Prague 11/30/07: Making Our Way To Prague Castle

Hotel Juno's breakfast was an all-you-can-eat processed-food fest. Lots of questionable ham salad, potato salad, cabbage, shredded carrots, soggy dumplings, dry cakes, yogurt, granola, fruit, coffee with hot milk (yum), cheese and cold cuts. We always eat as much as possible in these situations, and the first morning I was delighted because we'd expected continental breakfast only. But by the last day of our stay, I was heartily sick of the plentiful-but-gross food. Bad pop music and the dead animal heads on the walls didn't help. Wooden rafters and paintings of saints on the walls, possibly reclaimed from a deconsecrated church, were interesting.

Today's mission was to find a good bike route into the historic center of town. We used the vague bike map from the Prague biking website. The map has no labeled streets! It's just an aerial map with lines on it.

With much futzing around, we found our way to this park on a high hill with a huge monument on it.

We had a hell of a time finding out how to get across railroad tracks that obstructed our way to the next bit of riding, but an English-speaking passerby told us to go downhill to the left of the monument; at the bottom, there is a pedestrian tunnel underlying the park that leads onto the next part of the bike route. The ancient tunnel is cobblestoned, long and downhill. Make sure you strap everything securely onto your bike! It was cool! I've never seen anything like it. (Note: Everyone says that all Czechs speak English, but it is not true. Thank you, Pimsleur Audio language cassettes, for teaching me essential Czech! Which I will promptly forget.)

We popped out onto roads that led us to a steep hill that led up to Letenske Park. Here were stunning views of old Prague.


























We discovered gorgeous Hanavsky Pavilion restaurant (very expensive) with a great view of the city.

Also in that park:
We rolled past the Royal Garden, which was closed for the season, and arrived at the tourist mecca of Prague Castle. We parked our bikes (double locked with Kryptonite U-lock and Kryptonite cable lock around the wheels; we'd been warned several times that our bikes would get stolen) and went to the entrance's cafe for coffee and cake. Here's the lovely cafe:


After snacking, we rode our bikes into the courtyard, which we later found out was illegal. A very nice Czech photographer, Ivan Maly, informed us of this, and he also happened to know exactly what make and model our bikes were. He himself is the owner of a folding Dahon bike. It was nice to meet a friendly, English-speaking bike enthusiast. See his website at www.ivanmaly.cz.

Even though there was much to see in Prague Castle (Hradcany), this was the only day, supposedly, where there would be no rain, so we decided to keep biking down the left bank of the Vltava River.





We biked down from the high hills to the city and stopped at a pizza place on the river. I liked the hanging putti from the ceiling.
We continued our bike ride as the light failed.
It was lovely.