Day 16 - Prague - Castle

---

Mosaic House is a very nice hostel which is well worth the slightly higher than average costs for a 4 bed en-suite (a bargain at about €35pppn), it's very modern, has great bathrooms and has a good vibe to it. It's clearly been recently renovated and they have probably spent a fair bit of money doing so. They should have pushed the boat out just a little further and sprung for soft close doors! It sounded like a building site outside our room this morning thanks to the hallway door slamming off its hinges ever 30 seconds! Apparently our hungover roomies didn't mind as he were still soundos, so we showered and packed up quietly and popped down stairs for another decent brekkie. We also, finnaly, got around to booking an AirBnB place for Barcelona where Jon and Katie (Uni friends) will be joining us for the weekend. We then ditched our bags in (the woreds most infuriating) lockers and headed out to the Hrad, aka Prague Castle.

The sun was shining hard today and it was scorchio! This wasn't ideal weather for trekking up the large hill to the castle, but we managed, just with a drink stop and some VERY sweaty pit stains by the end. We also heard a 2 minute air siren go off at the castle which later research tells us is a monthly test of the Czech fire service emergency warning service.

We managed to catch some of the changing of the guard ceremony before joining a large queue for the security check. This was followed by an equally long line for tickets, that was until I spotted a second ticket office which stated 'Priority for Groups and Guides', as there were none of these in sight we capitalised and got our tickets immediately. We opted for circuit B which took us round St. Vitus Cathedral, the Royal Palace, St. George's Crypt and Golden Lane (a series of medieval shops and armoires etc. We finished the castle trip with some pictures from a vantage point and headed back down to street level.



We caught a tram back towards Petrin Hill to try out a place called Café Lounge, recommended by Lonely Planet, for lunch. Again, it was a good recommendation, especially for a coffee lover like myself. The food was also good, I opted for Parma ham, tomato and chilli spaghetti. We finished up and, after I'd grabbed an 'artistic' photo of an old tram, walked back across to the shopping centre via old town and with a stop off for a 'Trdelnik', a cyclindrical pastry which are everywhere but are not traditional at all, it's just a tourist trap. They are however delicious, especially filled with ice cream!

We did a bit of shopping then returned to the hostel around 17:30 and chilled out, wrote some blogs, chargesd devices, played cards and had dinner whilst waiting around for our midnight train tonight on to Vienna. We have two 'chouchettes' in a 4 couchette carriage, hopefully we will be able to get some sleep, thought the large group of Irish guys and gals in our hostel, who we overhear are on the same train, don't fill us with confidence!

---