Orientation Walk - Prague Hill, Short Castle Visit, and Supermarket Shopping

Waking up in a new city is always exciting.

Not that I was awake early for that reason — I'm still just waking up very early. Well before 6am this morning.

We like to start off a visit to a new place with a walk to orient ourselves. This morning, we thought it would be useful to gain some height for a view over the city. Our apartment is very close to two good options for that — Petřín Hill and Prague Castle.

The Seminary Gardens is a large, tree-filled park on top of Petřín Hill. Prague Castle is a historic royal residence sitting on another hill beside the gardens. Sarah suggested the gardens hill might be a good option based on things she had read online. The Seminary Gardens are 17 hectares in size, but being spread across a big hill made the area feel even larger.

We had only gone up the hill a short way before we got a bit of a view toward the Old Town area. The Old Town is on the other side of the river from where we're staying. Looking up the hill, I could see lots of trees, so I was dubious that we’d find any decent views up there. The hill was pretty steep too, so it was great that the temperature was only 12°C. It was forecast to rise to 27°C later in the day. The uphill walk was a mixture of sealed paths plus a few steps thrown in.

At the top of the hill, we reached the Petřín Tower, which would definitely offer good views. It’s a 63-metre-tall steel-framed tower. It costs about $20 NZD to climb, and we figured the view into the morning sun wouldn’t be ideal, so we saved our cash. Surely we’ll find a free viewing spot in the gardens eventually?

We checked out the rose garden and other sections, along with an observatory building, a funicular (currently closed for maintenance), and a lovely church called St. Lawrence Cathedral. There was a large wall surrounding the area, which Sarah now tells me is called the Hunger Wall — it was built to protect the city around 1360. Apparently, there are over 12,000 rose bushes in the gardens. We didn’t see that many, but we did see a lot and commented that it must take a huge team to prune them all. There were also many fruit trees scattered across the hill.

Checking the map, we saw a marked viewpoint on the Prague Castle side of the gardens, so we stayed heading that way. However, the maps aren’t easy to translate and plot onto the Google Maps we’re using to navigate. The nature of being on a hill also makes it tricky to know if you’ll end up going down and then having to climb back up again to reach certain points.

So many steps! Lots and lots of steps — which started taking us down the hill. Hmmm… that means we’ll have to walk back up again soon. Checking the map again, we had somehow overshot the marked viewpoint. But we saw another interesting-looking building up the hill that might offer a view. It turned out to be the Strahov Monastery. It wasn’t marked on our map as a place to visit, but it’s a lovely building with grapevines growing around it and a nice view. Definitely worth the detour.

From there, we lost some altitude heading down toward the city, but stayed close to Castle Hill. Then we climbed a road on our left up to the castle. There were two guards stationed out front in full uniform. They must get uncomfortable as the day gets warmer. The castle was originally built for the royals but is now the residence and workplace of the country’s president.

Outside the castle, there’s a large square and a newly built National Gallery building, along with other impressive buildings. Just behind what we thought was the castle (but turned out to be just the gates) are the actual castle buildings and grounds, including an amazing cathedral — St. Vitus Cathedral, which is massive. It was approaching 10am when we arrived, so the inner courtyard where the cathedral sits was very busy with tourists. There’s even more to see in the grounds and gardens, so after taking a few photos, we decided we’d make an early morning return trip when it’s not so crowded. We hope.

We took a very long and steep set of stairs back down the hill. We think they’re called Zámecké schody. There were lots of people huffing and puffing walking up them — so that’ll be fun when we return.

The stairs end in a medieval-style road that then turns and comes out near St. Nicholas Church, which is right beside our apartment. We continued past there a few hundred metres to a fee-free ATM and a small supermarket to get bread and some pastries for morning tea — which became lunch. We now have 5,000 Korunas in cash (less our purchases), which will be handy. That’s about $400 NZD.

Back at the apartment, we sat on the balcony to enjoy our pastries and coffee. Both pastries were filled with chocolate — pain au chocolat, but two different varieties, which we cut in half to try both. These, plus a few slices of fresh bread with butter, were enough that I didn’t need any lunch, and Sarah just had the pastries.

After some rest until almost 3pm, we walked to the larger supermarket we’d found on the map. We were heading to a Lidl, but came across a Tesco Hypermarket just before it and shopped there instead. It had a great selection of products at good prices. The prices would have been even better if we’d been able to join the Tesco Clubcard scheme — but you need a Czech phone number for that.

The day's maximum temperature of 27°C had been reached just in time for our return walk, with our little packs filled with groceries. The morning walk was just over 8km, and the supermarket trip added another 5.5km. After we cooled off a bit, we went downstairs for a beer. We both had the local Budvar brand beer on tap — a normal lager for Sarah and a slightly more bitter one for me. Two 400ml beers only cost 124 CZK, or $9.96 NZD. That’s very cheap for a beer in a pub. I’m sure Paul, my father-in-law, would agree with me when I say, “The more you drink, the more you save!” 😄

We didn’t save much — only had one — but we’ll likely have another tomorrow.

Dinner was then cooked: chicken with a mystery Czech spice mix, Chinese-style noodles that just needed hot water added, and a nice lettuce salad.

After dinner I had a coffee while Sarah enjoyed her first glass of red wine in over 2 months. We found a bottle of French wine in the supermarket that was only $6! The surprise was that it actually tasted quite nice.