Wander More Work Less

Well, we did shut the windows! At 3 a.m. Sarah woke me up because she couldn’t sleep due to the noise from the bars downstairs. At least for me it had been an OK night up until then. It was hot when I woke at 6 a.m., but not too bad. It was quite a pleasant temperature outside when we set off to explore the city. We walked to the market square first and then into the courtyard of the Old Town Hall. Hanging there is a crocodile that is apparently the “Brno Dragon.” Looks more like a crocodile to us. The history of the dragon/crocodile is steeped in mystery. Our next stop was the start of a walking circuit around the old city walls and fortifications. There was a geocache that highlighted this, but Sarah had also read about it and added it to our Google Map. The city is famous for the fact that in 1645, 1,000 soldiers and 2,000 citizens defended the city from an invading Swedish army of 28,000 soldiers. That’s a very impressive defensive effort, so we assume the walls were in...

Well, that was the night from hell!!! So bloody hot. I woke up at 1:30 am feeling like I’d just run a marathon—or like I was sleeping in a rainforest. 🥵🥵🥵 We had shut the windows, fearing mosquitoes after Sarah’s previous encounter with them back in Corfu. We had insect repellent on, though, so I took the risk and opened all the windows. That, of course, let in the noise from the bars downstairs, but the earplugs helped with that. It was slightly better with the windows open. 🥵🥵 We woke to a much cooler apartment, but I’m pretty sure it won’t last long. The forecast is for 34 degrees today! After a quick breakfast, we headed out for a short walk around the inner city to get our bearings. Now might be a good time to tell you why we’re even in the city of Brno—a place you’ve likely never heard of. Why? 🤔 Well, we had heard of it, but only recently, just before this trip. At that point, we didn’t even think we’d be visiting the Czech Republic. When Plan B was formed, there was anoth...

This morning I went out early for one last walk around town and to track down the Adventure Lab geocache that we solved the final coordinates for yesterday. It turned out to be a great viewpoint overlooking the city that we had not been to previously. It also happened to be only 200 m away from our bus departure spot, so I carried on there to suss things out for later. Sarah was just about up when I got back at 7:15 am. We had breakfast and then caught up with Kate and Emma on WhatsApp. They seem to be doing well without us—other than some basic habits they are trying to teach Precious (I mean Sammy). 😂 At 9:50 am it was time to check out and find somewhere shady to sit and chill for a bit. We went to a garden overlooking town that we had visited a couple of times before. We knew it had seats and shady trees, and it was on the way to the bus. We found a seat in the shade and sat down to read for a couple of hours. Just before midday we continued our walk to the bus stop an...

A later start today, as the museum and tower entry doesn’t open until 9 a.m. The plan was to be there first thing to avoid the crowds. On the way, we passed a geocache that we couldn’t look for yesterday due to there being too many people. Much easier this morning — we had the place to ourselves. There were only two people ahead of us on the way up the 162 steps of the tower. The staircase gets narrower the higher you climb. We didn’t bother counting the steps. Partway up was a dungeon — or so the sign said. It was just a small side room with steps leading down, but the way was blocked off. Near the top was a large bell that would be deafening if it rang, as it’s so close to you. We emerged onto the viewing platform, which circled the tower. You can walk around about 90% of it, giving you sweeping 360-degree views of the city and surrounding area. After enjoying the views, we descended to the bottom and headed into the museum. I’m not usually into mu...

An early morning walk was today's plan to avoid the tourist crowds. We started by climbing up to the Cloak Bridge, which is beside the Český Krumlov Castle. We can see part of it from our small kitchen window. The approach from underneath is certainly impressive. The climb up was not too hard, meandering our way along the walkway from behind the section we could initially see. The bridge derives its name from the fortifications that once protected the western side of the castle. More info on its history can be read here:  Cloak Bridge The views of Český Krumlov from the bridge and from the terrace by the 5th Courtyard are excellent, and access is completely free. Tomorrow we intend to pay to visit the museum and the tower, and we’re considering whether we should also pay to go inside the castle. They are separate tickets. Crossing the bridge takes you into further castle courtyards, where there is one small balcony that looks out over...

An 8 a.m. departure from the apartment to Prague’s Main Train Station. The tram runs from just around the corner and travels to within 200 m of the station—just a short walk through a park. The old historic station isn’t visible from where we entered, but once inside we see a sign for it, and that’s where you actually board the trains. That part of the station is two levels up. The station is bigger than I was expecting—or maybe it’s just what you’d expect for a capital city. For some reason, I was picturing the Budapest station we used, which was quite small. We have an hour to wait for our train—enough time for a coffee and a short sit-down. There are seven boarding platforms and an underground tunnel to access them all. We head to the seventh platform on the far side for our train to Český Krumlov. The train pulls away right on time at exactly 9:20 a.m. It’s equally as nice as the one we took to Ljubljana. It gets along quite quickly and is super smooth—none ...

It’s our last day in Prague. We’ve had enough time to visit the main sights and get a good feel for the city. It’s been very enjoyable, though a bit tiring with all our walking. You could easily spend more time here if you had the budget to visit more of the attractions and museums. We thought we’d have a quiet day today with not much walking. After breakfast, I asked Sarah what we should do, and she suggested we go for a walk! I added to that idea that we could find a few geocaches to see where they took us. She thought that sounded good. The twist in my plan was that she would handle the GPS and navigation from spot to spot—something I normally do all of. She agreed, with the caveat that if she got us lost or tired of it, I’d take over. No problem. We set off, doing a mix of virtual caches—where you just answer questions or take photos—and physical caches, where you actually search for a small box. The physical ones are always a bit more fun, in my opinion. We visited a combination o...