Wednesday 

Wednesday 3rd December 2025

Prague

Another fitful sleep, but welcomed by a crisp 2 degree day in Prague which would be one of walking , walking and more walking. 

Felt a bit spoilt to walk out the back door and walk onto one of the most famous bridges in the world to start the day. 

First mission was to head to the Clementine to get our tickets for the tower and library. At 845, even before the ticket office opened a couple of hundred people had beaten us to the gun.

After a chilly hour’s wait we managed to secure some of the last tickets for 330pm session.

Then headed off to drop clothes  at laundry and could only contemplate a mulled wine at that time of the morning. The lady sure has developed a niche business and at least 3 others were there when doors opened. For those that washed and waited she had a 1960 tv to ponder, below her 60cm version. Makes you wonder what the younger folk would have made of it at 30 odd cm’s.

Headed off along the river on what to be a day of statues grabbing the attention.The bank was littered with statues of all sorts including the David Cerny one outside the Kampa museum of the babies. He is one hell of an artist, even though the teacher trying to explain it to a gang of wide eyed little kids seemed to be having a time convincing them of that.

Found the John Lennon Peace Wall where it was a line up to get a picture. The little gallery in the adjacent Museum had an interesting array on display, including a whole Fu..ing set of ceramic crockery.

We may also have found Magic Johnson’s ideal Xmas present – a crystal badketball ring.

Headed off over yet another bridge to see the contentious Dancing Building which divided opinions when an historic building was demolished to make way for its construction- think someone was trying to out do Mr Cerny with its architecture.

Speaking of Cerny his next work, the Spinning Head was absolutely amazing. It was an image of Kafka in silver tiles that rotated like a Rubik’s Cube dissembling and reassembling itself every 90 degrees on the quarter hour. Words don’t do it justice.

Headed up to Wenceslaus Square in hope of getting tickets to the Cold War Bunker Museum.

Plumb in the middle of the walkway was an ice skating rink full of skaters of varying degrees of ability.

Grabbed one of those Chips On a Stick things on the way, before arriving at hotel to find there were no tickets available.  With a tour in 10 minutes we decided to sit around in case there was a cancellation and as luck would have it 2 dropped out and we were away with a wise cracking uniformed guide 20 metres below ground level.

Built to accommodate 150 it had everything from operating theatres to communications centres. In the Cold War days anybody in a hotel room was unaware they were being monitored in bugged rooms. Not sure if it was fact or fiction but Russia had nuclear capability in Czechoslavakia in 150 monitored different sites across the country.

The Czechia economy apparently survivesd on Skoda and a healthy, if that word can be used, weapons industry in those times.

Back above ground, it was a quick sandwich and off to our tour at the Clementine. No line up this time we headed straight in ready to tackle the 178 steps over 5 stories to get to the top of the tower.

A really great guide took us through the history of the Barique Librsry which houses 27500 books spread over 2 levels. Given it was built by the Jesuits level 1 was all about theology. The mathematicians, astronomers and historians were on the next level, along with the promiscuous books that remained despite decrees from various Pope’s to destroy them.

Fresco’s from 13th century adorned the ceiling including one off a man with donkey ears to depict those considered illiterate.

Scaling the narrow wooden staircases and metal spiral staircases to the floors covering work done by astronomers was worthwhile.

The simplicity of their equipment and plain ingenuity to achieve remarkable outcomes was amazing.

Atop the tower and outside we got a post sunset panoramic look of Prague before carefully negotiating the stairs to head off to the laundry, via the Charles Bridge and an up close and personal look at the lamplighter.

Collected laundry and retraced our steps across a less crowded bridge to plonk in a small bar to exhaust our remaining Czechia cash reserves before heading into our hotel for dinner.

Learned our lesson from last visit and shared a pork knuckle before heading upstairs to pack and ready ourselves for the 500am taxi to the airport to head to Riga on a two hop flight through Vienna.