Page 114 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2025 THAILAND

fied the pope by speaking out against cor-
ruption in the church hierarchy, which pre-
saged the Reformation by more than 100
years. Hus was condemned as a heretic
and burned to death in 1415, a move that
prompted rebellion by Bohemians against
the church and its political backers. A cen-
tury later, Martin Luther published his 95
Theses, some of which echoed Hus’s teach-
ings, and launched the Reformation. Hus’s
execution prompted Bohemian nobles to
lodge a protest with the Holy Roman Em-
peror, who responded with threats. The
next twenty years were marked by disor-
der, disaffection, and war, and witnessed
the first of Prague’s three historic defenes-
trations, when a Hussite mob attacked a
group of King Wenceslaus IV’s representa-
tives on July 30, 1419, and threw them out a
window. A statue of Jan Hus stands in a
prominent place in Prague — the Old Town
Square, within view of Old Town Hall.
The Road Scholar tour was expertly ar-
ranged, taking our group of two dozen to
many of Prague’s most renowned attrac-
tions and suggesting what to visit during
our ample free time. Our guide, Dagmar
Mikolaskova, was well-versed in Prague
history and culture and had a sense of hu-
mor that worked well in English.
A tour highlight was Prague Castle, a
massive complex that contains four
churches, including the Gothic Saint Vitus
Cathedral and the Romanesque Saint
George’s Basilica. Then there are four
palaces, including the Old Royal Palace,
which became the site of the infamous De-
fenestration of 1618, when a group of 100
Protestants marched into the palace to
confront Catholic governors appointed by
the unpopular Archduke Ferdinand, a for-
eign Hapsburg, and promptly threw them
and their secretary out a window. The
three survived when their fall was broken
by an alleged dung heap, in the third and
last of Prague’s three historic defenestra-
tions, a word coined for the act of getting
thrown out a window. That last one

114 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER 2025