Friday, April 19, 2019

We slept fairly well at the Art Nouveau Palace Hotel in Prague.
Pia has some more red rashes, but yesterday's spots are less.
But the breakfast is fine again.

Today we want to buy tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus, with which we at least go to Prague Castle, and to Kampa Park.
There is also a one-hour cruise included in the tickets.
The tickets are for sale close to the hotel, less than a five-minute walk away.

We board the bus, which goes to Prague Castle. Along the way we see parts of Prague, where we would never have walked on foot, mainly the 19th-century neighborhoods. Prague is a beautiful city with beautiful buildings that look well maintained, at least on the outside.
We get off the bus at the castle and wait for fifteen minutes for the guide for a free tour of 2 hours through Prague Castle. With a free tour you pay the guide afterwards the amount that you think the tour is worth.

The guide is a young man who first explains what a free tour entails. We are with a group of around 10 people, and the guide also tells us that a paid tour certainly costs EUR 20 per person. We wait outside the castle for the changing of the guards and the guide tells us a bit about the history of Czech Republic and the origins of Prague Castle. We do not look at the entire ceremony around the changing of the guard; halfway we go to the entrance (with security check) to avoid long lines. The bags are checked, the visitors are scanned.
Everyone can enter and the guide takes us along a few highlights of the castle. He gives an explanation and he does so in a cheerful, fascinating way. The cathedral is the most impressive that he shows us.
After an hour and a half the tour ends and everyone continues their way. On the way to our next destination we enjoy the view from the hill on which the Prague Castle is built.

We walk to Kampa Park through busy streets with many tourists.
The park is a bit disappointing, it is small, and it is quite busy.
We sit down at a restaurant along the Vltava river, and after ten minutes we can order a drink. Twenty minutes later, we have nothing to drink yet, we go to the toilet, and inside the staff is doing nothing. We are leaving, we are no longer waiting for a drink that may never come.
The next terrace is better, within five minutes we have a glass of cool wine and a glass of cold beer. The view over the Vltava is beautiful.

When we have finished drinking we walk to the bus stop and go to the cruise. The boat has just left, we have to wait 45 minutes on a quay where there is nothing to do.
The cruise takes about 50 minutes and is fun. There is food and drink for sale on board. But we don't see anything new, we've seen everything from the shore.
After the cruise we take the bus to the end point and from there we walk to the hotel. Tom has breathing problems again.

After spending an hour in the hotel, we look for a place to eat.
It is busy on the street, very busy, and all restaurants are quite full.
We end up at a restaurant, Pivovar U Supa, which also has a brewery. There is still place to eat, we sit down and we taste six types of beer and eat pork leg and sausages. The beer tastes good, the food too. But it is expensive, more than CZK 1000.

Written on: 2019-04-25

< Previous - Next >