Snow and Fairy Tales.

The Friday after Thanksgiving I headed to the airport in Bristol in the midst of lots of snow to hop on a plane to PRAGUE!

Margaret on the way into the airport (They were heading to Venice!)

It was beautiful while I was there, with just enough snow to make it a bit magical.

I spent most of my time wandering around the city, drinking mulled wine and coffee, talking to interesting people, and enjoying the Christmas goodness all around me.  During my wanderings, I was able to see the Prague Castle, which not only includes a castle, but also this cathedral...

And some vineyards randomly dispersed around the city...

As well as some beautiful handmade nativity scenes...

The Advent Markets opened the first day I was there, and I can't really imagine anything more Christmasy than these.  Lots of wooden toys, gingerbread, mulled wine, hot chocolate, chestnuts, crafts, sausages, carols, twinkly lights, and cinnamon goodness called Trdelnik.  

This is the Trdelnik, they roll the dough onto these wooden things and it cooks over the coals, then they roll it in a cinnamon, pecan, sugar mixture.  And, yes, it is good.  

Prague really was like a fairy tale.  At least that's what I kept thinking as I was walking around.  I'm not sure if it was because of the Christmas decor or because of the snow or because of the architecture, but whatever it was, I enjoyed every second of it.  It was a great city.  

I think one of the things I enjoyed most while I was there was a walk through the Jewish Quarter.  It is one of the only Jewish ghettos that wasn't destroyed in WWII, so you can imagine that it holds lots of history and emotions.  I was able to go in to a few of the synagogues in the area, which was really interesting.  During the war, the Nazis decimated most of European Jews' belongings, but, in Prague, the Nazis had, for whatever reason, decided that they would have some of the Jews archive the Jewish treasures in the synagogues.  These Jews were later killed in concentration camps, but their work remained behind and was found after the war.  Therefore, Prague's synagogues hold Jewish treasures from centuries of Eastern European Jews that have been preserved and well taken care of so that we can still see them today.  

There was also an art exhibit displaying children's art from Terezin.  This was a camp for Jews set up by Hitler that was not a death camp, but instead a place that Hitler would say he built for the Jews to allow them to escape the stresses of the war.  This was obviously not true, but allowed Hitler and the Nazis a place they could show the public where the Jews appeared to be doing okay (when, in fact, many were dying of starvation and diseases).  At the height of the war, it help about 55,000 Jews, and most of the residents here were later sent on to concentration camps and killed there.  Many musicians and writers lived in Terezin for a while, composing music and writing during their stay.  The children put on plays and were given opportunities to draw and create artwork, which is where the pieces in this exhibit came from.  Most of this was done in secret, and most of the people who created these things were later shipped to Auschwitz or Treblinka.  I thought the Jewish Quarter was one of the most interesting things I have seen, and I'm so glad I decided to go there, I really learned a lot, and there were so many interesting things to see.  

My trip ended by spending 5 hours stuck on the runway at the Prague airport, only to have our flight cancelled because the crew's shift was over.  Then I had to spend the night at the airport, but I got to meet some fun people along the way, so it was all okay in the end.  I made it back to Swansea about 28 hours later than expected, but I'd go back and do it all again in a second.