Prague is a pretty popular destination nowadays, much like Berlin has become the #1 hipster place to go in recent years (now I feel like it’s Libson, or basically anywhere else in Portugal). I spent a few days there in 2008 as part of a 3-week long tour around mostly Western Europe after I graduated from university. The entire tour was exhausting but a ton of fun.
Anyways, I was so excited to go to Prague. I didn’t know a lot about it but it looked pretty in the photos I’d seen. I was also excited to go to the John Lennon Wall. I’ve been a huge fan of Mr. Lennon’s since around 2005 (and of The Beatles, too) and Strawberry Fields in New York City is one of my favorite spots. According to Wikipedia the wall was there since the 1980’s and after people started painting on the wall with Lennon’s lyrics and Beatles lyrics, it was a source of huge annoyance to the communist regime that was currently in power. And according to Wikipedia, “Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and in a report of the time this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge.”
What I didn’t know until reading up on the wall is that in 2014, a group of students painted over the wall and wrote, “Wall is Over.” This phrase has been changed over the years to, “War is Over.”
The group of anonymous students who painted over it did so in an effort to make space for new messages of hope and peace. I can get behind that.
There’s a lot of beauty in Prague and a lot of history, but this little spot was my favorite.
Yours truly in front of the wall in 2008 (L), and a close-up of Lennon’s face that is hung on the wall (R)
[…] of people have signed the wall. It reminded me of the John Lennon Peace Wall in Prague or various parts of the Berlin […]