Belatedly following up with Part 1, my remaining time Prague had a day-trip to Bohemian Switzerland National Park, Bastei Bridge, and a lot of geocaching throughout the city. (Prague geocachers bring their A-game. I went home finding 132 caches in Iceland, 71 in Czechia and 5 in Germany.) To blow through my remaining CZK, I made a trip to a grocery store and bought enough candy and beer that I needed a second suitcase.
Day 3: Day Tour
Summary: Day-tour with Bohemia Adventures to visit Bohemian Switzerland National Park, specifically – Pravčická Archway “the largest sandstone arch in Europe”, and Bastei Bridge in Germany.
There are several tours advertised on TripAdvisor for the confusingly named (to me, because it’s not in Switzerland) Bohemian-Switzerland National Park. It makes for some photogenic thumbnails:
The differences among the tours are size (from 7 up to 30 (!)), distance covered (3-16 miles), pace (walking up to 15-minute miles), side trips, days of the week offered, and the starting point. After thinking about it until my ears emitted billowy smoke, I went with Bohemia Adventures – it was the smallest (7 people) with about 7 miles of hiking during the day, much less aggressive pace. The fee included pickup and drop-off at my hotel, lunch, and use of hiking poles (which were awkward to pack). As a bonus, I could book directly rather than through a middleman.
The essential itinerary:
Hotel pickup of everyone, sprinkled around the city. Even though it was still early morning, I kept thinking how glad I was I didn’t seriously contemplate renting a car here. So. Many. Narrow. Brick. Streets. Matěj Veselský was a last-minute substitution for our tour leader. As far as I can tell, he’s doing this as a side-hustle from university duties (and is not listed on the Bohemia Adventures website), but was as good a guide as I could have hoped: infinitely patient, ensured everyone kept together, and also an interesting lecturer. If I went back, I’d see if he’d be willing to do a hike while teaching.
Bohemian Switzerland National Park. Drive-time was about two hours, including a stop at a convenience store for use of the toilet. I unlocked a Lifetime Achievement: using an automatic machine completely in Czech! The weather was terrible, and I was regretting not poking my head outdoors before pickup, where I would have realized how unbelievable the weather app was.
I was somewhere in the mid-range of appropriately-dressed: rain jacket, but my rain pants were comfortably warm in the apartment. At one extreme, the couple from Gig Harbor were appropriately weather-prepared. On the other extreme, a mom/daughter from Brazil were fashionably dressed for Friday night clubbing (not a hike). The group would pause in the wind and rain while they caught up. A couple of times, this coincided with a geocache, so I could excuse myself, hunt, sign, and they’d be caught up.
As long as we were moving, I was warm enough. But also very wet – water rolled off the rain jacket to the upper thigh area just below. I preemptively moved my passport into the jacket pocket so it wouldn’t be too soaked. Unfortunately, mom/daughter often lagged behind the rest of the group until we stopped to let them catch up. Then at the top, Mom ducked into the gift store to chat up the guy behind the counter. Eventually someone pulled her out so we could leave.
Lunch at Guesthouse Na Vyhlidce. It was nice to warm up.
Second stop was downhill to a dock where we’d take “a romantic boat tour” along the Kamenice River. Being a solo traveler, I would have been fine skipping out on this part. But, hey, here for the adventure. One summons the boat by turning the handle twice. There’s a really long wire connecting it to the other side where the boats are stored. From there, it’s an out-and-back. You can’t really go too far because it’s bounded by a dam on one end, boat dock on the other.
The out and back is pretty enough and, I suppose, romantic.
Once done, we uphill trek back, and boy was it vigorous. The mom and daughter had informed our guide that they had an important appointment in Prague and needed to get back. To his credit, he did look at options for them, but concluded that broaching this so late in the day was a dick move, and he gently told them so. Short of bringing everyone back, there was no train that would get them to Prague by their appointment. (All of us were secretly fist pumping.)
From here, we drove into Germany where, at the border, we were stopped by customs who were being moderately aggressive in their use of authority. One seemed to be trying to provoke our tour guide into giving him an excuse to use excessive force. Passports were taken, scanned, etc. About 25 minutes later, we were free to go.
The gentle touch of German customs was forgiven when we got to Basteibrucke. Weather had improved, and this place was gorgeous.
This was a beautiful way to cap off the day. I’d like to think that, because I was the least maintenance of the attendees, he chose to drop me off first.
Day 4 – All about the Geocache
Today was all about geocaching. I got up really early and headed across the Charles Bridge before it got crowded. For most of the mourning, I visited high-favorite point ones along the more crowded tourist sites. Below are a a few samples: a fake log on the back of a tree in a park; a small container tethered to the side of one of many bridges crossing the Vlatava, and the in-plain-view cache near the National Museum. Two of these had padlocks whose combos were posted in the description, but are otherwise designed to blend in very well.
One of the weirder sites I came across was this “Robotic Bar.” Lots of weird neon directs you to a set of tablet devices where you can have a drink mixed by a robotic arm. It struck me as very silly.
Day 5: Letna Park
For my last day, more geocaching through Letna Park. I took the tram up so I could enjoy the downhill walk caching. After cleaning up back in my hotel room, I headed out to a grocery store to expend my exchange Czech currency for chocolate and Czech beer, as I had eaten through most of my Icelandic stash from all the walking.
Upon my return, I learnt a few important lessons: 1) Czech “spa wafers” (the big disc on the top left of the photo) are good, but their chocolate is not. 2) The Czech beer I selected and painstakingly took through three international airports is, in fact, readily available from my local Total Beer and Wine for about the same price I paid, and does not need to be toted through security and customs.