it seems the tour has been updated to tell this story in a different place, which now I'm curious about)
- The visit to the Cathedral Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius where we learned about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. I already knew much of this story but really enjoyed the additional context and seeing the bullet holes from the siege on the church.
- The monument to the Velvet Revolution (pictured below). I knew about the historical events, but I never would have found this small, impactful monument on my own.
- The Vitkov Hill monument - make sure you're in shape for this climb!
By the end of the tour, we'd learned about the Jewish history of Prague, how the rise of Nazism impacted that population and the Prague government, and how WWII eventually led to the transition into communism for over 40 years.
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| The monument to the Velvet Revolution |
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| View from the Vitkov Hill monument, looking towards the castle district |
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| View from the Vitkov Hill monument, looking towards our apartment and the nearby TV Tower |
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| Enjoying ourselves at the highest point in Prague |
As it turned out, the tour ended just a few blocks from our apartment. We had to hurry back, because we had dinner reservations and tickets to the opera! But we'll save that for another post. Special thanks to
Marcus at The Naked Tour Guide for making this such a fantastic day.
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