So far we only explored the right side of the river, the old town of Prague. But there’s also the so called lesser side of Prague, situated west of the Vlatava river. This was our program for yesterday.
As we had covered a total of 5.6 miles on Tuesday we decided to start the day off with a tram ride up the hill to the Prague castle. The kids quite liked that idea. The castle grounds cover a huge area on top of the hill and also includes the late-gothic St. Vitus cathedral which was our first stop in the castle tour. Thanks to COVID and also the time of year it wasn’t that crowded which is always nice for tourist hot spots like that. Unfortunately some areas were also closed due to the same fact which meant we could only see the cathedral, St. George’s basilica and the Golden Lane. There still was enough to see for us and the kids though. At 12 we watched the changing of the guards, it reminded us a little of England. With marching and brass music the morning guard got their well deserved break and the next shift took over.
All that exploring made us hungry so we decided to visit the Strahov monastery brewery that was in walking distance. So far we’d had Lebanese and Mexican food – but no bohemian dumplings! That had to change so we all got some goulash and dumplings – and they did not disappoint. This really is the perfect fall food!
On our way down to the city we came by a cafe and picked up some Striezel / Trdelnik. If you visit Prague you have to try it! We’ve had it before on a Christmas market in Germany, but the Striezel here are on a whole another level 😋
Afterwards we payed a quick visit to the St. Nicholas church and also to Pragues narrowest street (complete with a traffic light, perfectly COVID compliant 😆)
But there was still some daylight left so we took the funicular up the hill again, this time to the Petrin tower. It looks a little bit like the Eiffel Tower’s small brother and if you climb all of it’s 299 steps you are rewarded by a beautiful view of the city. The mirror maze right next to it is not something we’d do again as it is really small – but the kids had some fun with the mirrors.
All that climbing made us hungry (again) so we stopped by the “Craft beer spot” pub for some Czech sausage and various cooled beverages. We walked back to the hotel and enjoyed the view – river, bridges and castle, all illuminated, looked just as good (if not better) as during the daylight. Back at the hotel we checked our phones to see how much we had walked this day and despite the train rides we still managed to walk almost 7.5 miles.
