Olomouc Day 2 - River Walk, Botanical Gardens, and St Wenceslas Cathedral

This morning, after Sarah had a catch up with Emma on WhatsApp, we headed out around 8:30am, and the temperature was quite cool—only 12 degrees! The high was forecast to be just 22, which made it perfect for walking. Sarah had a specific destination in mind.

We first went to the main square and then wandered a couple of streets over to find some sculptures. They were outside a café that now seems to be closed. The sculptures are a bit unusual: one hanging off the top of the building looks like Predator from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, while the other looks like a cross between Alien and a pelican. (Pic below.)

From there we walked down to a city park that follows a small river. Across the river were the botanical gardens, which were large and quite pretty. Eventually, we crossed back over and headed up through a city wall gate that brought us out at the university buildings we had visited yesterday.

Our next stop was Saint Wenceslas Cathedral, which is very impressive from the outside. A large service was starting, so we didn’t go inside. Next door is the museum and the Olomouc Castle, which requires paid entry. We had thought we could enjoy the castle grounds for free, but it turned out they weren’t accessible, and the castle building itself wasn’t very remarkable. Later, after some Googling, we discovered that what we thought was the castle (which we had seen from the tower in town) was actually a monastery located much further out.

Back in the city centre, we popped into St. Maurice Church to see the inside. Afterwards, we headed to the nearby mall in search of solid shampoo bars (not liquid)—which we finally found! We’ve been looking for those for two weeks now. Don’t worry though, we weren’t completely out of shampoo yet. 😉

We returned to the apartment for a late-morning coffee and then lunch. Later in the afternoon, we took another walk around the nearby residential areas, finding a few geocaches along the way. The loop ended at Lidl, where we picked up some chicken and more of that special spice mix for dinner.