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- SECTION ONE - WENCESLAS
- SQUARE
- Welcome to Prague and to this MP3Cityguides tour of the historic capital of the
- Czech Republic.
- Please keep an eye out for traffic and pick pockets.
- OK, you should now be standing in the middle of Wenceslas Square by the tram
- cafe. You should also be able to see the steps going down to the Mustek Metro
- station and the green sign for the station.
- The first thing you'll notice as you look along Wenceslas Square is that this isn't
- really a square at all - it's really a broad boulevard.
- The square was laid out over 600 years ago as part of the extension to Prague
- known as the New Town or Nove Mesto to give it its Czech name and it was
- originally called the Horse market. Despite its age most of the buildings only date
- back to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and that's partly because this is one
- of the most vibrant, constantly changing parts of the city.
- Ever since it was established, Wenceslas square has been at the centre of
- commerce, new ideas and revolution. It was here that in November 1989 over a
- quarter of a million people turned up night after night to demand the end of the
- Communist state. Twenty years earlier there had been clashes here between the
- authorities and Czechs protesting at the Soviet occupation of their country and it
- was in this square in 1969 that a young student, Jan Palach, set fire to himself in
- protest against this occupation.
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