Czech History and Social Life Modern Center: Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí)

Our first journey to Prague was completely unplanned. Fortunately, we found out that the team in our hotel was very friendly and always ready to help, no matter how challenging a question or a situation may be. On the first evening of our vacation, we asked the concierge’ s help in finding the best place for lunch. We also wanted to know where are the best places to just simply walk and still enjoy the scenery. She advised us to start the journey from Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square) – the famous Czech history and social life modern center, and we did so using the C metro line. By the way, you can also use the A line and the B line to get there. Wenceslas Square is so big that it situates two metro stations: Museum, named after the National Museum, also located at Wenceslas Square, and can be reached using the A and C metro lines; and Mustek, in which to get there you will need to take the A and B metro lines.

Wenceslas Square, is a big sized square, with the statue of St. Václav(Wenceslas), the protector of Czech, on a horseback at its center. The square is usually crowded with tourists who are always seem to be on the rush to devour every site and statue that might stand in their way, many locals, footwear and clothing stores, bookshops, restaurants and several casinos (which are legal in Czech republic). As for me, the most mesmerizing points at the square were the bookshops – huge sized, crowded and offering to its visitors a rich selection of books, including English ones. After our first shopping experience at the “Knihi” (books) building, we immediately started swallowing the words (safely deposited in our new bought books), while sitting in the homely and non-expensive café on the first floor.

For dinner, we made a non-creative, quite spontaneous choice and entered the “Pizza Colosseum” – a huge and crowdie restaurant at the corner of Wenceslas Square and Na Prikopech Street. Usually in cases like these, you get what you bargained for - synthetic marinara sauce on industrial often tasteless dough, a combination that insensitive owners like to call ‘pizza’ served to you by a frown waiter who wish you were gone and he was someone else… but surprisingly enough, the place turned out to be nothing less than an excellent even borderline artistic gourmet dining place wearing the clothes of a regular country side restaurant. Things just couldn’t be better. For as low as 500 CZK each we had a delicious lunch, one we haven’t experienced in years: the soup (minestrone for my mate, seafood for me), the main dish (salmon for him, chicken for me), beer and beverages each other. It was simply an unforgettable experience. For that reason we several times and even ordered the same dishes just to ensure we experience that culinary enlightenment again. One word: superb!

Back in the hotel, we read more about Wenceslas Square and realized, that this city point has, apart from its commercial and entertainment value, a significant historical prominence. At the early beginning of the Second World War, invading German troops started their march at the square. In 1968, the Soviet tanks arrived there to destroye the Prague Spring, and one year later the Czech student Jan Palach set himself aflame at Wenceslas Square near the statue of St. Václav in protest against the communism regime. Finally, during the Velvet Revolution (1989), Václav Havel (famous Czech writer who became President after collapse of the communist regime), took a speech to the people at no other place but the Wenceslas Square.