We woke up a bit later, close to 8am and had coffee in the room. We then headed out to a restaurant not too far away called “Fat Cat” for a delicious breakfast. We both ordered the same thing, eggs benedict with salmon and an americano coffee. Not a super authentic Czech breakfast, but soooo good.

Stop #1 – The Old Clock Tower

We then headed to the old town square to climb the clock tower, something I had wanted to do in 2009, but I had left my wallet in Canada accidentally. The ticket to climb the clock tower was 350ku each or 450ku to take the elevator. We opted to climb the tower as that’s who we are. 

The first bit of the climb is up wide carpeted stairs, but then you turn and enter the tower proper and the winding up gets steeper and steeper, but the steps turn into a ramp. This is where the glass elevator (like the one out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) takes people up that have chosen not to walk. If you can, I would totally recommend the easy climb. There were windows all along the climb that afford excellent views down to the main square. The last bit of the climb is a small spiral staircase that is too narrow for two way traffic. You can climb this final staircase with a red light green light system that switches back and forth between the descending and the ascending. 

The view from the top is unprecedented! If you only climb one tower in Prague make sure it is this one. 

Every angle is a spectacular view of Prague! You can see so far, all the way to the castle perched on the hill. I’m so glad I finally got to go up this tower, seventeenish years later and well worth it!

Stop #2- Walk Around The Jewish Quarter

After the tower we went to the Jewish Quarter. I wanted to see the old synagogue and the Jewish cemetery, but we were told we had to buy a ticket and get a guide to visit ALL the synagogues at a price of 600ku for the ticket alone…. $40 each. Usually the ticket is valid for two days so you can see the sites over two days, but the ticket was only valid for one day for some reason. We would only have a few hours to see as many sites as we could to justify the ticket cost, so we opted to do a little self guided walking tour of the Jewish quarter instead. I had been inside all of the sites, the Jewish cemetery being particularly memorable with the ancient stones all so close together and pushed around by the tree roots (Side note: the main square in Prague was being fixed up a few years ago and they found out that some of the stones in the walkways of the main square were made from grave stones from old Jewish cemeteries. Yikes!)

Stop #3- Finskoka Tolicky Kostel

We then headed back to the room to regroup before taking a little self guided walking tour to the other side of the city we had not seen yet. We started our little walking tour at a church called “Klaster Dominikana Praha” in the Old town. Everything was gold gilded and utterly gorgeous. Old churches are incredible. They’ve certainly stopped making things this cool in our lifetime! The church might also have been called “Finskoka Tolicky Kostel”… I am unsure. The door handle to the church had a little dog on it. Also there was a little dog, cat and mouse statue just inside the church. 

Stop #4- Kafka

Next we visited the big spinning Kafka head. It was pretty neat, but we didn’t want to wait 30 minutes to see it spin on the hour so we moved on. 

#5- The Dancing House

We next visited the wiggly house aka The Dancing House. The dancing house is a glass building maybe five stories high that is shaped like a twisted tin can. Very interesting architecture, but ultimately it is an office building currently for let. 

Stop #6- Communist Monument

We then crossed over the river to the side with the castle and visited the monument to people lost and harmed by communism. This is the area that I had previously visited in 2009 and almost got abducted from. It started to rain as we reached the communism monument. The sculpture is of male figures increasingly dissolved , lined up a staircase that leads into the mountains. 

#7- Babies

We then visited the creepy Babies statues by Czech artist David Cerny. The babies look as if they are made of metal, crawling on the dirt ground. Each baby is about 6 feet tall and their faces have been replaced by barcodes. 

We walked back towards the Charles Bridge, stopped at a great little lookout point where we could see the river. There was a sculpture with bullets and missiles, we also saw a car on the water ( a paddleboat made up to look like a car).

#8- Lennon Wall

We briefly visited the Lennon wall which is essentially just a wall with street art that has been the site of civil protests.

We then walked back across the Charles Bridge ( where we Facetimed my mom to show her this iconic site) and then we returned to our room via a store where we bought a bottle of Czech wine that required a corkscrew that we did not have. We went back to the store to see if they had a corkscrew we could buy or borrow, but they did not. A friendly Czech man in line offered us his corkscrew which he had on him(as he worked as a bartender down the street). He told us to return his corkscrew to him at the bar…. 

So like a pit-crew we ran to our hotel and up the five flights of stairs, unlocked three doors and opened the bottle of wine with the lent corkscrew. We then retraced our steps and crossed the street, returning the corkscrew in under ten minutes. What were the chances that this guy in line behind us had a corkscrew on his person to lend us in a pinch/ Crazy! Thanks, random Czech dude! (In hind sight I believe that me helping out the French man the day before with his chocolate creme shoes had a hand in swinging the equilibrium of things our way on this occasion). 

We then set out to find dinner at a place nearby. On the way to dinner we saw the figure of Sigmund Freud “Hanging out” on a roof edge. We ate dinner at a place that is likely a chain called ”Svejk”. We both ordered a dark lager. The food was not good. As Jives described the food “like the worst stuff from the frozen aisle of a grocery store”. I think his assessment was kind. 

#8- Astrological Clock (But late at night)

We then walked to the Old Square to see the Astrological Clock do its clock thing at 7pm (worth seeing once, but not much replay value). The skeleton ringing his bell to the right of the clock is the highlight for me. We then sat in the middle of the square on the steps, soaking in the lovely night time lights reflecting on the wet stones of the square.