Whilst we slept, the clocks had leapt forward an hour for daylight saving time. An hour less to spend in Prague, an hour less to sleep. Having just run a half marathon yesterday, perhaps a later start to the day wasn’t such a bad idea. Whilst we’d found in València that staying active had helped with recovery, we’d probably done a little too much.

A tour guide that produces videos for YouTube had advised people in one video that weekdays are quieter for tourists, so it’s better to do the popular sights during the week. I thought that although we weren’t quite yet in the peak season, it might still be quite busy due to the race. To get around that, I suggested a train journey to the nearby town of Karlštejn, where in theory it’d be quieter, and more relaxed. We wouldn’t be walking from sight to sight, and would have just one thing to do.

It was however another restless night, too warm, and too uncomfortable. I didn’t feel rested at 08:45 when I got up for breakfast, but at least we’d bought what we needed for a continental breakfast last night. It would save needing to go anywhere just yet. We used the same supplies to make ourselves a packed lunch to take out with us today as well. We thought we could have a picnic in Karlštejn just as we had done in Xàtiva, but it was a lot colder outside than we were expecting.

Not far from the local Tesco is the Mûstek metro station where we took train B towards Zličín as far as Smíchovské nádraží, and then searched for a ticket machine at Praha-Smíchov. There weren’t any that we could see, and we were running out of time to catch the train, so I used the ticket booth. In my rush to order a ticket, I forgot to mention we wanted two return tickets, so only got two in one direction. At least there wouldn’t really be any restrictions on our return journey as a result.

When using the underpass to get from one platform to another, we found our legs were a little worse for wear. I found using the stairs was so uncomfortable that it felt like I’d run a marathon or more, not just a relatively flat half marathon. When sitting down, waiting for the train, we saw locals cross the railway tracks here to get between platforms - saving using the stairs. We realised there were signs saying you could do so at your own risk.

The S7 train took a little over thirty minutes to reach Karlštejn, and everyone getting off there was on their way to the castle. It’s a short walk to a bridge over a river, and then a gently inclined road through Karlštejn which is clearly aimed almost entirely at tourists. As most tourists to Prague tend to stick to the Old Town and don’t travel, those out this far would either be the more adventurous ones, Czech locals, or maybe Germans who had crossed the border. It’s surprising how far out of town the train station is.

The town reminded me of visiting Kuort Rathen in Germany, on my way up to the Bastei Bridge after the Berlin Marathon. The last stretch towards the castle gets suddenly steeper, and around the back of the castle it felt much colder. At the ticket office, we found that you can visit the castle by guided tour only, and it was around forty minutes until the next English one at 13:20 for 300 CZK each. We sat and had our packed lunch where the small cafe was, and watched tourist after tourist, mostly Americans of the USA variety, come in and leave the door open after staff there kept closing it.

With about twenty minutes until our tour started, I visited the Well Tower to see what that was like. There were plenty of stairs involved, and my legs weren’t best pleased about them after that tough race. It wasn’t particularly worth it either as the tower has been converted into a place that sells alcohol, and you can’t actually go in much of the tower. The Czech flag beside the tower blew violently in the wind as I headed back to Carmen who was waiting for me in the courtyard. The Americans were now in the main courtyard, with the children climbing up the walls.

The tour lasts for 55 minutes, and starts up some stairs into the Imperial Palace. The American children in the group were perhaps not the best behaved and were climbing on everything. The tour guide ignored them completely, so I guess climbing on the exhibits wasn’t a problem. We were told about the construction of the castle, its purpose, and who it was for.

Other than the first and second floors of the palace, you also get to see the first floor of the Marian Tower which you access from a small courtyard. At the end of the tour you’re left to exit the castle by yourself so you can spend some time in part of the castle wall before making your way back out to the main courtyard. From there we headed back down into town, and found it warmer there, just as before.

We stopped at Doma Cafe, where I had a peach and passion fruit tea, and a bubble waffle coated in Nutella with many slices of banana. Whilst I can’t remember the exact price, it was somewhere around 130 CZK for mine, with Carmen’s cinnamon bubble waffle being a little cheaper. She got to try some strawberry butter on hers, and it tasted good enough she wanted to take some home. Sadly, recent biosecurity law changes in the UK that restrict dairy products being imported from the EU prevented this. It was a nice cafe though, and looking at the set-up, it looked like it’s the sort of place that gets very busy in the summer.

Time was of a premium though, we knew the train out of there was around every thirty minutes or so. When Carmen checked the time, it was later than we realised, so paid quickly, and walked relatively swiftly back to the station. I’d forgotten I’d rounded the time up though, so had less time than we thought. I went to buy us tickets, but they asked which Prague station. I quickly located the previous ticket from my pocket, and showed her that - getting another two tickets back to Prague-Smichov for 133 CZK.

As we looked at the board, we realised the train back had been delayed slightly, so wasn’t quite the rush it had been. We used the tunnel to get to the platform, and waited patiently. Soon, we heard a chorus of loud voices approaching: clear signs that more passengers were heading back to Prague. We had a feeling it was going to be those Americans again, and expected them to be going our way. Sure enough, it turned out to be that very group. While most of them sensibly took the steps down into the tunnel to reach the platform, one of the children ignored the clearly posted English warning signs, and ran straight across the tracks.

Someone else on the platform yelled something in Czech, but the warning was ignored, and the local carried on with what he was doing. A minute or so later, a train thundered through the station without stopping, racing along the very tracks the child had just crossed.

Once on the train, we then watched a drama unfold where an elderly American couple had bought tickets for the wrong train, and were trying to get it sorted on the train. Whilst doing so, we realised our tickets were only going as far as Smichov, but ideally we’d wanted to go to the main station and change there as we’d got other plans for after. Not wanting to risk it, when we reached Prague-Smichov, we got off and queued for the 125 bus.

This bus went speeding down a dual carriageway to another part of the city. Once we’d gotten our bearings, we found our way through a housing estate to the Westfield shopping centre. It’s not the first one of these we’ve been to in Europe, and every time it’s been for the same reason - to visit the LEGO store to get our passport stamped.

Whilst we were there, we decided it’d be a good idea to see if there was anywhere we wanted to go to eat. Food outside of the Old Town is much cheaper, so it seemed like a good idea. One place we’d passed on the way to the LEGO store was Go[o]d Food, who offer cuisines from multiple cultures. We could have tried some local Czech dishes, something more generic like a burger or snitzel, or something from East Asia. I decided on one of the Chinese ones: kung pao chicken with rice, and Carmen went Vietnamese. The bowls were very big, and even with a drink, our meals together came to 430 CZK. It was less than half what we’d paid for a burger in the Old Town!

We took the metro back to the Old Town after that, and arrived there as the sun was setting. A tram then got us closer to the apartment, but went to Tesco first to get some snacks to use for the rest of the week.