Prague // Day 3 – Stairs, castles and monasteries

Today, we finally had a proper plan. We were all like, we know our mission, we know what we have to do, we got this. Well, we didn’t.

To start it this great story, the weather was just pure heaven. Clear blue sky, sunny and about 15 degrees celsius in Prague, at Boxing Day. We were lucky. Our plan was to hike towards the Moldau river on the west side of the city centre, which didn’t work out. We ended up at the church of Ignáce. We walked in and were just bewildered by everything. Our voices went silent and we just ‘enjoyed’ the moment in this amazing church. We started looking around and couldn’t get enough of every small detail we were able to find.

We were there for quite a while, after a few minutes of silence I walked up towards a woman who was part of the church and she told me that the church has been in it’s original state (no renovation!) for atleast the last 400 years!

Kostel svatého ignáce.

After we crossed the Moldau river we went on and followed our ‘planned path’ towards the big wall and the park (sady) area. We started to climb the stairs and right after we set foot on the first pair of stairs, my mother told me she got tired and had to stop every few steps. I laughed my ass off to be completely honest haha, we were climbing those stairs laughing, eating oranges and enjoying the sun! A while later we reached the top and got one of the best views we have had this trip.

The stairs towards the Stefanik Observatory, which ‘didn’t end’ if you would ask Esther haha.

We walked on and stumbled upon some sort of big telescope which was pointed towards space (The Stefánik Observatory). This was a really cool thing too see, while eating a self made sandwich with Dutch cheese and some French Alps water..

The plan was to reach the castle and get a look at everything that crossed our path. We did. Soon, we reached the gorgeous Strahov Monastery. We bought (for the FIRST time this trip) some tickets to have a good look inside, and it was worth every penny. (It costed us around 240 Czech Crowns, or around 9 Euro’s for two grown-ups).

We had a look inside and were stunned by the beautifull looking ancient rooms and the gardens inside the monastery. We were lucky because we were almost alone in the monastery (not sure why) and had a relaxing walk through every room we were able to enter, and some we we weren’t but just did because we are rebelious. While we carefully and silently entered some rooms, we got across one room which was called the Dining Room. A room where they had dinner (no shit sherlock) and dated back to the 1600’s. The one thing we noticed about this room, apart from the amazing ceiling which was painted by master painters, was the echoness from the room. If you would just snap your fingers, you would be able to hear the echo for more then 3 seconds straight, it was very majestic to hear!

The original plan was to walk west towards the hills, and from there on out follow north to the Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle). When we got to the castle, which is the biggest ancient castle in the world (if you believe the Guinness Book of Records) and the longest with its 570 meters. I still have to break hearts here. After doing some research, the Guinness Book of Records is wrong since 2006, due to the fact that the Malbork Castle in Poland is over twice the size of Prazsky Hrad.

Prazsky Castle (Prague Castle) looking over the city of Prague.

We went in and were just stunned by the looks of it and how gorgeous it looked over the city of Prague. We got luck on our side because the weather was great and the sun was shining upon the castle at the time we reached it, which gave me the opportunity to make a few good looking pictures!

Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle) in her full glory.

When we got out (it was a mayhem of people) we started walking quite fast towards the city town centre because the sun was about to set and we were pretty tired after a long day of hiking the hills and the city with a few short stops. We walked over the Manesúv most bridge looking over the Charles bridge while the sun was setting. When the sun set, we didn’t take the time to stop anywhere else, we made a plan, got it done and were satisfied about this great day. Tommorow will be our last, long day too see the old Jewish area of Prague and start packing our stuff for a late flight.

Oh, and while walking downhill through the parks we saw the squirrel again (you know, the one from yesterday, searching for his nuts). He told us he started dating and found his nuts in the evening. He got em and we are pretty sure he will be using them any time soon.

Today was a good day.

-Joel

Looking over the famous Charles bridge while the sun was setting gave me a warm feeling. We got what we wanted and were suprised by the outcome of it all. Lots of swans tho.