Václavské náměstí

Naja halt der Wenzelsplatz!!!
Mehr turistiger geht glaub ich nicht!
Muss man machen! Halt wie in Venedig der Markusplatz!!!

My star-​rating could go 2 ways: either 2 or 3, so I came down on the 3 side, if that makes sense…
I went to Wenceslas because I simply wanted to walk on the pavement that’s considered sacred for the Prague Spring & the Velvet Revolution. I was happy to be able to do so.
In 1968 the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia & Prague itself & 1000s of people died in the square & throughout the city. When the Eastern Bloc crumbled, 100,000s gathered here & shook their keys to show solidarity. The problem now is that its become a giant mall filled giant big-​name stores & restaurants.
Still, I walked from the northwest end to the southeast end where the National Museum is – I tried to keep in mind the events of 1968 & 1990 as I did so.
if you walk up the hill at the SE end & look back, there’s a great spot for a picture to compare with old photos of the square.
One fun thing I observed was a pre-​teen kid taking a Segway lesson at the NW end. His gramma was with him & she looked VERY nervous!
Also, find the Kampa Bookstore. Worth a short browse inside!

I didn´t think about writing a review for a square but I feel like I have to say something too. I wouldn´t definitely agree with 4 and more stars.
Ok. Let´s start with positive facts. They finally closed the lower part of the square for cars and turned it into pedestrian zone few years ago. I hope they will do the similar thing with the upper part too but it wont be anytime soon. Maybe more trees and green would be nice.
It´s a place where new democratic Czech Republic has began. It´s one of the symbols of our state. There is a National museum and the statue of the Duke Wenceslav, patron of our country.
There are some good restaurants and maybe some good shops + Lucerna. There are musical and other perfomancies.
And now the negative facts which kind a shows a dark side of our society and general situation of our country.
Changes of the architecture. Some of the beautiful old buildings are slowly being replaced by new ones. The square is full of companies (it´s prestigious to have an address here), comercials, shopping centrums, casinos, pickpockets, usually not so good overpriced restaurants, bistros, fast foods, weird individuals and so on. It has lost during the last 25 years (and actually also during the previous commie time) so much of its original beauty that it will never be restored again. Why? Because of money.
And the darkest side reveals after a sunset. Whores, drug dealers, guys who tries to get you to one of a many brothels, again pickpokets, maybe some gangs, many different kinds of weird individuals. Let´s be honest. It´s a punishment to go through Wenceslas square at night.
And for me this square is a mirror of our society all of and evolution of the Czech Republic in the last 25 years. There are nice places, nice moments, things which can make you proud but beneath all of that it can be very dirty place full of greed, corruption, all the different kinds of unfair play and other things which makes you puke. And it really pisses me off.
But the visit of the National museum is still worth it :-)

Der Wenzelsplatz ist eigentlich eine 50m breite und 700m lange Hauptgeschäftsstrasse. Somit gehört dieser «Platz» zu den grössten «Plätzen» in Europa.
Dieser Bereich ist bekannt für politische Demonstrationen, besonders die Selbstverbrennung von Jan Palach 1969 im sogenannten «Prager Frühling». Im Jahre 1989 begann die Samtene Revolution, wobei es viele Opfer gab. Diese Demonstrationen führten zum Sturz des kommunistischen Régime.
An der Statue des heiligen Wenzel wird heute immer noch mit Blumen aller Opfer gedacht.
Jetzt haben wir wieder den Wenzelsplatz im tiefen Schee besucht. Hier ist immer noch ein Anziehungspunkt für Touristen aus allen Ländern.