Wander More Work Less

A 7 a.m. start to our walk up the steps to Prague Castle this morning — the objective being to see the buildings without thousands of people crowding around them. The streets were very quiet, and the steps had only a few other people on them. Some had clearly had the same idea as us, I suspect. It was a nice cool morning and overcast, perfect for the ascent. Sure enough, the square outside the Castle was deserted. St. Vitus Cathedral is so big it’s hard to photograph, but we did our best. I suggested to Sarah that she stand in front of it to provide some scale, but I could hardly see her at all. We swapped roles in the hope that my bright orange shirt would stand out more. See if you can spot Sarah in the pic below. 😂 Next on our short tour was St. George’s Basilica and a view of the back of the Cathedral. The basilica is tiny in comparison and much more simply decorated. We thought there were royal gardens off to the side here that we’d...

Breakfast out of the way, we headed out to explore the Prague Old Town area. It’s on the other side of the Vltava River. Apparently, we are staying in an area called Lesser Town. You wouldn't think so based on the cost of the apartment and the prices on the menus downstairs. To cross the river, we used the Charles Bridge. Its construction started in 1357—nothing to do with the English King Charles. The bridge is lined with very intricate statues, presumably of Charles and other religious figures. The statues were all named, but we were more interested in taking in the views of the city and the bridge in general. On the opposite side, there are a number of museum buildings, and this is where the walk into the Old Town area begins. I noticed a few other museums as we walked around today, but looking at the map, there are many—and quite a variety, too. These include the Beer Museum (saw that one in passing), Banksy Museum, Story of Prague Museum, Sex Machines Museum (I’m n...

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 t...

Breakfast on the balcony, watching the sunrise here one last time. Our bags were mostly packed last night. Sarah has finally organised hers well enough to fit her shoes in easily. We need to check out by 10:30 am this morning, which leaves plenty of time for one last swim in the pool and some more book reading. There’s a bus at 10:40 am, which we opt for. We head into town and find a nice café with great air-conditioning right near the bus stop to the airport. A late morning tea and then lunch means we can hang out here for a couple of hours before heading to the airport. At 1:30 pm, we catch the bus to the airport. It’s a fairly short 20-minute trip. We’re already checked in, so we go straight to the security check, which takes a while to get through. I get pulled aside for an extra check—probably because my belt set off the metal detector. I was slightly worried by the fact they had their rubber gloves on! 😮 But it was just an extra explosives test, and then I was allowe...

Not much to write about today. Another morning of watching the sunrise while eating my breakfast on the balcony. I could probably handle a few more days of this before I get bored with it. Once the pool opened at 9am, we both relocated there to swim and read. We only went back up for snacks and coffee. We’re slowly trying to eat our way through the excess groceries — we somehow over-catered for these four days. Lunch was the remaining pork steaks, sliced up with lettuce and capsicum inside pita bread. The afternoon continued in the same vein, though I also spent a bit of time on the laptop in the apartment. Dinner was a hodgepodge of leftover items: luncheon, ham, lettuce, capsicum, and bread. It’s moving day tomorrow — but a late one — so hopefully we can squeeze in one more swim. 🤞

Another sunrise for me and a nice sleep-in for Sarah. I sat on the balcony eating breakfast and watching it come up. Beautiful. We spent the morning swimming in the pool and reading books while lying in the shade on the lounge chairs. We'll likely do the same again tomorrow, assuming the weather is the same. After lunch, we focused on firming up plans for the next four weeks. We're not booking the apartments just yet, but we're shortlisting the likely candidates and figuring out the route to take. Just before 4 p.m., we needed to head into Benitses, as we needed more water and wanted to have a bit more of a look around. The bus was running late, so we stood and waited beside the road for 25 minutes longer than expected. It was a hot wait. 🥵 We wandered through the Benitses old village area, which was just a couple of streets with older houses, a church, and a few alleyways. We also went to see the Roman Baths, but there wasn’t much to see—just old ruins that co...

Back on the bus at sunrise again! This time we went to the last stop in Corfu Town. It wasn’t right in the middle of town, so we still had a 10-minute walk down to Spianada Square (Πλατεία Σπιανάδα) and the Old Fortress area. We had debated on the bus whether we were prepared to spend €10 each to visit the Old Fortress. I wasn’t listening, as usual, and thought there was a fee for each thing—fortress, church, museum, etc. But once we saw the huge rocky hill with the old walls and buildings on top, it looked worth the money. Then I found out it covered entry to everything. Awesome! Apparently, until this year it was only €5 each, so they’ve certainly hiked the price. We walked in across the stone bridge and through the main tunnel gate. The structure from outside is impressive and gets even better once inside. We checked out the mosaics in the little museum first and then started climbing. It was just after 8 a.m., and it had literally just opened—we had the whole place to ourselves. By...