The Rough Guide to the Czech and Slovak Republics (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

Yet the events of November 1989 – the Velvet Revolution – were probably the most unequivocably positive of all the anticommunist upheavals in Eastern Europe. True to their pacifist past, the Czechs and Slovaks shrugged off 41 years of Communist rule without so much as a shot being fired. In the parliamentary elections the following summer, the Communists were roundly defeated, and Vaclav Havel, a playwright of international renown with an impeccable record of resistance against the previous regime, was chosen as president. The euphoria and unity of those first few months evaporated more quickly than anyone could have imagined, and just three years after the revolution, against most people’s predictions, the country split into two separate republics.

In contrast to the political upheavals that have plagued the region, the Czech and Slovak republics have suffered very little physical damage over the last few centuries. Gothic castles and Baroque chateaux have been preserved in abundance, town after town in Bohemia and Moravia has retained its old medieval quarter, and even the wooden architecture of Slovakia has survived beyond all expectations. Geographically speaking, the two republics are the most diverse of all the former Eastern Bloc states. Together they span the full range of central European cultures, from the old German towns of the west to the Hungarian and Rusyn villages in East Slovakia. In physical terms, too, there’s enormous variety: Bohemia’s rolling hills, lush and relentless, couldn’t be more different from the flat Danube basin, or the granite alpine peaks of the High Tatras, the beech forests of the far east, or the coal basins of the Moravian north.
More accessible today than at any time since the 1930s, the major cities are now buzzing with a cultural and commercial diversity, and fail to conform to most people’s idea of Eastern Europe. At the same time, the remoter regions are more reminiscent of the early twentieth century than the twenty-first. Prague has withstood a whole decade of Western-style tourism, and now has the facilities to cope. In the remoter regions, however, facilities are only slowly being upgraded. Inevitably, the continuing pace of change in both republics means that certain sections of this book are going to be out of date even as you read them, such is the volatility and speed of the current transformation.

Synopsis
This guide gives background information on all aspects of culture and history. It discusses the politics of the area from the Hapsburg dynasty to the break-up of Czechoslovakia, as well as coverage of the countryside and critical reviews of restaurants and accommodation in every price range.

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