Mom and I decided to start our morning by wandering through the less touristy areas and taking a break from the crowds. Since it was Saturday, the less central areas were rather quiet, and the morning turned into a nice stroll through parks and beautiful, serene streets.
Mom and I intended to head towards the castle district, but I got us a bit (or maybe very) lost (I take full responsibility), and we ended walking quite a distance in the totally opposite direction of where I meant to direct us (whoops...). We stopped to regroup and break for lunch, and then we were back on track and headed towards Prague's castle. After a good deal more walking in the correct direction, we reached the start of the caste district, and discovered that reaching the castle quarter involved a steep climb. We huffed and puffed our way up the hill, but stopped to reward the brilliant opportunity identification of the beer cart operating at the climb's half-way point. We finished the climb with beers in hand, and found the views at the top to be spectacular.
The castle district was busy with tourists. We skipped the formal tours to simply admire the castle ground's variety of architectural styles, and we also made a quick tour into the Loretta Church.
After our brief sightseeing we headed back down the hill, and decided to take an hour-long boat ride around Prague's main canal. The tour had absolutely no educational value, but the recorded woman's voice that slowly explained the passing landmarks in 6 languages was incredibly soothing. By the end of our relaxing ride, the heavy day of walking followed by the hypnotizing voice had Mom and I well on our way to travel comas. We had to snap out of it to finish the walk back to our hotel, where we took a short break before heading downstairs to our hotel's restaurant (we were done walking anywhere else).
Views of Prague from the boat ride:
Mom and I ordered the brewery's house beers and an order of drunken plums (soaked in beer and honey, wrapped with bacon) to start, both of which were excellent. Then, I am 95% certain we ordered a duck special to share...but what we ended up with was clearly the entire leg of a pig. Once we tried the hunk of roasted meat, however, we didn't really care if we had ordered it or not because it was soooo delicious. After walking through half the city of Prague, we were both very hungry and we *destroyed* that wonderful display of Czech cuisine. We only felt disappointed that Lily the Black Lab was not there to finish off what we could not manage ourselves. Hopefully, the restaurant has a pack of dogs it makes very happy every evening after closing.
We didn't last long after our wonderful last dinner in Prague, and got to bed early to rest up for our next stop, Amsterdam. I most certainly hope to be back in Prague soon, but I am looking forward to a break from its insane crowds. Back to Amsterdam.
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