Monday 1st October 2018
Well the day started with a lovely run in the brisk (3°) morning at about 6.30am. Unable to stay in bed any longer I headed out for a run in the semi dark. It was amazing to see the old and new town as the sun rose with very few tourists around. Surprisingly there were still a few braving the cold. After running around the Old and New Town for about 50 mins, stopping and starting many times for a quick photo here and there, I headed back to Mum to get ready for our big tour day. The plan was to do the Green Hop On Hop Off tour bus around the city. Mostly on the bus as Mum isn’t up to too much walking. Or so I thought.

We got on our way about 10.15am and started the tour at the Old Town Square and did the Green Line around the close proximity of the city centre seeing the Old Town, Jewish Quarter, and Mala Strana. We got off at St Nicholas Church and then headed to the John Lennon Wall, the Charles Bridge walking across the bridge and back, then back up to St Nicholas Church to wait for the bus again. Unfortunately it started to rain and did so for most of the day. We continued on the green line all the way round via the Dancing House, National Theatre and back to the Old Town Square. We had a shared slice of pizza for lunch and hot chocolate to warm up Mum, as we were a little wet and cold.

Then on to the green line to get us to the red line, unfortunately our connection was not good with a 45min wait at the bus stop in the rain. We thought we would walk as it was only 11 mins  to the Prague Castle but I got it wrong and that was only to the gardens below the castle so we had to walk back again, up a hill, not good.  Anyway, not much choice. It had been better than standing in the rain waiting, I think? Then on to the Castle where we had an informative tour around the outside. Then went in to St Vitas Cathedral at the castle. After this we had a 40min wait for the bus. We decided to walk to Loreta and the Strahov Monastery, another bad decision as it had an uphill bit which is not so good for Mum’s back. Oh well, naughty me again! The walk was only about 20mins but too much and we still had 20 mins to stand around, also not good for Mum’s back, but at least it had stopped raining. We decided to just stay on the bus for the rest of the red line back to our connection point and do another trip around the green line. Bad decision no. 3, as the green line was finished so we had to get off at the top of the New Town and walk all the way down the main street back to the Old Town and home. OOOPPPPSSSS! And no taxis in sight anywhere. We did get to see the Museum and lots of incredible architecture and thankfully it was all down hill. But by now mum was exhausted. We stopped at the markets on the way back and if we had mum’s medication we would have stopped for dinner at 5pm on the way. Too long a day. Unfortunately we hadn’t taken mum’s tablets so we headed home for a long earned rest. Yes, David, I overdid it again. I tried so hard not to, but each of my mistakes were costly. Does this sound familiar Colleen, at least it wasn’t 40°C today.

Mum had a rest whilst I went to check out the dinner option across the road. It was a pub called Lokal and came as a recommendation by our landlord. It was indeed a good spot, but unfortunately I had to stand for an hour waiting for a table, it was to have been about a 15 min wait but by the time I went back to got mum and got back there were more people in front of us waiting on a table. Luckily Mum took up residence on a seat between 2 of the tables. It was interesting standing at the bar people watching. Beer drinking is one of the Czech’s common things to do. Each person consumes approximately 142 litres of beer a year. Lokal serves traditional Czech cuisine and we both had a lovely meal although missing our favourite part (green veges). I had Beer braised pork cheeks with mashed potato with onion and Mum had Chicken breast with mushroom and butter seasoning. We then shared a Czech biscuit topped with whipped cream for dessert, apparently the Czech’s call this a coffin as it has a hole trough the centre. Our neighbours were eating Beef tartar (raw beef) on fried bread, an interesting delicacy.

Oh well it is now 8.30pm and we are headed home after a very long day. Mum had been a champion, hopefully it wasn’t too much for her. After a quick shower she was snoring her little heart out by 9pm.  Lucky we have a rest day tomorrow.

Sorry DB for the number of pics, just enjoy the reminiscing.