2025 Central Europe Pre Tour Day 3 – Adventures of the Empty Nesters

Individual Days - Czechia

Exploring Prague

September 6, 2025

Local guide - Katarína Krušpánová

We followed Rick Steves’ recommendation and hired a licensed local guide. This was a first for us. We found Katarína through Rick’s Central Europe guidebook.

An added bonus of using one of Rick’s recommended guides is they are aware of the areas covered by our tour group. This allowed us to see other areas of the city, tailored to our interests.

Katarína was an engaging and energetic guide. She was a college student in Prague during the Velvet Revolution. We enjoyed listening to her experiences and learning about the history of the city.

Waldstein Gardens & Palace

We walked from our hotel to the nearby tram station. Using the Czech public transportation was easy – validate your ticket and board. They operate on the honor system. You only show your ticket if asked.

We exited the tram at the Malostranská stop to catch a connecting tram headed to the Castle Quarter, but Katarína took us on a little detour. We walked down a short street and turned the corner to find ourselves in the Waldstein Gardens.

The Waldstein Palace & Gardens were built in the early 1600’s. The Palace has served as the seat of the Czech Senate since World War II. We enjoyed a peaceful walk through the Baroque gardens which contained fountains, pools, geometric flower beds, pathways, and peacocks.

The most secluded section of the garden is called “The Grotto” and contains the man-made Dripstone Wall. The dripped mortar is meant to resemble stalactites. If you look carefully, you can see animals and faces in the wall.

Walking Path

After another tram ride, we arrived at the Castle Quarter. Outside the medieval wall and main gate of the Strahov Monastery, there was a statue of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler – two astronomers whose work led to the discovery of the laws of planetary motion. Prague is also known for other famous scientists including Eistein and Doppler.

We spent the rest of our time with Katarína walking around the Castle Quarter, Lesser Town, and Kampa Island.

Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

The basilica is located in the middle of the Strahov Monastery. This small church has a long history which led to a blend of different architectural styles. It was originally built as a Romanesque basilica in the 12th century. In the mid-13th century, the church was rebuilt in the Gothic style. Renaissance elements were added in the 1600s. In 1742, the basilica was damaged during the French bombardment which led to the late-Baroque modifications and additions we see today.

Strahov Garden

The views of Prague from the gardens were fantastic. From the Castle Quarter, we could see the Lesser Town, the Vltava River, St. Charles Bridge, and Old Town.

Černín Palace & Loretto

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Hradčany

info, may need to divide

Dragons on art nouveau lamp posts

Trabants

Tell the story of the families fleeing to West Germany through the German Embassy and the cars they left behind.

The trabant car sculpture in Prague is titled Quo Vadis by Czech artist David Černý. It depicts a Trabant car with four human legs and is located in the garden of the German Embassy in the Malá Strana district. The sculpture is a tribute to the many East Germans who arrived in Prague in 1989, seeking asylum in the embassy, leaving their Trabant cars behind as they fled to the West.

St. Nicholas Church

Rewrite this:

On June 21, 1621, 27 leaders of the Bohemian Revolt were executed in Prague’s Old Town Square, not 28. This event, known as the Old Town Square execution, was an act of retribution by the Austrian House of Habsburg after crushing the Protestant uprising at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.
The discrepancy of one person is connected to Martin Fruwein of Podolí, a Bohemian nobleman involved in the revolt. Before he could be executed, he committed suicide by jumping from a tower at Prague Castle. However, his corpse was still beheaded in the square. In June 2011, the Czech art group Ztohoven added a 28th cross to the memorial on the square to honor Fruwein’s memory.

Heads added to bollards facing St. Nicholas as a reminder to the Catholics of the protestants who died.

More Lesser Town

embassies…

Lennon Wall

Now just graffiti – has lost all meaning. Now just a tourist/Instagram spot. Locals are trying to reclaim part of the wall and restore using photos from the time.

Katerina said students would gather there and sing Beatles songs. One favorite was Yellow Submarine, but instead they sang… “We all live in the reddish submarine, a stinking submarine, a sinking submarine.” This is why there is a yellow submarine on display at the area pub.

Katerina was arrested twice for protesting during the time leading to the Velvet Revolution. She had some fascinating stories.

Kampa Island and More Art

Before lunch, we finished our time with Katerina talking about a few more art installations by the Vltava River.

The “Čertovka sprite” is a sculpture of a vodník, a water sprite from Czech folklore, located in Prague, Czech Republic, beside the Velkopřevorský Mill on the Čertovka Canal. Created by artist Josef Nalepa around 2010, the sculpture is a cultural landmark that reflects local myths woven into the city’s history. Kabourek – name of sprite. The sculpture sits on the Čertovka Canal, also known as the “Devil’s Stream,” near Kampa Island and the Charles Bridge.

Vltava River Views

The Penguins at Kampa Park by the Cracking Group are made of recycled bottles and warn about the dangers from plastic consumption.

The Babies by David Černý represents three babies crawling around. Their faces are mutated – they have no senses. No eyes, no ears, no smell, no ability to talk/express themselves. Many view this as a representation of being under the oppressive communist state.

Rewrite this section about the August 1968/1969 sculpture by Jiří Sozanský.

In his work, Jiří Sozanský (*1946) has long thematised traumatic moments of Czech history from the times of Nazi and Communist totalitarianism. In his sculpture August 1968/1969, he focuses on the breaking point brought upon the society by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 and the onset of the so-called ‘normalisation’ in the following year.

The cultural and political thaw of 1968 was understood by many as a breath of freedom after twenty years of rigid totalitarianism. This revival process was destroyed by the invasion of the occupation forces of the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany on the night of 20 August. In the sculpture, the year 1968 is represented by an erected obelisk, into which a giant wedge is diagonally embedded, like a knife wound or a lightning strike.

The year 1969 is depicted as an obelisk or a crossbar broken in half. While the August invasion was an intervention from the outside, the tragedy of 1969 consisted in the acceptance of the occupation by the political representation of the state and a large part of its citizens and in the repressive crackdown on those who wanted to express their civil dissent. The August 1969 crackdown was not carried out by the occupation troops but by the domestic security, paramilitary and military forces.

The Beer Spot Prague

Relax and enjoy light lunch and Czechia beer.

Mark – Šnajdr Černá svině – Czech Dark Lager

Jeannie – Chroust Raspberry sour beer

More Views

You may think that marionettes are for children performances or tourist souvenirs, but they played an important part in history.

Following the defeat of Bohemian Protestants by the Catholic Habsburgs at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, live performances in Prague could only be in German. The Habsburgs, who viewed Protestants as a threat to their faith, made German the official language of the new regime. This period lasted for nearly two centuries, until the mid-19th century.

But there was a loophole – marionettes were not considered live performances so they were performed in other languages.