Day 10 - Prague — Wayfaring Abroad

When Tyler began walking down the stairs this morning from the lofted bedroom he was sleeping in, I awoke from the noise and it was quite bright inside the apartment. Naturally, I thought that meant it was time to get up, I was wrong, it was 4:30 in the morning. Apparently the sun comes up quite early at the moment. When it was actually time to wake up, we got ourselves settled and ready relatively quickly and out the door.

Looking back at Old Town Square from the observation deck at the tower in the Klementinum.

Our first plan for the day was the go to the Klementinum to see the astrological tower and the library. We started out stopping into St. Nicholas' Church and the Church of Our Lady Týn.

The Klementinum was once run and restored by the Jesuits and currently houses thousands of books. The Baroque library is a stunning room filled over two open floors with shelves stacked with books. There are free standing astronomical clocks and maps of the stars placed in a line along the center of the room. The ceiling has three frescoes painted along it extenuating the curved aspect of the room.

Looking across Charles Bridge from the tower in the Klementinum.

From the library we moved our way up the tower, room by room, to the observation deck. Along the way to the deck we were in the room where large walled based sextants were used to place the location of the sun and where the meridian was measured along the floor. The views from the deck gave an unbridled view to Old Town Square and over the Charles Bridge onto Prague Castle.

We had been meaning to make our way to the over the past two days but did not seem to quite have the time, so our next stop was on to the market. The outdoor market is called Havelské Tržiště. It is a long double row of exterior stalls inside of a square with a Church at one end. The market was composed of fruits stands, bakery stands, flower stands, art stands and trinket stands.

All of the fruits looked excellent and the flowers were quite beautiful. The art on the other hand all looked to be quite similar and in some cases the same drawings (or copies) existed in each stall. In fact it was clear after walking through Prague that there is a particular piece of art that most vendors sell. It is a black and white drawing looking down Charles Bridge with a light amount of fog with a couple using a red umbrella.

As has become tradition we had to make our way to a cafe to try the local coffee. The prior night we had settled on Tricafe after looking up a few places. It's situated just south of the Charles Bridge by the waterfront. If there was any easy way to describe the cafe it would be hipster. The entrance has a love couch with a tv tray and small two top table. The counter has an espresso machine and a bunch of cakes, which they are known for. The second room had a small couch and rocking chair along with two tables and a small bookshelf. The cakes were very good and everyone enjoyed their drinks.

After leaving Tricafe we made our way across Charles Bridge and over to the Lennon Wall. The wall is a block long and covered with different saying, drawings and scribblings. The wall began in the late 80's and even with a couple attempts to paint over it, the next day it was again filled with drawings. The biggest problem with art like the Lennon Wall being popular is that there are people taking photographs with sections of the wall at all times and it makes it hard to really see what is written.

As it was getting later we only had a few other places to get to before lunch. We walked over to Wallenstein Palace and meandered through the gardens. At the pond in the back of the gardens we came across a white peacock being bugged by tourists. The peacock was surprisingly calm with all of the different tour groups stomping by.

A white peacock perfectly placed before the fountain in the gardens behind Wallenstein Palace.

After readings about the Golden Lane and seeing as we were just below its location, we began to trudge our way up the steep stairs to the south end of Prague Castle where it is located. Unfortunately for us, in order to gain access to the Golden Lane you are required to pay and we are not going to pay to walk down a street. Instead we made our way back down the stairs and back to Old Town for lunch.

From here we had done most of what was possible for the day and decided that since we had been so busy, a couple hours of peace before dinner made the most sense and that we could pick it back up tomorrow on our last day in Prague.

There is always something interesting to see among the old beautiful architecture in Old Town.

We made a stop at the market, meandered through the large mall and stopped to look at Czech books at a bookstore. From there we put our things back at the apartment and went off the dinner at Lokal. Now we are ready to finish up in Prague and get on to Berlin.

Distance walked: 9 miles