Live blogging from Prague Czech Republic and Germany

So we finally made it to Bochum Germany (after our overnight stay in Leipzig) and as I mentioned up thread somewhere, the purpose in driving almost across the whole central part of Germany was to see a stage musical in Bochum.

"Starlight Express" is a rock-n-roll musical written by Andrew Lloyd Weber ("Phantom of the Opera," "Cats," "Evita" etc.) in the 1980's. It's about a bunch of railroad cars and engines that are competing in a number of races, and the little steam engine wants to win the races and the girl.

The clever gimmick in Starlight is the whole show is performed on roller skates.

In Bochum someone decided to build a whole arena styled theatre to house this show. The Starlighthalle was built in 1988 and the show has been running, 8 times a week since then, over 25 years and the show has been seen by over 13 million people.

Click on picture for a larger image and then expand the new window
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I'm a Lloyd Webber fan and it has been on my bucket list to get to Bochum to see this show (I saw the road show version in the US twice in the 1990's).

I decided that I had to take advantage of this current European trip and manage to get to Bochum. The girlfriend and I discussed doing it when we were in France a few years ago, but it never worked out with the schedule. So that's why we drove 900 miles in 3 1/2 days, from Prague to Bochum and back.

We stayed at the Ramada Inn, which is on the theatre property. 100 feet walk from the hotel to the theatre. They had a package deal, room, two "on the floor" center seats, big breakfast and some nice gifts in the room.

I'll leave it up to the professional photographers and such to give you an idea of what the show looks like... so... links to the official show website, videos there and other links...

http://www.starlight-express.de/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlight_Express

And here are a whole lot of pictures from the various installations of Starlight over the years...

https://www.google.com/search?q=starlig ... 51&dpr=0.9

The morning after seeing "Starlight Express" in Bochum Germany we headed back for Prague Czech Republic.

But we had one more stop to make on this whirlwind tour of Germany. A night stay in Kalek Czech Republic.

I'll backtrack a bit. Before I left for this trip I asked my editor at The Flume, Tom Locke, if he knew if there were any Park County expats living in the Czech Republic or if he could think of any reason a travel article about Prague would be of interest to Park County Flume readers. The paper tries to only publish articles that pertain to Park County or the general Conifer/Fairplay 285 corridor.

Well we couldn't come up with a reason for an article, but Tom did tell me of Zdenek Franc, a friend that he met back in the 1980's who lives in Chomutov Czech Republic. So after some back and forth emails we had arranged to visit Zdenek and his wife in their "mountain home" in Kalek (about 12 miles north of Chomutov) and spend the night in a pension before continuing on to Prague.

Zdenek lives in Chomutov where he has a travel agency and he owns a 200 year old, 4 room house north of Chomutov in Kalek, which he and his wife have been remodeling.

Kalek is right on the border (I mean a 1 minute walk) of Germany.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kalek,+C ... ublic&z=12

A few hundred yards from the border, while we were still on the German side we saw a house with a yellow plastic triangular sign that had a silhouette of a cat, in a red circle and the word "Acthung." It was a warning sign to watch out for a cat.

The second we passed near the sign, a cat runs out in front of us (we were only moving 15 miles an hour or so). So I stop and the cat plants his self right along the passenger side of my car.

I called him "The Border Cat." ("Can I see your papers please?")

Click on picture for a larger image and then expand the new window
[thumbnailpop:ce43bsut] newton.acrossthebow.com/kalek_border_cat.jpg [/thumbnailpop:ce43bsut]

We went on to Zdenek's house where we spent a lovely evening taking about the town, history of WWII in the region, the communist era, Czech politics (I researched Czech politics before I left so I would know what was currently the political climate) and the kind of chit-chat that anyone, anywhere would have with fellow citizens of this planet.

Zdenek had arranged a room in a pension, a bar/restaurant/one room inn in Nacetin, which was a town right next to Kalek (about a 5 minute walk). It was called "The Inka Inn." For about $30.00 US we got a warm room, full bath and breakfast.

The owner spoke not a lick of English and my Czech was in the "hello, thank you, please, goodbye, do you speak English, why is your language so hard to learn" range. But that's what makes foreign travel so much fun. You point, you mime, you try pronouncing words with no vowels (or all vowels) and usually you manage to communicate. People are friendly and accommodating almost anywhere, if you don't bring an attitude along with you.

"The Inka Inn" looking down into the bar from the door of the loft room.

[thumbnailpop:ce43bsut] newton.acrossthebow.com/kalek_inka_2.jpg [/thumbnailpop:ce43bsut]

The next morning we woke to a slight dusting of snow, which accented the charm of Nacetin. "The Inka Inn" is the long reddish/brown building.

[thumbnailpop:ce43bsut] newton.acrossthebow.com/kalek_inka.jpg [/thumbnailpop:ce43bsut]

And here was our gracious host Zdenek. (pronounced z-den-neck, say that "Z" real short and run it right up against the "D" quickly). "The Inka Inn" is behind him. This was the night before, before it snowed.

[thumbnailpop:ce43bsut] newton.acrossthebow.com/kalek_zdenek.jpg [/thumbnailpop:ce43bsut]

I will make some recommendations. If you have the ways and means to get out of your comfy home environment, visit another country, someplace where English is not the primary language.

Before you go, learn some of the language, study up a bit on customs, food, current politics.

Use Google to find pictures of the native population, see how they dress, try walking into the country dressed down like the locals, don't wear that flowered shirt or the Broncos hoodie, try to blend in.

Use Google Streets to look at the neighborhood in the town(s) you will be staying at. Get familiar with the nearby streets and buildings.

Take public transportation as much as you can. Or walk, walk, walk. Don't be using a taxi to get you from one attraction to another. Rub shoulders with the locals, eat where they eat, forget those fancy restaurants and stay away from McDonalds and other American fast food joints.

Stay in a 2 star hotel, or a no star hotel. At least stay where the locals stay when they are visiting another town.

See some live theatre in the native language ("Starlight Express" was sung in German, I studied the English libretto before I left Colorado), go to a movie that's in the local "voce."

In short try not to be a tourist or else you are going to miss what's most important. Other people, other customs, other ways of thinking, different politics, new foods, history, the cruelties and the redeeming.

Otherwise... you've wasted your money.

(This is a more detailed post about my visit to the Terezin ghetto. Look up thread for another post dealing with more information on this subject)

One of my very somber reasons for visiting the Czech Republic was to do research for a second play in my Holocaust trilogy. The basic concept in my series is to find unique Holocaust stories that focus on the Jewish adults that spent so much of their time, will power and resources in trying to protect the children.

My first play was "A Field of Buttercups," which tells the story of Janusz Korczak (pronounced "Yan-uz Kor-chock") a well-known Polish doctor and director of an orphanage behind the walls of the Warsaw ghetto. He and his 200 children were some of the first deportees from the ghetto to the gas chambers of Treblinka. I visited Warsaw for three weeks in 2004 to research Korczak and finished the script the same year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Korczak
http://newton.acrossthebow.com/field.htm

"Buttercups" won a Colorado Theater Guild New Ventures Series award and received a staged reading at the Mizel Center in Denver.

My second writing project is a story (currently untitled) about the "paradise" ghetto Terezin (German: Theresienstadt). Terezin was different than the other ghettos/camps. It was first set up to house Jews who the Nazis did not want to disappear. Jewish doctors, writers, professors, actors, artists, journalist, rich elites, half-Jewish blooded "mishlings," interracial marriages... basically those Jews who would have a higher visibility inside and possibly outside of Europe.

Terezin was a "holding pen" before the eventual transportation onward to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. There were about 15,000 children housed in Terezin at one time or another. Only 132 survived the war.

I spent a day at Terezin with one of those survivors. Eighty-four year old Dr. Dagmar Lieblová.

[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/dagmar_small.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]

Terezin got it start as a garrison town, set up by the Hapsburg Monarchy and constructed during the period of 1780-90.

The fortress consisted of a citadel, the "Small Fortress" (kleine Festung), to the east of the Ohře, and a walled town, the "Main Fortress" (große Festung), to the west. The total area of the fortress was 3.89 km².In peacetime it held 5,655 soldiers, and in wartime around 11,000 soldiers could be placed here. Trenches and low-lying areas around the fortress could be flooded for defensive purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terez%C3%ADn#Early_history

All pictures taken by myself. Click on picture for a larger image and then expand the new window
[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_ramparts_1.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]
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With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the town became part of the newly formed state of Czechoslovakia and was mainly populated by a high proportion of ethnic Germans. When the Nazis decided to turn Terezin into a prison ghetto, the residents were moved out to make way for Jews.

At first Jews arrived at the train station in nearby Bohušovice and had a 2km walk with their personal belongings to Terezin.

[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_bohusovice.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]

In time the Nazis decided that they didn't want the local residents of Bohušovice to see so many people arriving on various trains, so they had a crew of Jewish men build a rail spur that went from the Bohušovice station right into the ghetto.

[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_tracks.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]

Considerable work was done in the next two years to adapt the complex for the dense overcrowding the inmates were subjected to. It held primarily Jews from Czechoslovakia, as well as tens of thousands of Jews deported chiefly from Germany and Austria, as well as hundreds from the Netherlands and Denmark. More than 150,000 Jews were sent there, including 15,000 children.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terez%C3%A ... rld_War_II

Terezin is now a memorial. There are various museums and exhibits detailing life in the ghetto. Other than a few merchants, there are very few actual residents in Terezin. Here are 3 views of the town square.

[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_square_1.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]
[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_square_2.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]
[thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc] newton.acrossthebow.com/terezin_square_3.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1z0xd5jc]

The Jewish adults at Terezin attempted to supply the children with as much age appropriate activities as the Nazis would allow (and as many activities that they could clandestinely get away with). There were art classes, music classes, a underground children produced camp newspaper, plays and the most famous activity was productions of the children's operetta "Brundibár."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundib%C3%A1r

"Brundibár" was actually openly allowed by the camp commandants and even performed for a delegation of the Red Cross during a staged visit to the Potemkin styled "village" of Terezin.

Toward the end of the war there was even a propaganda film produced at the camp to show the world how well the Nazis were treating the Jews of Europe. The film was never shown outside of a few in the inner circle of the Nazi Party.

A few weeks after the film was finished the Jewish director and most of the actors (including the children who appeared in the film) were transported to Auschwitz and murdered.

Only about 20 minutes of the film still exists.

[youtube:1z0xd5jc][/youtube:1z0xd5jc]

[youtube:1z0xd5jc][/youtube:1z0xd5jc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresiens ... ganda_tool

There has already been many books, plays and movies about the children of Terezin. In keeping with my themes in "A Field of Buttercups" there will be no children portrayed in the play, we will only "hear" about them. I will examine what went right and what went wrong. It was adults of many countries who were responsible for what happened to the Jewish children of Europe and it was adults of many different religious persuasions who were given the Herculean task to try and make sense of the horrors and explain it to their young wards.

There's not enough sugar to coat these stories.

(for further reading and study)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresiens ... ation_camp
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brundibar-h ... the-world/
http://www.pametnaroda.cz/witness/index/id/1256/
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sit ... L5iKXywTlk

I'm going to end up this thread with some random pictures, in no particular order for no particular reason.

Some of the best things I take away from a trip like this can't be shown in a picture. It's the people, the personal interactions, the observations (I'm a consummate people-watcher), what you notice in signs, looking up instead of just looking ahead (and looking down too).

So on with the pictures.

(Click on a picture to enlarge, and then expand the new window)

Here I am on the Charles Bridge in old town Prague begging for Czech crowns. No one would throw any coins in my hat.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_bridge_begging.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

I Russian anti-Nazi poster (circa. WWII) in the Prague Communist Museum. The text reads literally "each hour of the nail in the coffin of reaction."
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_anti_nazi.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

A street in London on a rainy Monday morning.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_london_street.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

The Franz Kafka memorial in old town Prague. Kafka was a Czech existentialist writer who wrote in German. His most known work is "The Metamorphosis."
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_kafka_memorial.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

The Tower Bridge in London (at the infamous Tower of London complex).
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_london_bridge.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

A picture of a side chapel in the Hussite Church of St Nicholas in old town Prague on the old town square. The picture is taken through a image sand-etched on a glass door.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_glass_hussite.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite

Eating pretzel bread while driving at 90-100 miles an hour on a autobahn route in Germany. Do not try this unless you are a professional
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_germany_bread.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

The silver mine tour in the town of Kutna Hora. Kutna Hora is about 40 miles southeast of Prague. You were given a hard hat, canvas frock and a lantern, much like the original miners used in the 1400's. It was tight, narrow and the ceilings were very low. The hard hats came in VERY handy. All during the tour you could hear heads bopping off of the roof of the rock tunnels.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_kutna_mine.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

A view of the Prague skyline, looking out to the Prague Castle complex (still the seat of Czech government) taken from the astronomical clock tower in old town Prague.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_clock_skyline.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock

I want to thank the folks on My Mountain Town who gave this thread over 1100 views (no, that was not me clicking on the thread every 5 minutes). A little self-serving goodbye from me whilst standing on the Charles Bridge in Prague.
[thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h] newton.acrossthebow.com/misc_charles_me.jpg [/thumbnailpop:1xihfr0h]

Although I won't be posting any new stories or pictures on this thread, I will be willing to converse with anyone that has questions or opinions about any subject covered in this thread.

Thanks again.

Thanks Walter. Enjoyed the description and many pictures. I was amazed at the beauty of so many of the pictures. Still have a few questions for you and will get to a little later.

Some family because of their involvement in 4-H have had an opportunity to visit and stay with families in other countries. Ties that last and continue to provide more opportunities for visits each way in so many countries.

RidgeWay wrote: Thanks Walter. Enjoyed the description and many pictures. I was amazed at the beauty of so many of the pictures. Still have a few questions for you and will get to a little later.

Some family because of their involvement in 4-H have had an opportunity to visit and stay with families in other countries. Ties that last and continue to provide more opportunities for visits each way in so many countries.

Thank you for the compliment.

When you get the opportunity... ask away.

homeagain wrote: Your post on another thread about the HARD ROCK CAFE (Praque) just upended my vision of that city..... :faint:

I just realized I never answered Homeagain about this subject. As a refresher I'll recap what I was talking about.

I was pointing out that Prague had very much embraced commercialism since the communists left over 25 years ago. And I also noted that there was a Hard Rock Cafe in Old Town Prague, situated in a building that was hundreds of years old, and just off of Old Town Square.

That's what Homeagain was referring to in her statement above.

My take on that. It doesn't really bother me too much. It's a public/private trade off. Hard Rock Cafe is tasked with maintaining a historic building, they have to keep the the look and feel of the historic architecture and from the outside, and except for signage, there is nothing to distinguish the antique building from others surrounding it.

Go to downtown Denver. You have a comedy club in the old Clock Tower building. You have bars and restaurants in century old buildings. Downtown Golden is chock full of commerce installed in 150 year old buildings, all retaining the structural and decorative integrity of the buildings.

Paris is replete with commercial venues in historic structures.

I don't see why Prague is any less worthy of this sort of progress? Would you rather go to Disneyland or Vegas and enjoy a recreated piece of history, complete with gifts shops and eateries or would you prefer a genuine European city that is modernizing without destroying it's heritage.

I'll take door two Monty.

So very glad to be back. Have been visiting with family down the hill and didn't have access to a computer for any reasonable amount of time.

Watched the video you posted. Hard to watch. And makes me think of family who died in combat in WWII.

Thank you so much for pix and descriptions.

From your post: "I spent a day at Terezin with one of those survivors. Eighty-four year old Dr. Dagmar Lieblová." Please if you could share some of what she as a survivor had to say these many years later.