I was woken by an extremely wired Leon at about 6:30 am, and he went out to try to procure a charger because they have different sockets here to Europe or the UK. He said he’d be going for a walk as well to try to use up some energy.
About 30 minutes later, he returned and said it’s too edgy out there because it was still quite dark and people were drinking in the streets. Fair enough. So we got ourselves ready and went down to breakfast. We had breakfast in a lovely dome ceiling room that had a low hanging Willow branch from the ceiling with glass balls on which Leon limbo’d underneath. I had some little omelette frittata tomato things that had been pre-prepared and gorgeous little cherry tomato, mozzarella and pesto salad.
We meant to get to the Klementinium baroque library for 9am , but by the time we would’ve got there, it would’ve been 9.15 which was too late according to travel information online so we decided to try that tomorrow instead.
So we left our hotel and it was a glorious day with blue skies and still a little crisp in the air. We spotted a ornate Gothic looking building the opposite side of the river that we thought we will walk to.
Across the other side of the river, it became apparent how steep it would be up to this castle, so we admired it from the foot, and continued our walk along the pretty bridge-a-plenty riverside.
At about 11am we walked back through the city centre, and came across the Mucha gallery , which I wanted to go into anyway, so seemed a good time for an art stop. It did not disappoint! Very inspiring, and interesting story surrounding late 1800/ early 1900 Prague, and the fights their people have had to remain ‘Bohemia’ and Mucha’s Masonic links. I should also add the building was stunning too, with frescos on the ceiling, and fat porcelain figures a plenty!
We got out in time to walk past the elaborate astronomical clock at midday, where it was chiming away, while onlookers videoed the event on their mobile devices, like hypnotised lemmings. As soon as it finished, the entire crowd turned to walk away… I felt like Simba in the Lion King, when he gets stuck in the charge of buffalo herds! I managed to survive (obviously), and onwards we trotted.
We decided to pop back to the hotel to rest our feet and on the way went past the impressive 2 spired gothic church that we had seen the night before, peeping out from an ill placed pastel pink building that seemed to have been built around it! As we went inside, we were shocked to see that it was free to enter, and even more shocked to see the gaudy black and gold tribute to religious figures. It seemed rather excessive, but I suppose there is no counting for taste.