czech republic: prague

this post is mostly going to be mostly photos, since i was in and out of prague for two weeks this summer...i was thrilled to spend some time with mom, and to get to know her city a bit better...lots of time walking, exploring, relaxing, people watching, etc...
i ate one of my favourite type of yogurts every day, sometimes i had two...they're awesome, and i can't get them in ukraine, i figured i might as well take advantage while i can:)
mom showed me a couple sculptures by the artist david czerny...they're modern, and not well liked by many czechs, but they are unique...one of them was a guy riding an upside down horse! it's suspended inside a small mall, of all places...somehow there is an agreement that it will stay there for quite a while, whether people want it there or not...hee hee...

another day she showed me another of his sculptures, this one of a guy hanging at the end of a pole...this wouldn't seem like anything special except that the pole is hanging off the edge of a building, over the middle of the street...you don't notice it at first, but when you do notice, it's quite a shock...at first i didn't realize what she was showing me, then it seemed like a real guy hanging over the street...his sculptures definitely command your attention!
mom showed me a statue of the guy who wrote the first dictionary of the czech language...
i went walking for an hour or so most nights, and got to know the neighbor hood pretty well...at least the looks of it, if nothing else...there are cafes on many corners, small shops, a few churches, small parks, etc...beautiful...mom said during the days of communism everything was grey, not particularly noteworthy...since then, many buildings have been painted, so every street seems picturesque to me...it was easy to keep taking photos, until i realized they all looked similar, to some extent...
i got to see where some of my extended family is buried and ashes spread...definitely not a touristy area of town...i can't tell if this cemetary is still used or not, but some of the gravemarkers and tombs look quite old, in a beautiful way...

i got to see a big thing dedicated to stalin...locals know that's why the metronome was built, but it isn't obvious to anyone else...so when communism fell, it was easy to disguise or hide why it's there...it's located in letna park, which has awesome views over the city...
i got to see a beautiful park/gardens, located up the side of a hill...the top of the garden is at the bottom of US embassy property...this wouldn't mean anything to most visitors, but the gardens weren't open for quite a while, during the days of communism, because of their location...



during those days, people tried to jump the fence into US embassy property, it was a way of getting to freedom...eventually the boundary fence of the gardens was built to be quite large, and the embassy fence was even taller, with barbed wire on top...that still didn't stop people from trying...the views over prague from the top of the gardens are stunning...you can see the tops of a lot of churches, you can see the castle, you can see the tv tower...it was sooo nice just to sit and look...when we first arrived a wedding had just finished, then the lady was having wedding photos taken while we were there, i can see why :)

one day we had lunch at a place called the dancing house...when you see the picture of the building in which the restaurant is located, it's easy to see where the name came from...originally it was called fred and ginger, but the powers that be decided that was too western...since the restaurant is at the top of the building, and is right next to the river, it's got great views...
there is a big tv tower not too far from where mom lives...the powers that be decided it was too ugly on it's own, so they commissioned someone to do some artwork...if you look closely, you can see sculptures of kids climbing on the tower...locals didn't like these either, but i think it's cute...it's definitely different from the way most tv towers look...