Karlstein

August 6, 2024

After our late night at Pride last night we slept in. Today we are going to Karlstein. We went back to the train station to catch our train to Karlstein. PB’s friend had recommended this town to go check out the castle. For a 45 minute train ride, it was $6 round trip per person.

Karlstein is a small town outside of Prague that Charles (the IV I think) decided to build a castle in for his vacation house. The castle is built on a hill, of course because why wouldnt it, that meanders through town and gets steep right before the castle entry way.

The castle compound is set up smartly. There are three buildings in the compound each connected with a wooden bridge. This meant that if someone did attack the castle, they could only overtake one building. The guards could/would burn the bridge between the building’s if the castle was attacked to protect the next building.

We had to take a tour (there was no other options) of the castle. Our tour was an hour long that went through two of the three buildings. The third building is the tower and it houses a chapel that Charles would personally use and is covered in gold. It has very restricted tour schedule because the humidity from breathing can ruin the finishes.

The castle was attacked two times during its use. The tower building is the only building that wasnt ever conquered. The location definitely had its advantages.

After our tour we headed back down the hill. We stopped by the good looking gelato place. I got Trolls flavor (raspberry and white chocolate), even got two scoops! The gelato lasted all the way back to the train station. We got there at the perfect time, bought our tickets and walked over to the train and got on to head back to Prague.

We got a grocery store picnic lunch again. We couldnt figure out what to do after because the book tower I wanted to go see is at the public library, which is closed for two weeks for summer vacation! However, it meant that I got PB to agree to go to see the Banksy exhibition at a church. There are only a couple originals (on canvas) in the whole exhibit, but it was cool to see all his artwork.

After the exhibit we went our separate ways. I went to people watch at the astronomical clock. People start crowding around the clock like 15 minutes before the top of the hour. After the clock struck the top of the hour I decided to rent a Lime scooter and go for a little ride. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out which one I had reserved, because there were like 20 in the location I had reserved. I went away from the river to make sure I could get on the right one way street to get across the bridge. It was mighty fun. I went over the bridge north of the Charles bridge with the intention of riding over to the Charles bridge on the west side of town and walking back over.

On my way to the Charles bridge I found the narrowest alley in Prague. It has stop lights to control the “traffic,” however apparently people dont know what that actually means. There is no other way out but to go back up, so we got backed up at the bottom and people were getting so mad!

After the narrowest alley I got back on my scooter to head to Charles bridge – which turns out was all of one block away – oh well. I walked across the bridge to wait for PB. We had decided to climb the bridge tower at sunset so we could get sunset pictures. He met me and we did some people watching and then headed on up. We had to wait on the top for like 45 minutes, but it was just so beautiful.

We headed to dinner at a different pizza place tonight. We ended up with the same meal as the other pizza places – cheese platter and four cheese pizza. However, this time they didnt give us bread for our cheese platter and they brought them both at the same time. While we were sitting there I overheard these two girls discussing their ideas for trip, so PB and I interjected and told them what we recommended. They were appreciative. While we were talking a lady sitting behind me interrupted us to tell us how much she loved our accents.

She was from Newcastle, UK and she and her friends were a hoot!! We had so much fun laughing with them but we were also tired. We said farwell and headed to get our first and only chimney cake. We got a small one with nutella and vanilla ice cream. It was yummy, glad we finally got one as this is our last night in Prague.