Rick Steves Europe: Prague & Budapest

Today we met another Prague local, our guide Martin.  He joked that his chief advantage as a tour guide is his age - he has lived through more of the city’s changes than the younger guides in Prague.  We followed him to the Jewish Quarter of the city, where we toured the Pinkas Synagogue, now a memorial with the painted names of nearly 80,000 Jewish Bohemians and Moravians who were victims of the Nazi regime.  Our group moved on to the Old Jewish Cemetery, where Martin pointed out many symbols on the headstones and told us a few stories of notable people buried there.  The burial ground was so crowded with stones, it was impossible to take everything in!   The next stop on the tour was to look at the Hebrew clock - its hands move right to left, like the written Hebrew language - and then to the Spanish Synagogue, an ornate and atmospheric building.  The interior glasswork and decorative painting were jaw-dropping, and there was a fascinating exhibit with artifacts from the time of Jewish deportation in the 1940’s.  Martin reminded us that the heartbreaking thing about this place is that Prague had been able to preserve so many of the Jewish community’s belongings, but unfortunately, so many of the people were lost.