We didn’t really have any grand plans for today, just wanted to walk around the old town and castle area. After all of the walking so far on this trip and with the near solid cobblestones in Prague, my bad foot slowed us down a bit. Not the end of the world, since we weren’t in a hurry to begin with.

First thing in the morning we did some shopping. We were on a mission for a local children’s book for our soon-to-be-born granddaughter. A friend of mine gave us the idea of buying books of local stories, translated into English. They can be quite hard to find…but I had scoped out a bookstore online that looked like it might have what we wanted. They had one English book of Czech fairy tales and we were on our way, feeling accomplished.

Charles Bridge

We then went over to the Prague Castle. This is on the other side of the Vtlava River and up on top of Castle Hill (cleverly named). The castle has been on this location since the late 9th century and it’s the largest ancient castle in the world. There are 4 churches on the castle grounds, including St Vitus Cathedral. The castle is the official office for the President of the Czech Republic. We walked around the grounds but decided not to pay to go into the castle or cathedral as we had done all of that before.

Prague Castle

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral

Painted building in the castle complex

From there we walked down to St Nicholas Church, which is down the hill from the castle. The current church building is a Baroque style church that was built in the late 1600s, but a church has been on this site since at least the 1200s. The church’s tower has a very dramatic copper cupola that was added in the mid 1700s. One interesting thing about this church is that the communists used the tower as an observatory to spy on the American and Yugoslavian embassies during the Cold War.

St Nicholas Church

Inside the dome

Pulpit

Random building

Looking back over the river from the castle side

We made our way back across the river and went into the Church of Our Lady Before Týn. They won’t allow pictures in there and the hall monitor was very serious today so I didn’t sneak any.

Later we had dinner in a docked boat restaurant on the Vtlava River looking out at the castle. It was very nice. Our plan was to stay and take pictures of the castle at sunset and when they had it all lit up as it got dark. Our plans were foiled by pop up thunderstorms.

Castle at sunset

These had not been predicted (we had actually checked the weather forecasts) and consisted of a couple of cells that were just over our area. We were still near the restaurant so we took cover there until it cleared up…or so we thought. We decided to start back but Paul noticed another dark cloud appearing so he checked the radar. Sure enough, another new cell. Keep in mind that I have 2 large cameras and no umbrella, so it’s not like we can go strolling in a downpour. Also, we are a 25 minute walk from our hotel at my not-so-good foot speed, especially on wet cobblestones. I literally took cover in a doorway while Paul ordered a taxi through Taxify (again, we recommend this service!). Our hotel is in a pedestrian area of Prague, so they could get us a few blocks away. It was a bit of a comedy, but we would go from doorway to overhang to doorway between lulls in the downpour. We managed to make it back pretty dry and with completely dry cameras.