Another night of discomfort, meant another night with interrupted sleep. My alarm went off at 06:00, but I snoozed it once before getting up and ready for my run. I was out into the cool morning air around 06:25, and on the Charles Bridge shortly after.
Even though the sun was barely clawing itself over the horizon, there were already plenty of people on the bridge taking photographs and doing personal photoshoots. It was near impossible to get photographs with nobody in them, but I tried my best. I then did a slow run from there to the start of the hill up to Prague Castle, but soon found myself walking. Running with a DSLR in one hand is not easy, and doing so up a steep hill is even worse.
Hradčany Square was almost entirely deserted, save for a military guard, and the odd person walking around. I photographed the Matthias Gate, and then a gas-lit candelabra streetlamp. I was hasty though, and in this low light some of the photographs didn’t quite go to plan - I was rushing so I could get back to running. Other buildings around this square included the Schwarzenberg Palace (housing the National Gallery), and the Tuscan Palace. There’s also the Marian Plague Column which was built to commemorate the end of the 1713 bubonic plague epidemic. It didn’t seem that long since we last saw one - the Pestsäule in Vienna just a couple of years ago.
I ran up another street, on more cobblestones, until I reached the Černín Palace and the Loreto. Having photographed their exteriors now would save time later. I spotted a path beyond them, and had a quick look down there before returning to the road that leads towards the Monastery. I got part way up Strahovská before deciding to turn back and finish off my ‘run’. I still called it a run, even though it involved a lot of stopping for photos, and walking up the hill.
To get back down, I ran down the street near Loretto, and realised this was Nový Svět. This is a cobbled lane, as are most of them, with a wall on one side, and then quirky cottages on the other. This came back out onto Hradčany Square, and from there I run-walked all the way back to the apartment.
One nap later, Carmen was now ready to head out with me this time, and at 09:40 we began what would be a heavy day of walking. We started across the Charles Bridge with a market that had been set-up in the square outside the Charles University. I bought us a koláč each; myself having an apricot one, and Carmen bought us a warm drink to have for the walk up to the castle. The koláč there were only 60 CZK each, so cheaper than the last ones we had, though arguably nowhere near as good.
It wasn’t too far off 11:00 now, so over an hour until the changing of the guards. I thought we might finish everything inside the castle grounds within that time so I suggested we continue on. The tickets were 450 CZK each for the main circuit (the Old Royal Palace, Basilica of St. George, Golden Lane, and St. Vitus Cathedral), and then 200 CZK each to go up the bell tower. The Cathedral would be closed until 13:00 due to the Easter services, so it gave us a fair bit of time to cover the rest.
We started off with the cathedral’s bell tower, and the 287 stairs to reach the top of that. The queue to get in didn’t last long, and once inside we could then skip ahead as we’d already got tickets to go up. The stairs going up are the same ones you go down, so as you wind around the spiral staircase you’ll occasionally need to pass people in the opposite direction.
The view from the top of the cathedral is pretty good, and we were lucky today that the weather was perfectly clear. After one lap of the tower we headed back down, and across to the Palace. This was a lot busier, with people not really queueing for anything or respecting other people’s personal space. There is the large hall, and then a few rooms around this, as well as a couple more rooms upstairs. ‘The Real Guide’ advises that tour groups arrive as soon as the castle opens, and to ignore the advice to arrive early because of that. Online advice says that most arrive 10:30-11:00, and there were certainly a very large number present at the start of the tour around those times.
The main circuit ticket doesn’t give you access to all buildings, so our next stop was the basilica. This one felt a little less chaotic, with a queue to go up the stairs at the back, and then around and out. The best thing about this one was the painted walls around the altar - it did mean as there was little else in there we were interested in, it didn’t take long at all. This is however the oldest building in the castle complex - completed in 921 CE, it became part of the Benedictine convent until the 1780s when Joseph II disbanded the monastic orders.
The next one on the list is the Golden Lane. This one is free to walk down after dark, but during the day the cobbled streets are home to many little buildings you can go in. The one we started with housed an armoury with all sorts of cavalry armour and some weapons, and then elsewhere in the building they also had torture devices. I heard one American point at a wooden dummy, and say “Hey, it’s Donald Trump!”
The other buildings of the Golden Lane were for things such as “The Alchemist”, and “The Seamstress” - each one had been set-up to represent the homes or workplaces of different people or jobs and how they might have looked. The lane ends with a viewpoint, and access to a tower where they have a museum of torture devices. As soon as I saw the iron maiden they had I turned around and left. The iron maiden was a mythical torture device that was invented and built to display in torture museums during the 1800s after their first recorded mention being in story that was later proven to be a hoax.
We’d now finished what we could, so at 12:40 we were in the queue for the cathedral. Fortunately it was nice and warm in the sun, so waiting around wasn’t too bad. It reminded me a lot of queuing for the one in Florence both in terms of length, and the metal fencing to direct the queue. The doors opened a little before 13:00, and the queue moved quickly. We were inside a little later, and made our way around. I usually like looking around an impressive cathedral, but I just wasn’t that impressed by this one. I think maybe I was too church-ed out from having seen so many in the last few years. It was, however, definitely the best of the religious buildings we’d visited in Prague. What caught my eye the most was the way the light was shining across the nave, and the coloured light shining on the floor around the aisles from the stained-glass windows in the southern chapels.
I tried to photograph the statue of Cardinal Friedrich von Schwarzenberg, but someone was leaning on it, could see I was waiting to photograph it, and seemed happy to be in the way. I took a photo anyway, and then moved round the back of the high altar to the tomb of St. John of Nepomuk. This one is massive, and a lot of silver was used in the construction of this ornate Baroque sarcophagus. I’d timed getting there wrong though as a very large tour group was surrounding it. I waited a lot longer for this one than I did with the statue, but in the end I just had to angle my photographs the best I could and move on.
When Carmen caught up, we made our way out of the cathedral and towards the exit for the castle grounds. Before we got there, we thought we’d see what the cafe did, but this was as expensive as you’d expect - we thought we could do better elsewhere. It did lead us to find another path around to the north entrance to the castle though where the path is a reasonable viewpoint.
Across Hradčany Square, and up the hill not far from Černín Palace, we decided to eat at Bistro Loreta cafe, where I had a pulled beef burger with fries, and some apple juice. Our meals together with a tip came to 835 CZK. Considering where we were, that was surprisingly good value.
The Strahov Monastery, the oldest Premonstratensian monastery in Bohemia, was a short walk after lunch. I realised we’d done a lot of walking up hills already, and still had more to do if we were to reach the Petřín Tower as planned, so I suggested rather than look around it all, we should just have a look at their library. Carmen seemed happy enough with that, so headed inside the Church of Saint Rochus, where their ticket office is located. They do offer an option for just the library, at 190 CZK or 340 CZK for the full tour.
Up some stairs, yes more stairs, we found a room that only had a closed door. I was sure we’d followed the directions correctly, so I tried the door handle and found it opened. They keep this door closed as much as possible it seems, with a member of staff making sure it’s not left open. After the initial room there’s then a corridor, and straight ahead is the monastery’s library which you can peer into from the door. There are two floors to the library around the edges, and then a painted ceiling similar to in the Clementinum’s library.
The corridor has various items on display in cabinets that are studies of the natural world, such as nautilus shells, and butterflies pinned to boards. There’s then another room you can peer into which is a single story, and whilst the roof is still painted, there is less of it due to intricate plaster work.
We walked down to a viewpoint in front of the monastery, and then followed the path out the back of it to start heading up to the Petřín tower. The way was blocked though as they were doing repair work to the path, so we had to leave the monastery and go the long way round that adds on several minutes, and maybe half a mile.
There wasn’t really a queue, so the ‘skip the line’ part of the tickets I’d prebooked for the tower wasn’t really necessary, but the elevator access came in handy as it got us to the top quickly. We took photographs all the way around the observation deck, and then waited to go back down. As we queued to go down, a woman got to the top of the stairs looking very distressed, and looked as if she was looking for something. Carmen remembered seeing a child crying earlier, and realised that they were likely looking for each other. The staff at the tower were already working quickly to reunite the two.
Beside the Petřín tower is the St Lawrence Cathedral - we didn’t bother going inside this. We passed it by, and then headed back the way we’d come until we were back at the road. Part way down, we decided to walk through Great Strahov Garden, and on the other side of that, walked down a road until we were back at the bottom of the hill.
We wanted ice cream now, and we weren't really finding anywhere reasonable - most were considerably more expensive than the one we’d found yesterday which we’d thought was a little on the steep side as it was. As such, we headed back to that one, and this time I had a scoop of the cookie flavour, and one of mango.
After a couple of hours back in the apartment, we headed once more out to find food. When we reached Wenceslas Square without deciding on anywhere, Carmen decided we’d go for some Asian food, and found Don Kitchen less than half a mile away. Their ordering system is a lot like modern fast food places, so ordering was very easy. I had sesame chicken with rice, and unlimited Fanta. The latter may not have been the best idea though, as that much fizzy pop, which I don’t usually drink these days, didn’t sit well. It was a good meal though, and not badly priced when together it came to 532 CZK. As we’d ordered using a machine, card payment was the only option.
The streets were lively during our walk back. It wasn’t likely just because tomorrow was the start of the long Easter weekend either, as we saw many drunken Brits likely on stag dos. Around 20:30 we arrived back at the apartment, finally able to relax.