Prague 2024: Hradcore

Sunday

Woke up with sore throat. Apart from a crazy work dream where colleagues were calling me all sorts of names I had a good sleep, Lisa too. Rob slept ok and Ange back to her usual 4 hours.

Breakfast at 10am today (finishes at 11 on weekends) was lovely and breakfast man was chill. He seems to be a nice guy actually, very hard working. Just don't mess with his coffee machine, grrrrr. Maybe it's the instrumental piano version of Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx playing in the background that's chilling him the eff down. Rob wants a bigger plate a la Alan Partridge.

Goofballs

The Ange Breakfast Combo

After breakfast we wait for Ange in the lobby corridor. Lisa farts, loudly, just as a couple of guests walk around the corner and walk through her gas.

We decided yesterday to go to a Communism and Nuclear Bunker Tour today. I look at available times and there only one available is this afternoon. I book it and then we head out to catch a tram to Prague Castle in Hrad.

Guidance on the PID app

Tramming it up

The castle grounds are lovely. We don't actually go in any buildings but good around the grounds. We do some silly pictures and a nearby lady on her phone decides to photobomb. She is obviously a lot of fun. By the fountain the girls get us Robs to jump for their photos. It's exhausting.

Photobomb

Might as well jump

Baby nob fountain

We meander through the castle grounds which includes going past the massive cathedral. Instagrammers and general posers are out in force. We are looking at a mosaic of The Christ and Lisa cannot spot the Adam & Eve bit for ages.

Would you Adam & Eve it

Gram poseurs

More poseurs

Even more poseurs

Checking the time, we head off towards a tram stop to get to our rendezvous point for the Communism and Nuclear Bunker Tour. We find a nice route down the hill via loads of stairs. It actually brings us down to a spot near the end of the Charles Bridge so we decide to walk it, but our feet/legs/knees hurt from all the stairs, so a rest in McDs is called for.

Upstairs

Downstairs

Freak art

Yes please

We get to the Communism rendezvous point (in the Fart Tunnel we were in yesterday) early and are advised to urinate in Hard Rock cafe before the 2¼ hour tour. We do this and Lisa really wants to come back and eat there tomorrow.

The guide is a really knowledgeable chap (missed his name) and quirkily funny with it. It's a mini walking tour with a tram ride to the bunker. Lisa tries her best to deal with the history lesson; the guy covers WWII, Stalin, Bolsheviks, revolution, cold war, socialism, capitalism, fascism, Gorbachev, Reagan, Thatcher, etc. The man has lived communism until it ended in Czech in 1989. He's a talker btw. Our group has 3 young English lads, 2 french, and 2 Canadians. No one really annoying, well, apart from us. Just kidding! We behaved.

The bunker is on the outskirts of town and the entrance is where some local kids are playing dodgeball in a heavily graffitied basketball court. The kids seem to know the drill and stop playing while our guide unlocks the heavy thick lead door. Then down a spiral of 84 steps (yep, more steps). Mercifully we get to sit at points and listen to guide. It's cold down there. But really good tour.

After the tour we get the tram back part way back and head towards our dinner treat. We've not eaten a proper meal since breakfast - just that McD ice cream. So we head to a restaurant where your food and drink comes on a little train. When we get in the dozy bint on reception tells me to go the wrong way and we have to ask staff to raise a bridge so we can get to our "station" no. 83.

Ale way

Train food

Train geeks

The burgers and beer are great. Then head back towards hotel via shops (boring) but instead of going straight back we go back to Gabby's Oirish Bar for Pina Coladas which are creamy and good thank you very much. Arsenal are on the telly and stag lads in Hawaiian shirts play darts and sing along to Linkin Park.

Here some weed products we saw in a shop.

That's all for today. Good night.