Up late and off to breakfast. The Hotel Leonardo package included breakfast in the basement, may sound a bit strange but in reality it was great. No “continental” breakfast at the Leonardo, the meal included meat, eggs, breads, cheeses and several types of coffee.
After having a relaxing meal we visited the front desk to store our bags for the day and arrange a taxi for the afternoon trip to the train station.
Ok so off to the Castle… The walk to the castle was predominantly uphill through old shopping districts and past several cathedrals. This was good since we had indulged at breakfast and would only get in 20,000 steps since out train left at 6.30.
Once we arrived at the castle we purchased the “short tour” package which included four buildings on the castles grounds. The short tour, self-guided, still took about 90 minutes and we were moving fairly fast. The buildings included the Old Royal Palace, Basilica of St. George, Golden Lane, and St. Vitus Cathedral. It is always amazing to see these huge structures built before heavy machinery, I would have hated to have been one of the “voluntary” builders.
After the castle we headed back downhill toward the Henry bridge and to old town for a final bout of shopping. On the way we stopped at a restaurant for a traditional Czech meal, lots of cabbage, meat and bread dumplings. I must say once more it is a good thing we are averaging 10 miles of waking a day since we are eating at every turn. Allow me to recap, since we got to Prague, we have had waffles with chocolate, traditional funnel cake, melted chocolate drink, marzipan, elaborate Sundays, and those are the ones I can remember or will admit too.
Once we ate, and shopped, we headed back to the hotel to catch our car to the train station. One thing I should mention, when we got to Prague the first cab wanted 580 CZK, the taxi we ended up taking was 400 CZK, the private car the hotel arranged was 350CZK. Bottom line – it is probably best to let the hotel do the car arrangements 😉
At the train station Morgan bought a new toothbrush, since I dropped hers on the floor in a public place. We bought food for the night train since there is no dinning car. There is room service from a limited menu but getting your own food seems to be cheaper and of course provides a much better selection.
Aboard the train and packed away for the 14 hour trip we will sign off till tomorrow when we arrive in Geneva.