Day 10: Prague City Highlights (Apr 2017)

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Saturday, 22nd April 2017

Breakfast at the Sovereign Hotel was a sumptuous affair with 3 varieties of sausages, well-cooked veggies, salads and plenty of breads to choose from. From the hotel, we mapped out our walking route to cover most of the Old Town sites on foot. The only place that required public transport was our journey to Petrin Tower via the iconic funicular from Ujezd Station. The Old Town is littered with monuments, private museums and dark towers. We chanced upon Henry's Tower which we thought it was the Powder Tower initially. Anyway, both towers looked rather similar and the Henry's Tower made some nice memories when photographed against the charming red trams that crisscrossed the city.

Very soon, we made our way to the famed Old Town Square where the famous Astronomical Clock and the imposing Church of Our Lady before Týn are located. The streets that lined the Old Town Square are a huge tourist magnet containing lots of shops where we gamely purchased some cheap magnets from EUR1. Everywhere we went around Prague were visitors from around the world even though this was not even the peak summer season. Without lingering any further, we headed to Narodni where we caught a bus and then transferred to a tram to the Petrin Tower located at the opposite bank of the city.

This is a 378m structure that is modelled after the Eiffel Tower in France. We had a choice of either taking the elevator or stairs to the top and we were glad to have chosen the latter for a good workout. This was an easy climb to the top that saved us some $ for lunch. The 360 degrees view of the city was breath-taking and well-worth the efforts to get to it.

In the afternoon, we headed back to Narodni where we had our meals at the Café Louvre. In every city we visited, we made it a point to visit an iconic café. First to Café Museum in Vienna, then to Café Central in Budapest and finally, the Café Louvre in Prague. After our meals, we headed to Charles Bridge which spanned across the Vltava River for some final picture taking opportunities. Like most places in Prague, the bridge was filled with people making their way to and from the Prague Castle.

Our last stop was at the Tesco Express for some souvenir (food) shopping before calling it quits for the evening. This was H's final day in the city before flying home to Singapore the next morning. For myself, I would embark on my solo journey to Switzerland before ending my European encounter in a week's time.

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