Updates on Prague, Cesky Krumlov

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it has been so long since I've updated! As I've said before, the internet was very limited at our Prague hotel and was nonexistent at our next destination of Cesky Krumlov. After we went to Kutna Hora, we spent our last day in Prague looking at the Synagogues of the Jewish quarter there. Prague once had one of the largest Jewish populations in the whole of Europe prior to World War II, there were 118,000 Jews in Czechoslovakia, now there are only 10,000. This is mainly in part because of the extermination by the Nazis, but also due to the presence of the Soviet Union and their antí religious doctrine.
The synogogues are very interesting in Prague because they were actually preserved during the War by Hilter because he wanted to create museums out of them to showcase an 'extinct race' ie., the Jewish people. Isn't racism and bigotry strange?
Probably one of the most powerful things we saw while there was one of the synagogues which had handwritten the names of all the people in Prague and other parts of the country that had been murdered by the Nazis. It had the last name, the first names and the date they were born and died. It literally covered all the walls floor to ceiling. It was moving and shocking, an overwhelming experience when you imagine that each name represented an entire world, an entire set of hopes, dreams, ambitions, and talent. What a terrible waste.

We then set off to the town of Cesky Krumlov (Cesky is pronounce 'ch') which dad discovered in his research that the tour company we used for India went to. It is a small town in the Czech Republic, known for its castle and charming town, but mainly for the rafting and surrounding protected lands. It is a fairly untouched area that is still being discovered by tourists and we had a blast. With our one full day there, we managed to fit in everything we wanted to do: tour the brewery, visit the castle, and raft the rapids.

The brewery was particularly cool because it received funds from UNESCO in order to use ancient brewing techniques. We learned all about how the Master Brewer had to tastes the beer at all its different stages, how they grew the yeast, and the entire process. We also go to taste the special wheat beer right from one of the HUGE barrels. Apparently, since the yeast is active, it cannot be bottled and can only be tasted on site.

The castle was your typical castle, and I won't go into any details.

The rafting was definitely fun as well. We met a couple of Australians while at breakfast and decided to share the raft with the husband, Neil. Apparently Wendy had a bad back, and the idea of riding around a raft in cold water wasn't her idea of fun... Anyway, we got into the raft and went down the rapids, which was very WET! During the first rapid, dad almost went flying, but all in all, we managed to stay in the boat, but came out soaked. Only mom managed to not get wet, so of course, about 10 minutes before we were going to be done (and safely past the rapids) it started to RAIN! Sorry mom! We all ended up walking through a down pour and looking like 'old wet dogs' HAHA!

Now we are in Vienna and whave walked around a bit. Not much to say on that yet.

PS. No way to post pics...sorry!